Talk:Cold fusion/Archive 39

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Theory

At what point would it be appropriate to include theoretical explanations such as Widom-Larsen proton+electron->neutron synthesis, Bose-Einstein condensates (and any others with secondary peer reviewed sources discussing them?) What is the standard for inclusion of proposed explanations of still-controversial observations? Ura Ursa (talk) 20:43, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Excellent question. We need independent evaluation and citation outside of the cold fusion community. Widom-Larsen is just the latest in a long series of theories that have alternatively been favored and fallen out of favor with cold fusioneers. What we need are sources that describe the ideas broadly and summarily without going into the details of primary sources and original research. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:32, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

How do you define the boundaries of the cold fusion community? Just out of curiosity, how familiar are you with this subject? E.g, which theories in the "long series" to which you refer can you cite? I've seen plenty of theory papers, but few which have gained much traction in subsequent theory papers. If by "favored" you mean cited or referred to favorably in subsequent peer reviewed papers, I wonder how many you can name. I think there may be fewer than you seem to think. Ura Ursa (talk) 04:45, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

There's a veritable cascade of these ideas available at any of the major cold fusion sites. I think the questions you ask of me are better answered by you as I don't think them relevant to this issue. Outside notice is not forthcoming of any of these points and so we're stuck evaluating the noise as a signal. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:21, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with your assessment, because I would not use the words long series or veritable cascade to describe less than a handful of theory papers which have obtained favorable traction in subsequent peer reviewed works by other authors. Ura Ursa (talk) 22:43, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

The questions he asked are more properly answered by you, SA, because they represent evidence needed to back up the claims you made. And if you cannot answer them then one has at least to acknowledge that in the other parties' mind you have failed to satisfy burden of proof and thus it would be futile to continue any line of reasoning premised on those claims. (If you can, on the other hand, then go right ahead.) That is the main point of asking questions like that. Kevin Baas^talk 15:56, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I explicitly reject the applicability of the questions about what my opinions are about cold fusion and what my familiarity is with the subject. The specific theories are themselves, in my opinion, irrelevant. Since Ura Ursa seems to agree with my assessment, I'm unclear as to what more is needed here. Maybe I missed something. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:54, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

look at what he actually said. i believe the word "agree" was a typo. meant to be "disagree" or "don't agree". the gist of what he said, as well as the details, are definitely in contradiction to it. As to your "explicitly reject the applicability of the questions...", fine, go right ahead. It doesn't matter in the slightest whether you reject it or not. since, as you say, you're not familiar, then you essentially admit that your supposition was presumptious and that you can't provide the evidence to back it up. so like i said, you have not met the burden of proof requirement in the other person's minds. and lacking some kind of active telepathy, simply rejecting a notion isn't going to change that. Kevin Baas^talk 20:34, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

We'll have to wait for him to clarify. I read his agreement with critique as a common ground attempt. I never said I was "not familiar". I cannot help what is in other people's minds since, as you indicated, telepathy is not part of the discourse. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:41, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I was agreeing with your assessment that it would be worse for you than me to answer questions about the literature, because you are apparently unable to characterize it accurately or make common sense judgements about whether or not peer reviewed statements about x-rays and helium appearing in several literature reviews should be included in the article. Is it safe to assume that you took a strong position on the issue early on, and have shunned those who pay any attention to the topic since? Ura Ursa (talk) 05:37, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I will suggest that the wikiversity cold fusion page ( http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Cold_fusion ) --or, perhaps, a special page there created for this purpose-- could be a good place to post all sorts of stuff about Theory. Then this article only needs a link to that one, and not much else. V (talk) 04:50, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

That's not acceptable for Wikipedia which does not allow original research. ScienceApologist (talk) 13:23, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Widom Larsen theory is getting traction in papers by other authors in fields distant from cold fusion (e.g. [1].) At what point is it appropriate to include? Ura Ursa (talk) 18:21, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Dufor is an active cold fusion researcher. It will be appropriate to include when non-cold fusion researchers start noticing. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:26, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

So he is; my mistake. Is [2] satisfactory? Ura Ursa (talk) 21:18, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

People started using the term "third-rate" to describe something that wasn't even worthy of second-rate research. Well, this guy isn't even third-rate. This shows his general approach to physics is way way way out on a limb. He's also somewhat famous on the interwebs for his past forays into attempting to "verify" Blacklight Power's nonsense claims: with a paper which plagiarizes heavily from an introductory quantum mechanics text. It's fairly clear that he's not only a cold fusion proponent, he's an all around pseudophysics proponent whose academic affiliation with the community college is Cordinator of Evening Programs. Please do better. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:48, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Interesting points; some are certainly valid. Why do you think the editorial board of the journal decided to publish the article? What is the basis for the plagiarism charge? Ura Ursa (talk) 15:35, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

<sarcasm>Obviously plagiarism occurs when you do something like take an equation by Max Planck and describe it in terms similar to those used in an 2010 Undergraduate textbook on Quantum Physics. That would be plagiarism of the 2010 textbook. That Max Planck died in 1947 and deserves credit for the equation, and not the 2010 textbook, does not matter. It's the similarity that counts.</sarcasm> But seriously though, either you invent a new way to describe an equation, or add citations giving you the right to paraphrase the description. The number of ways you can describe a mathematical equation is not impressive, unless you decide to find more obtuse, inefficient, and other garbage ways of explaining the same thing.Kmarinas86 (Expert Sectioneer of Wikipedia) ^{19+9+14 + karma = 19+9+14 + talk = 86} 19:28, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Do Polish Physics Journals get many submissions from outside of Poland? He plaigarized a basic QM textbook. I thumbed through a half dozen of the treatments of the hydrogen atom until I found one he was following line-by-line. jps (talk) 16:33, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Which treatment was being followed line by line? Ura Ursa (talk) 02:47, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

The one I linked to which claimed to explain hydrinos. jps (talk) 18:28, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Ura Ursa has asked you which treatment in which textbook has R. Bourgoin plagiarized. You said you thumbed through various treatments and found one that is exactly from a textbook. Do you think the odds are greater than 50% that Ura Ursa will have that textbook? Also, what is with you people always forgetting to name the textbook that people say was plagiarized?Kmarinas86 (Expert Sectioneer of Wikipedia) ^{19+9+14 + karma = 19+9+14 + talk = 86} 19:28, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

i'm studying up on quantumn physics. and while perusing these discussions, i noticed "Widom-Larsen proton+electron->neutron synthesis, ", and that grabbed my attention as a sort of inverse of beta decay. which doesn't seem too unlikely seeing that beta decay is low probability so that implies it doesn't constitute much of a stability difference so by that logic it should be fairly reversible. and after all coupling constants usually are. however, the weak force decays a neutron into a proton, electron and an anti-neutrino. so shouldn't it be "proton+electron+anti-neutrino -> neutron", and in that case, where does the anti-neutrino come from?

nevermind, i get it. it's electron capture, temporarily making an nn (i.e. atomic element 0 (thus no chemical properties)), and then it reemits the electron changing it back to deutrium. but in that short time the residual strong force can cause it to latch onto a nearby deutrium atom, making it H-4 (quadrium?) until it re-emits the electron. turning it into helium. this is all made possible by the same mechanism that creates the orbital shells of an electron: the heisenberg uncertainty principle. that tells you that for the electron to be that close to the proton it has to have a very poorly defined momentum. and by conservation of momentum the momentum of the products are thus poorly defined, and also given its very unstable isotope in all probability it takes place in an energetically favorable reaction, which turns out to be beta minus decay. the neutrinos and anti-neutrinos are here on opposite ends of the timeline; they're just mirror images of each other. probably actually "virtual" neutrinos or one virtual neutrino/anti-neutrinos seen from two different CPT reference frames. or maybe they're real and they just annihalite each other. anycase i think i get the jist of it now. a little tenuous. interesting idea, though. fusion mediated by the weak-force. Kevin Baas^talk 20:31, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

too bad h-4 decays through neutron emission Hydrogen-4. oh well. 'twas an entertaining thought. Kevin Baas^talk 20:50, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

ARL

Should we include Army Research Lab presentations from June? Ura Ursa (talk) 03:39, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Not sure that a workshop is relevant enough for the article, even if it's hosted by the United States Army Research, Development and Engineering Command. As always, are there secondary sources covering the event? --Enric Naval (talk) 16:41, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I think we can get almost all of the presentations, and/or abstracts of them, but I'm not sure what a secondary source would be for a workshop like that. The opinions of the attendees after the fact? I do know that the ARL workshop had a presentation from K.S. Grabowski, who works with D.L. Knies, D.A. Kidwell, D.D. Dominguez, C.A. Carosella, V.K. Nguyen, A.E. Rogers, and G.K. Hubler at NRL. They tried very hard to disprove the excess heat but have been unable to do so. Ura Ursa (talk) 16:12, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

An ARL presentation is nothing to crow about. The DoD has enough money that they tend to be very generous in their investigations into any claims that have no chance of ever being beneficial. There are still indications that things like the Stargate Project are being funded (c.f. The Men Who Stare at Goats). jps (talk) 17:48, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

The results reported are more important than the fact the workshop was held. The results have been uniformly positive from the empiricists, for the meaning of "uniformly" which contemplates effect magnitude in proportion to the metal lattice's hydrogen isotope loading. Ura Ursa (talk) 08:07, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

"Explain the difference"?

Ura Ursa, I do not understand this edit. Are you claiming that there is more than one type of fusion? What does "explain the difference" mean? Olorinish (talk) 01:13, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

How about this explanation: With plasma fusion (i.e. "hot fusion") you start off with high temperatures, gain net energy through fusion reactions, and, predictably, give off gamma radiation. So the gamma radiation can be thought of as due to these two conditions, with the former presumably necessary to generate the latter. Normal physics would characterize the source of the gamma ray energy due to the net energy gained from the fusion reaction only. However, what if the higher temperatures determine which form of energy the output energy will take? For million-degree temperatures, you could postulate that energy already present in the form of million-degree temperatures, when mixed with non-canonical, immediate fusion products (EM waves with wavelengths longer than gamma rays), is what leads to the canonical fusion byproducts (gamma rays).Kmarinas86 (Expert Sectioneer of Wikipedia) ^{19+9+14 + karma = 19+9+14 + talk = 86} 02:20, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's the idea. The difference between plasmas and solids is like fire and ice. It is good to be able to compare the two, as long as you know which is which. We need to be able to calculate the electron capture cross sections of protons and deuterons in order to figure out the numeric solutions from the underlying particle physics. When the particles in question are constrained by their position within a metal lattice, the effective cross sections are probably larger. Ura Ursa (talk) 08:10, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Ura Ursa, do you know of a good reference that supports the claim that there is more than one type of fusion? Keep in mind that cold fusion has not been accepted by mainstream fusion experts. Olorinish (talk) 13:07, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, in Muon-catalyzed fusion the lower energy makes d-t fusion proportionally more likely than d-d fusion compared to plasma fusion, for one thing. The resulting output product branching ratios for each kind are different in muon catalyzed fusion, too. Ura Ursa (talk) 19:22, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Do you know a good source about that difference? Olorinish (talk) 21:22, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

You can see a graph of the plasma fusion reaction rates at Fusion power#Fuel cycle. Our articles cite [3] but [4] is much more recent. Ura Ursa (talk) 04:07, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't see how those sources support the above edit. The article needs to make the point that solid-state fusion is extremely unlikely considering what is known about all types of conventional fusion, but that point is weakened by that edit. Olorinish (talk) 14:40, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

"The article needs to make the point that solid-state fusion is extremely unlikely considering what is known about all types of conventional fusion" Actually the article should quote sources which make that point. To try to make the article make that point would be a violation of WP:OR.Kmarinas86 (Expert Sectioneer of Wikipedia) ^{19+9+14 + karma = 19+9+14 + talk = 86} 15:12, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Unacceptable revert in the Cold Fusion article

[5].

This is unacceptable. Unless a decent rationale for this edit is made, I will be reverting in the near future.

(snipped material moved to section below)

jps (talk) 20:47, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I was going to complain about Ura Ursa's POV whitewashing, but I see that jps already did it. The usual stuff, like pushing individual studies to give less relevance to reviews of the field, insisting that any non-independiently-replicated positive result is incontrovertible proof even if it contradicts relatively recent reviews of the field, WP:RECENTISM, replacing secondary sources (New Scientist) with primary sources (the 2010 ARL workshop) (oops, New Scientist was still there), etc. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:28, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

"....pushing individual studies to give less relevance to reviews of the field...." Obtaining relevance does not imply a zero-sum game.

"pushing individual studies to give less relevance to reviews of the field, insisting that any non-independiently-replicated positive result is incontrovertible proof even if it contradicts relatively recent reviews of the field" This is the opposite of WP:RECENTISM.

"replacing secondary sources (New Scientist) with primary sources (the 2010 ARL workshop), etc" Now this is WP:RECENTISM. See related New Scientist article at http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16820-neutron-tracks-revive-hopes-for-cold-fusion.html.Kmarinas86 (Expert Sectioneer of Wikipedia) ^{19+9+14 + karma = 19+9+14 + talk = 86} 19:31, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

What are the specific objections? I've been adding secondary peer reviewed sources, not individual primary studies, and I resent the accusation. Are there any positive results that contradict any of the peer reviewed literature reviews in the past five years? I don't know of any; if there are, please cite them. I did not delete any material from New Scientist (which is not a peer reviewed secondary source) and in fact I used the existing New Scientist reference to support addition of the redlink to and explanation of Widom-Larson theory. (snipped material moved to section below) Ura Ursa (talk) 03:44, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

For Widom-Larsen, there are very few paper in google scholar[6], I am not sure that this theory has much relevance in the real world, but it could be restored in the same place, since the New Scientist source does mention Widom & Larsen's theory (without calling it "Widom-Larsen"). (I'm not sure that a Widom-Larsen theory article could survive a AfD).

"In 2009, the US Navy SPAWAR research center reported" is wrong, it was "scientists who work at the US Navy SPAWAR".

"Subsequent proponents continue to insist that x-rays are detected from their cold fusion cells" was replaced with "X-rays have been reported in secondary peer reviewed literature published in China, Europe, and the United States", which is plain POV pushing to hide that it's only CF proponents who keep reporting that.

A {{fact}} tag added after "Their explanations are not accepted by the mainstream community", because the source is from 1989[7] (The sentence is now under Cold_fusion#Novel_physics). This is technically correct, the sentence is in the wrong tense and it needs a different source for later lack of acceptation, but I know that Nrcprm2026 holds the POV that cold fusion is now accepted by the scientific community (he has said it himself a few times here, me thinks). Also implies that the faulty explanations are no longer an obstacle for acceptance, which is incorrect (by the way, I see that the faulty explanations were discussed before, including Widom-Larsen). I tried to fix it with a more recent source. There are more sources that could be added there, sources saying that scientists don't want cold fusion because there is not a theory done before experiments and lack of predictions before experiments.

@Nrcprm2026, you are right, the New Scientist source is still there, at the end of the paragraph.

@Kmarinas, this is not what I meant, but I don't want to enter lengthy arguments that don't help improve the article. I don't want to enter the dynamic of picking apart each other's comments to exhaustively discover the meaning of every word. If you want to discuss specific objections, then let's look at how to "solve" the objections by editing the article. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:36, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

"to discuss specific objections...let's look at how to "solve" the objections" Actually, to "solve" the objections, we must first discuss them.Kmarinas86 (Expert Sectioneer of Wikipedia) ^{19+9+14 + karma = 19+9+14 + talk = 86} 21:11, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest that the single example of POV pushing given above, a plain description of what the secondary sources say, is extremely mild--if it is even POV pushing at all--in comparison to this sentence recently added to the article: "All these attempts at theoretical explanation have either been explicitly rejected by mainstream physicists or completely lack independent review," which is cited to a source [8] that doesn't say anything even remotely similar. Moreover the strings "explicit", "reject", "mainstream", "independent", and "review" do not even appear in the cited source. Ura Ursa (talk) 12:32, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Does Ura Ursa have sock puppets?

(snipped material moved to section above)

I've also received information that Ura Ursa is banned User:Nrcprm2026.

I ask that User:Ura Ursa confirm or deny this allegation.

jps (talk) 20:47, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

"I've also received information that Ura Ursa is banned User:Nrcprm2026." Show us.Kmarinas86 (Expert Sectioneer of Wikipedia) ^{19+9+14 + karma = 19+9+14 + talk = 86} 18:55, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

(snipped material moved to section above) and I resent the accusation. (snipped material moved to section above) I have asked that my privacy concerning my edits on this topic be respected, and I don't intend to confirm or deny anything about my identity. Ura Ursa (talk) 03:44, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Are you related to User:Nrcprm2026, yes or not? --Enric Naval (talk) 09:35, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, wait you created a new account because it's a hot topic? , but you already pulled this crap in other socks, didn't you? --Enric Naval (talk) 09:49, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Nrcprm2026. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:38, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

"What are the specific objections?" According to wikipedia policy [9], the use of deceptive acounts is a serious breach of trust and is forbidden. Please answer Enric Naval's question before making any more edits to article pages or discussion pages. Olorinish (talk) 15:28, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

And, reviewing past edits, I see that Nrcprm2026 had been POV pushing for days, making subtle changes one at a time. Sort of reminds me of Pcarbonn. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:09, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

archive edits

I've reverted [10] as did an anon. That removal took out recent comments that were on topic. Please discuss the scope of any archiving before repeating. --mikeu ^talk 23:35, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Kww, that was a very selective choice of material to archive. Could you explain your reasoning for the removal of the edits by jps? The use of "archive" in the edit summary suggests that the edit is simply removing finished discussions, but that is clearly not the case. --mikeu ^talk 23:41, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I archived sections that were primarily instigated by banned editors. My actions were taken because JPS was seeking help with dealing with banned users. The sections that were completely removed were sections that had no edits by any valid editor. Sections that were archived contained a mixed of edits by banned editors and valid editors. I've further blocked another IP as apparently being yet another in a line of socks by Nrcprm2026, and will archive discussions started by that user as well. When a discussion consists of an editor defending his positions against editors that weren't permitted to attack his position in the first place, not much is served by keeping the section in the discussion page.—Kww(talk) 23:51, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

See User talk:Joshua P. Schroeder#Cold fusion talk.—Kww(talk) 00:04, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I stroke the edits made by Moulton, but Alison reverted me because it was "petty" :-/ [11] --Enric Naval (talk) 01:02, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

No reason to draw so much attention to them. If no one has responded yet, delete them. If they have, archive them.—Kww(talk) 01:40, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

journal of nuclear fusion Journal of Nuclear Physics: focardi and rossi to present hydrogen-nickel fusion at low temperatures

• [12]

eh, i though someone on here had already proven this impossible because there might be calibration errors or something. Kevin Baas^talk 19:33, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

That looks a lot like hydrinos to me. jps (talk) 21:17, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

How so? in any case they're giving a presentation so we will have a lot of scientific opinions soon enough. Kevin Baas^talk 21:22, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

They're arguing that they can get states that are lower in energy and smaller than a Bohr atom. Of course, they're using classical physics and nickel catalysts to do this, so their claims are slightly different, even while being esentially just as wild and outlandish as Mills' approach. The game has been the same for these "theorists" for 30 years now: they try to get the electron to act as a better effective shield for the proton and thereby permit lower activation energy for fusion (it's all highly reminiscent of muon-catalyzed fusion that Steven Jones worked on). There is basically nothing fundamentally new in this approach as far as cold fusion theories go. jps (talk) 21:43, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

ah. thanks. didn't read much of it. gotcha now. Kevin Baas^talk 22:02, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Further, the journal-of-nuclear-physics.com site does not give any evidence of being a credible publisher, just a blog. The editorial board, if any, is unidentified. It should not be confused with Chin J Nucl Phys, Sov J Nucl Phys, Adv Nucl Phys, J Phys G:Nucl Phys, J Nucl Rad Phys, or other similar titles. LeadSongDog come howl! 22:28, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I was going to comment on the publisher, but LeadSong already did it. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:54, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

yeah, i'm a little embarrased. should have looked more thoroughly at the site before posting. 'twas mentioned in a forum and i thought it relevant. on the point of hydrino theory though, it doesn't look like a hydrino theory, it looks like a provincial electron capture, both of which are quite conventional and i see no reason why the two can't coexist. but given the situation in which it was formed the free neutron formed is highly unstable and doesn't have long to fuse w/the nickel before it collapses back down to a proton-electron pair. though conventionally the original capture would also include a neutrino and the decay would include its anti-neutrino (or the other way around)? unfortunately those things are notoriously difficult to detect. the author states he hasn't done the math and he's just stating a prescription for what math would have to be done to see if it works out that way. all in all he's not proposing any new physics, really, except for the nickel isotope undergoing beta decay right away. and that's no small exception. and i'm skeptical whether the math would turn out that way. Kevin Baas^talk 15:35, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

what if the free neutron underwent beta decay before fusing w/the nickel but while within range of fusing? still it seems like you'd get way more nickel isotopes. Kevin Baas^talk 15:50, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

my point is that you make it sound like they're suggesting an energy level of a hydrogen atom below its rest state. (which would violate the heisenberg uncertainty principle.) when in fact they're not suggesting that at all. they're suggesting weak force interactions might play a role, statistically. which is fundamentally different and not nearly so outlandish.

though on the point of there being nothing new in the approach, i agree, as they're certainly not the first ones to propose this. a fact which, judging from the references in their papers, they're fully aware. Kevin Baas^talk 16:22, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

i think what they're suggesting is something like this:

(a neutron in the nickel nucleus)
d *--->---*----------->---* u
            \ W
              *------->---* e
              | v
e *--->-------*
                \ W
u *--->-----------*--->---* d
(the hydrogen proton)

(kind of a cross between Double_beta_decay and double electron capture) which amounts to something like the exchange of a virtual neutrino. followed by the copper isotope capturing the free neutron. i have no idea how realistic this is or what the probability would be like. Kevin Baas^talk 19:08, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

The probability is reduced multiplicatively by the number of vertices. This is why three-body interactions are so rare. jps (talk) 22:33, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

yeah, but rare is much better than impossible. Kevin Baas^talk 18:47, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

It looks like this is already suspected, but here's a source to confirm that Journal of Nuclear Physics for this paper is self-publication using an official sounding name: "They published their paper in the Journal of Nuclear Physics, an online journal founded and run by themselves, which is obviously cause for a great deal of skepticism."[13] Their paper does include an estimate of the probability of ¹H tunnelling into a ⁵⁸Ni nucleus during a collision: at a temperature of 1000K, they estimate a probability of 4.7 x 10^-1059. --Noren (talk) 21:42, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR) Not Fusion

It may be that LENR will have to be separated from cold fusion. As in, what is happening is NOT fusion but rather neutron capture. If that is the case, then there will be two separate articles. There are already multiple scientists arguing that this is the case (that LENR is not fusion). SunSw0rd (talk) 22:52, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

There was at one point a page on this alternative view, under the broader title LENR, or CMNS actually, and LENR redirected there [14]. but it got demolished for some reason. Kevin Baas^talk 14:44, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

There is a presentation here that illustrates why LENR is not cold fusion. SunSw0rd (talk) 20:19, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

ya, but those are facts. they mean nothing to the people who are just going to blank the page again and again until you just decide its not worth it. Kevin Baas^talk 21:58, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Please, let's not pretend that there is an evil cabal of editors who want to manipulate the article (oh, well, now WP:CABAL redirects to a lame essay, what the heck). Reliable sources say that "LERN" is just a renaming of "cold fusion" for PR reasons, see Public_relations#Managing_language. --Enric Naval (talk) 09:25, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Enric. More, I note that the description "low energy nuclear reaction" allows anyone who uses it to talk about more things than traditional Cold Fusion of deuterium inside palladium. For example, neutron absorption tends also to be a low energy nuclear reaction (although explaining the presence of that loose neutron, before it got absorbed, typically involves rather significant energy --the source could be something outside the experiment, like a cosmic ray :). And of course if traditional Cold Fusion is real, then it most certainly would be a "low energy nuclear reaction". V (talk) 06:41, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Let's not forget it also includes transmutation. I much prefer CMNS, it's more precise; it's simultaneously more broad and specific. There could be interesting high-energy reactions in condensed matter, but in any case we're talking about a different phase of matter, particularly liquid or solid as opposed to gas or plasma. This is qualitatively different from plasma physics, particularly in there being significant non-compressibility and non-localizable wave functions (e.g. phonons, and bloch waves). Which certainly makes for an interesting and non-trivial regime where one would expect to find entirely different phenomena. (e.g. crystals, semiconductors, etc.) It'd be a shame not to comprehensively study it, IMO. Kevin Baas^talk 15:48, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Which is why i think it's a shame that this ad hominem argument against CMNS as a legitimate field of research is tacitly condoned. Kevin Baas^talk 16:38, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Conferences and Helium, heavy elements, and neutrons sections out of date.

The observations contained in this of this paper -Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. 51, 20901 (2010)-, published in August of 2010, eliminates the need for the inclusion of "the authors have to make a quantitative analysis and they have to exclude other possible sources for those neutrons" and "but the claims can not be validated without a quantitative analysis of neutrons" in those two sections respectively. The paper presents a quantitative analysis of the observed neutrons.Crawdaddy74 (talk) 02:26, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

sources no longer used

They are not used anymore in the text:

Primary sources:

• Mosier-Boss, Pamela A.; Szpak, Stanislaw; Gordon, Frank E. (2007), "Production of High Energy Particles Using the Pd/D Co-Deposition Process", Proceedings of the 2007 APS March Meeting, March 5–9, 2007 in Denver, College Park, Maryland: American Physical Society, retrieved 2008-05-25

• Mosier-Boss, Pamela A.; Szpak, Stanislaw; Gordon, Frank E.; Forsley, L.P.G. (2007), "Use of CR-39 in Pd/D co-deposition experiments", European Physical Journal Applied Physics, 40: 293–303, doi:10.1051/epjap:2007152

• Szpak, Stanislaw; Mosier-Boss, Pamela A.; Young, Charles; Gordon, Frank E. (2005), "Evidence of nuclear reactions in the Pd lattice", Naturwissenschaften, 92 (8): 394–397, doi:10.1007/s00114-005-0008-7, PMID 16052356

• Will, F.G. (1997), "Hydrogen + oxygen recombination and related heat generation in undivided electrolysis cells", Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, 426 (1): 177–184, doi:10.1016/S0022-0728(96)04972-8

• Clarke, W. Brian; Bos, Stanley J.; Oliver, Brian M. (2003), "Production of ⁴He in D₂-loaded palladium-carbon catalyst II", Fusion Science and Technology, 43 (2), American Nuclear Society: 250–255, ISSN 1536-1055, OCLC 47144540, retrieved 2008-08-31

• Good II, W.R. (1996), "Comments on 'Calorimetry, excess heat, and Faraday efficiency in Ni-H₂O electrolytic cells'", Fusion Technology, 30 (1): 132–133, ISSN 0748-1896

Secondary source (sort of, it's written by one of the people who participated in the meeting):

• Srinivasan, M. (2008), "Meeting report: Energy concepts for the 21st century" (PDF), Current Science, 94 (7): 842–843, ISSN 0011-3891, OCLC 1565678, retrieved 10 April 2008

--Enric Naval (talk) 13:49, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Enric, I do think I (and others) should object to any suggestion that such references be removed, JUST because the article isn't actually using them at this time. Firstly, the article will continue to be edited, so you never know when some editor will decide to re-use an old reference. Secondly, a casual reader of the page would benefit from having more, not less, references available. Thirdly, what if the removal of those references from the article was part of a Grand Cabal Plot? If true, then one day the cabal will be exposed and so, see "Firstly" above. It is simpler to just leave the references in the article than to dig through the archives to find them later, should it become appropriate to re-use them in the article. V (talk) 18:31, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

As far as the Mosier-Boss work is concerned, the 2009 reference in the article contains references to their group's previous work and therefore is easily available to any interested person. The groups latest paper -Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. 51, 20901 (2010)- should be included in the article as it quantifies the particle energies they observe. In my opinion it could replace the 2009 reference currently in the article.Crawdaddy74 (talk) 19:39, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

All but one are primary papers, I couldn't find any use for them in the article, and they don't seem to be critical to understanding the topic (papers that happen to be important for some specific reason, and that reason being sourced to a secondary source). I posted them in the talk page so people could review them and salvage them as sources if they found anything good. And this way they can be found by anyone brave enough to trawl the 39 pages of archives for sources. If you want them back into the article, then, you should use them as sources for valuable additions to the article. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:34, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Two more:

• Kainthla, R.C.; Velev, O.; Kaba, L.; Lin, G.H.; Packham, N.J.C.; Szklarczyk, M.; Wass, J.; Bockris, J.O.M. (1989), "Sporadic observation of the Fleischmann–Pons heat effect", Electrochimica Acta, 34 (9): 1315–1318, doi:10.1016/0013-4686(89)85026-1 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

• Packham, Richard A.; Wolf, K.L.; Wass, J.C.; Kainthla, R.C.; Bockris, J.O.M. (1989), "Production of tritium from D₂O electrolysis at a palladium cathode", Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, 270: 451, doi:10.1016/0022-0728(89)85059-4

And two more:

• Mizuno, Tadahiko (1996), "Analysis of Elements for Solid State Electrolyte in Deuterium Atmosphere during Applied Field" (PDF), J. New Energy, 1 (2): 37
• Mizuno, Tadahiko; Rothwell, Jed (translator) (1998), Nuclear Transmutation: The Reality of Cold Fusion (PDF), Concord, New Hampshire: Infinite Energy Press, ISBN 1-892925-00-1 {{citation}}: |first2= has generic name (help)

There was already a secondary source for Mizuno's claims of finding heavy elements. --Enric Naval (talk) 02:05, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Another one:

• Leggett, A.J.; Baym, G. (1989), "Exact upper bound on barrier penetration probabilities in many-body systems: Application to cold fusion", Phys Rev Lett, 63 (2): 191–194, doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.63.191, PMID 10040803

--Enric Naval (talk) 02:20, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Broken sources

"Though lacking gamma-ray detection, Fleishmann and Pons reported x-ray signals[98][99]", #99 cites "Szpak 1996" but I can't find any such paper in google. Maybe the year is wrong? --Enric Naval (talk) 16:34, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

There is no "most vs small group"

"By late 1989, most scientists considered cold fusion claims dead,[7] and cold fusion subsequently gained a reputation as pathological science.[8] However, a small community of researchers continues to investigate cold fusion"

This "subsequently" attempts to extend the claimed consensus beyond 1989. NYT is not a research institute, I don't think we can use claims attributed to "most scientists" as a statement of fact. It should be in "NYT's says" format. The "small community" sounds so ridiculous the "Grand Cabal Plot" becomes entirely much to obvious. If we allow things like this on high profile science articles like cold fusion we risk exposing how Wikipedia really works.</sarcasm> 84.107.147.147 (talk) 04:49, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

There are other sources saying that a) most scientists consider the claims dead or b) that only a small group of researchers continued working on CF. Do you want me to add them? --Enric Naval (talk) 10:19, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Note the undecipherable "</sarcasm>" at the end. I'm not sure what this guy's point is.siNkarma86—Expert Sectioneer of Wikipedia
^{86 = 19+9+14 + karma = 19+9+14 + talk} 13:07, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

It was not intended as wp:bait if that is what you mean. You are however already profiling me, discussing content on my talk page and are reviewing and reverting my other contributions in response to my posting above.

• siNkarma86: comments on users go on the user talk page and are not written in the 3rd person. (The form of a verb used when the subject of a sentence is not the audience or the one making the statement.)
• Enric Naval: comments on content go on the article talk page.

You are both highly experienced editors so you can imagine it is hard for me to assume you are not doing this on purpose. Now you have me wondering if you expected me to reply to the hidden part of your message.

If so: yes, those few sentences look to me like the worse part of an otherwise very good article. I mention this because it can be hard to see what the first impression is when you worked as long on an article as this one.

If I have some how offended you I sincerely apologize. If I see room for improvement I try describe it as best as I can, maybe this wasn't a very good example of that. Now that I see you have no sense of humor I also very much regret making the "Grand Cabal Plot" joke.

It really wasn't very nice to respond to the above by opposing my contributions on unrelated articles Enric Naval. Here you are just reverting me for the fun of it. There is no other way to interpret it.

I'm going to revert it and I'm going to continue working on that article. I hope you do the same on cold fusion. Good luck! 84.107.147.147 (talk) 18:24, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I moved my reply to Talk:Debunker#.22derides.22. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:52, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

The first reference below is described by the authors: "We analyze the advent and development of eight scientific fields from their inception to maturity and map the evolution of their networks of collaboration over time, measured in terms of co-authorship of scientific papers."

It contains the quote: "Finally, nuclear cold fusion is a field that never found a solid experimental or conceptual proof of principle, and as such has never become a field of collaboration and exchange. It shows α = 1, manifesting the fact that it is mostly the product of small, disparate, and often incommensurate efforts."

• Bettencourt, Luís M.A. (2009). "Scientific discovery and topological transitions in collaboration networks". Journal of Informetrics. 3 (3): 210–221. doi:10.1016/j.joi.2009.03.001. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |laydate=, |separator=, |trans_title=, |laysummary=, and |laysource= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

The next reference is an analysis of the rapid growth and decline in the number of publishing researchers and the number of publications.

• Ackermann, Eric (2006). "Indicators of failed information epidemics in the scientific journal literature: A publication analysis of Polywater and Cold Nuclear Fusion". Scientometrics. 66 (3): 451–466. doi:10.1007/s11192-006-0033-0. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |laydate=, |laysource=, |quotes=, |laysummary=, and |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

The decline in cold fusion research has itself been a subject of scholarly study in the literature. --mikeu ^talk 21:20, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Ah, but how old is that? Have any such scholars noted the recent increase in CF research (since, say, five or six years ago), as evidenced by, if nothing else, researcher attendance at annual CF conferences? V (talk) 06:25, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

The first paper is from 2009, but it only lists data until 2005. However, The publication rates have not changed much since 2005. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:53, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, that could partly be due to the limited number of outlets for publication, and the preference of many journals to publish stuff other than CF articles. Nevertheless, if "not changed much" is not a decrease, then certainly nobody can continue to claim that the publishing trend is downward --and the article should reflect that modern fact. V (talk) 16:10, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, you should find sources for that fact. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:57, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Here is a quote from a more recent source: "Another phenomenon to describe is persistence of a scientific theory, despite overwhelming pressure against it. A good example is provided by the development of cold fusion (or, as the proponents would call it, low energy nuclear reactions). Even though the majority of physicists treat cold fusion as pseudoscience, there is a minority than continues to push their research, even against such formidable obstacles as lack of government funding." (Sobkowicz, Pawel (January 12, 2011). "Simulations of opinion changes in scientific communities". Scientometrics. doi:10.1007/s11192-011-0339-4. ISSN 1588-2861. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |laydate=, |coauthors=, |separator=, |trans_title=, |laysummary=, |laysource=, and |month= (help)) --mikeu ^talk 13:39, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

"Overwhelming pressure" means little if it lacks supporting facts, and honest scientists are more interested in facts than peer pressure. That chancellor in Missouri, Robert Duncan, said words to the effect he originally thought the matter had been settled in the early 1990s, while he pursued other interests, but he became a proponent of the CF experimenters after studying a lot of facts for that "60 Minutes" show. The main fact here is that CF experiments have produced anomalous heat often enough --and with respect to pressurized gas experiments, reliably enough-- that the source of that heat needs an explanation. Those who don't like "cold fusion" as the explanation should be offering a better explanation, not denying the data about anomalous heat (especially if they haven't performed the experiments!). V (talk) 16:10, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

• Rob Duncan gave a talk at the Missouri Energy Summit about a year after the CBS News 60 Minutes episode. Duncan's talk can be viewed on the Internet, along with his PowerPoint slides. He is not a "proponent" of CF, but intrigued by the unsolved mystery of the otherwise unexplained heat. He wants mainstream science to solve the mystery of the unexplained heat. His colleague, Richard Garwin, who also appeared on 60 Minutes, offered the opinion that McKubre at SRI was not measuring input power correctly (see the next section, below for more details). Duncan also refers to a mostly forgotten device called a Wehnelt Electrolytic Interrupter. That curious device bears an intriguing resemblance to the electrolytic cells used in Cold Fusion. In the next section, we'll take a look at that device and connect it to an even better known device that relies on the same physics. —Montana Mouse 19:52, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Please pay closer attention. I wrote: "he became a proponent of the CF experimenters". I didn't say he favored CF as the explanation for the experiments. But he certainly thinks the experiments deserved to be performed, and therefore the experimenters don't deserve so much bad press. V (talk) 20:43, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

• Duncan considered the possibility of muon-catalyzed fusion. But if I am not mistaken, he concludes (as others had) that such an hypothesis is not supported by the observational evidence (mainly the lack of neutrons). When I last communicated with Duncan, he was still scratching his head, looking for a valid explanation of the otherwise unexplained heat. At the time, I don't think he had in hand a mathematical model of the AC Burst Noise. Most likely he's now waiting for Dieter Britz or someone else in his circle at the University of Missouri to independently construct an AC Noise Model. He and I agree that scientists should come up with a demonstrated model to explain the "excess heat." Kirk Shanahan independently had proposed entrained mist in open cells being counted as if it had been evaporated as the source of the anomalous heat. The published energy budget model of Miles and Fleischmann assumes all the lost moisture was evaporated, and none carried off as unevaporated mist. A few other researchers also noted that deficiency in the energy budget model. To the best of my knowledge (per conversations with Dieter Britz), no one bothered to consider AC Burst Noise in cells driven by constant current power supplies. I'm still waiting for others to review that and come up with their independent analysis. —Montana Mouse 22:02, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

AC Burst Noise and Entrained Mist

Long discussion about the science behind the CF cells. No changes for article.

From the comments to the Google Knol article on Cold Fusion: More comments from Knol Entrained Mist and AC Burst Noise I recently took the time to view the CBS News 60 Minutes story on Cold Fusion and Robert Duncan's subsequent talk at the Missouri Energy Summit. My background is in Electrical Engineering, so when Richard Garwin suggested that Michael McKubre might be measuring his input electrical power incorrectly, I took the time to review McKubre's papers, published by EPRI. I was arrested by McKubre's explanation of why he reckoned only the average DC power going into his cell, and assumed there was no AC noise power arising from the fluctuations in the ohmic resistance of the cell as bubbles of evolving gas are formed and released on the surface of the electrodes. McKubre writes: "Under current control, the cell voltage frequently was observed to fluctuate significantly, particularly at high current densities where the presence of large deuterium (or hydrogen) and oxygen bubbles disrupted the electrolyte continuity. By providing the cell current from a source that is sensibly immune to noise and level fluctuations, the current operates on the cell voltage (or resistance) as a scalar. Hence, as long as the voltage noise or resistance fluctuations are random, no unmeasured RMS heating can result under constant current control, provided that the average voltage is measured accurately." McKubre assumes no AC noise power can arise, and so he only computes the average DC power going into the cell, by multiplying the average voltage by the constant current. He writes: "Voltages were measured using a Keithley 195A 5-1/2 digit digital multimeter with 0.01% DC volt accuracy and 0.015% resistance accuracy. Resolution was 1 ppm (Ω) and 10 ppm (DCV). Each 5-1/2 digit measurement was averaged 32 times before being recorded." I looked at the scope traces that were shown briefly on the CBS News 60 Minutes segment, as well as some other charts in McKubre's EPRI papers. What I found (using sophomore level AC circuit analysis) was that the AC burst noise goes as the square of the fluctuations. If the ohmic resistance is fluctuating R±r, then PAC ≈ α²PDC, where α = r/R. I don't understand how the AC burst noise power could have been overlooked, ignored, or left out of the energy budget model. AC burst noise would fully account for the excess power in McKubre's cells if the resistance were fluctuating ±22% for D2O cells and ±10% for H2O cells. With regard to my own current area of research, what's interesting to me about the cold fusion story is the comparison of the beliefs and practices of the two camps (believers vs. skeptics) and their associated affective emotional states. My first finding was that the believers were departing from the protocols of the scientific method by blithely discarding the Null Hypothesis up front, without bothering to falsify it in the manner required by the protocols of the scientific method. My second finding was that the believers were manifesting the opposite emotional state from the doubting skeptics. The believers expressed "no doubt" that CF was real D-D nuclear fusion and not explained by any mundane processes or experimental error. My third finding is that when I asked about such mundane processes as moisture being carried off as mist (rather than as water vapor), or AC noise power arising from resistance fluctuations when the electrolyte was bubbling, I was unable to find a good scientific discussion of that in the CF literature, and most of my correspondents fell curiously silent on those two questions. In the interest of rigor in the application of the protocols of the scientific method, could I call upon those attending to this topic to help focus attention on the proper review of these apparently overlooked issues? Abd, you may be interested to know that it was Robert Duncan who prompted me to look up the literature on the Wehnelt Electrolytic Interrupter. If you load Duncan's PowerPoint slides from his talk, you will see he has one slide that refers to the Wehnelt Electrolytic Interrupter. I didn't get a chance to ask Professor Duncan how he came to be familiar with that long-forgotten device from a century ago, but I believe it must have been Richard Garwin who told him about it. As you know, Richard Garwin worked on the Hydrogen Bomb, after President Truman's Science Advisory Board recommended a national program to develop nuclear energy. One of the members of Truman's Science Advisory Board was Karl Taylor Compton, who had previously served as President of MIT and President of the American Physical Society. It was Compton who, in 1910, had published the definitive study of the theory of operation of the Wehnelt Electrolytic Interrupter. Garwin almost surely knew of Compton and his illustrious career that began a century ago with his research on the electrical characteristics of Wehnelt's remarkable device. Wehnelt's Electrolytic Interrupter relies on the dramatic effect that arises when an electrode is entirely sheathed in a thin layer of gas, so that the flow of direct current is totally interrupted. We can call that a "total eclipse" of the electrode. When there are bubbles continuously forming and sloughing off, we have not a "total eclipse" but a spotty "partial eclipse" that sometimes even sparkles with visible corona discharges when the drive current is high enough. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson, following up on an idea from Elisha Gray, demonstrated how a "partial eclipse" of the electrode could produce an intelligible voice signal. The bubbling in an electrolytic cell produces not a modulated voice signal, but a noise signal that sounds like hissing, popping, crackling, or frying. In either event, these audio frequency signals carry measurable energy that audio engineers measure in decibels or volume units, which are conventionally normalized to 1 mW in telephony. The mathematical models for reckoning the characteristics of these signals date back to the early days of telegraphy and telephony. Indeed the modern unit of electrical power in these signals — the decibel (one-tenth of a bel) — is named after Alexander Graham Bell. Early in 1876, Elisha Gray came up with an idea of how to devise a variable resistance microphone that could be used to make a harmonic telegraph that could send undulating waves rather than conventional on-off clicks used in Morse Code. On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson successfully tested Elisha Gray's device, and the telephone was born. Bell managed to send a voice-modulated signal over a telegraph line by means of a metal needle dipped into a cup of weakly acidic water. The needle was attached to a diaphragm, which vibrated with the sound of Bell's voice. As the needle bounced up and down, it varied the amount of surface area in contact with the conducting water. This demonstration proved that an audio frequency signal could be transmitted over a telegraph wire by means of a variable resistance. The water microphone was not commercially practical, and was soon replaced by Thomas Edison's much more convenient carbon button microphone, which is still in use to this day. There is another way to generate an audio frequency signal in a manner similar to the one conceived by Elisha Gray and demonstrated 135 years ago by Bell and Watson. The other way is to leave the electrode submersed in a conducting electrolyte and vary the amount of surface area exposed to the liquid by letting bubbles form and slough off the surface. The easiest way to do this is to use a Faradaic current that dissociates water into Hydrogen and Oxygen. As the gas bubbles form on the surface of the electrodes the varying resistance will operate much like the water transmitter of Gray, Bell, and Watson. Instead of transmitting undulating waves carrying a voice signal, it will just be a noise signal that will sound like crackling, popping, or frying bacon. This is what occurs in Cold Fusion cells, when they are bubbling furiously from high levels of Faradaic current. For extra credit (and a shot at the Nobel Prize), can you work out a technical model for the amount of signal power in variable resistance microphones of either design? Comments? —Montana Mouse 00:43, 15 February 2011 (UTC) Sure, I'll comment. None of this matters when the power is turned off and anomalous heat continues to appear for quite a few hours afterward. And, especially, none of it applies to the other main category of CF experiment, that has not been given much attention in the article here, when electricity is not integral to the experiment, and gaseous deuterium is directly pressurized into palladium (or sometimes other) metal, and anomalous heat appears. V (talk) 06:25, 15 February 2011 (UTC) Jed Rothwell raised the so-called "heat after death" as his refutation. But the same commenter responded to Jed: Do you understand that the effect of the bubbles is to introduce perturbations in the ohmic resistance, which introduces AC noise power, which must therefore be included in the energy budget for reckoning the total electrical power going into the cell? Do you understand that an over-charged battery will self-discharge internally, after you stop charging it, and that as it discharges, the stored charge will be converted to heat? In particular, do you understand that, as the Deuterium atoms slowly bleed out of the cathode, they will combine to form D2 gas? In other words, after turning off the juice, the Deuterium atoms that had been forced into the Palladium lattice will slowly bleed out and recombine to D2 gas, releasing heat. —Montana Mouse 13:52, 15 February 2011 (UTC) That can't possibly be completely right. Consider the known fact that when palladium absorbs hydrogen (protium or deuterium makes no difference here), the absorption process is EXOthermic. That means the release process is necessarily ENDOthermic (absorbs heat). Note especially that while an electrolysis CF experiment normally must run for many hours, there is no extra external pressure supplied, in those experiments, to force more deuterium to be absorbed by the metal than it can naturally accommodate exothermically. In other words, there must be a limit to how much hydrogen at normal atmospheric pressure can be absorbed by a piece of palladium. When it is full (however-long it takes), then any process to force more into it will require adding energy, and that energy most certainly would be released when the extra force (pressure) is removed. But since normal electrolysis CF experiments only operate at normal pressure, this sort of energy is simply not part of the experiment, to become released. However, I can accept an alternate explanation involving the fact that palladium is a great chemical-reaction catalyst, and deuterium at the surface of the metal meeting oxygen in the air can be expected to catalytically react, thereby producing heat. But this can be tested by putting the chunk of deuterium-saturated palladium, right after the electricity is turned off, into a container of argon gas, and then performing the heat measurements. V (talk) 15:48, 15 February 2011 (UTC) In order to drive atomic Deuterium (or atomic Hydrogen) into the Palladium lattice, you have to dissociate the Deuterium from D2O (in the case of an electrolytic cell) or from gaseous D2 (in the case of gas loading). The models for both those processes are classic. In the first case, it's a Faradaic current; in the second case it's pneumatic energy per Sievert's Law. When you turn off the Faradaic current (or relieve the gas pressure in a gas loading cell), the atomic Deuterium bleeds out of the lattice and forms D2 gas at the surface of the Palladium returning the electric (or pneumatic) energy as the heat of formation of molecular D2 gas. A Palladium lattice can hold interstitial atomic Hydrogen or Deuterium at a ratio of 1:1. This is all classic physics. Either way, you are charging up a battery. In this case, it self-discharges and the stored energy slowly comes back as heat. —Montana Mouse 17:57, 15 February 2011 (UTC) Not necessarily true. Remember that hydrogen even in the absence of electrical assistance can permeate solid palladium almost like a sponge++, while helium, a smaller atom than even a hydrogen atom, much less a hydrogen molecule, hardly permeates palladium at all. Do you know why that is so? I'm aware that one possible explanation starts by noting that hydrogen and palladium have practically identical "electronegativity", so that when a hydrogen molecule encounters palladium, it is catalyzed to simply break apart into 4 separate particles (two electrons and two nuclei), and "alloys" itself to the metal. The electrons join the "conduction band" of the metal, and the bare nuclei obviously can permeate the solid metal with ease. Any energy needed to assist that catalysis comes from the very considerable kinetic energy of the gas molecule at room temperature. Remember that the pressurized-gas CF experiments also don't need electricity to atomize hydrogen, to get anomalous heat, so if CF can actually happen in those experiments, it means molecules of hydrogen can indeed break apart inside the metal, without assistance. ++Take two containers of equal volume and fill one solid with palladium metal. Then pump hydrogen into both containers. You can put MORE hydrogen into the solid palladium, at the same pressure, than you can put into the empty container! V (talk) 20:57, 15 February 2011 (UTC) Yes. That's Sievert's Law. The Palladium lattice allows the molecular H2 gas to dissociate into atomic Hydrogen, and the ionize. The protons, without their orbiting electrons, can now fit into the interstices of the Palladium lattice. The electrons act like any electrons in a conducting metal — they just wander about aimlessly if there is no electric field, or they create an electric current if there is a drive voltage present. —Montana Mouse 13:40, 16 February 2011 (UTC) Hydrogen ionizes in the metal lattice. Helium, being a noble gas, doesn't ionize. That's why there is no room for either Helium or molecular H2 in the interstices of the lattice. Before atomic Hydrogen can enter the lattice, it has to be dissociated, either from a water molecule (in a liquid electrolyte) or from H2 gas (in gas loading). It takes energy (either a Faradaic current or pneumatic pressure) to dissociate Hydrogen so that it can dissolve in the Palladium lattice. —Montana Mouse 22:11, 15 February 2011 (UTC) You seem to be ignoring the key point that significant amounts of hydrogen can enter a palladium lattice with NO effort required --the absorption process releases energy. I'm fully aware that the chemical reaction H+H->H2 releases so much energy that NASA once considered using it in rockets (the result is the highest Specific Impulse of any known chemical reaction). And therefore I'm also aware that, normally, you need to apply that much energy to break the molecule apart into atoms. Nevertheless, it is an observed/well-established fact palladium-the-catalyst manages to absorb hydrogen and even have energy left over, regardless of whether or not the hydrogen becomes ionized inside the metal lattice. Which is why I stated earlier words to the effect that that "energy left over" needs to be added back to get the hydrogen out of the palladium. Only if you have squeezed more hydrogen into the palladium than it can naturally absorb could you you expect energy to be released as that excess hydrogen escapes and remolecularizes. But you haven't provided any data indicating that any standard-pressure electrolysis experiment has ever actually done that excessive thing to palladium; in fact the CF experimenters routinely claim these days that only 80-90% loading (not 1:1 ratio with palladium) suffices for significant amounts of anomalous heat to begin to appear. And there is a message for you at the bottom of my Talk page, from Jed Rothwell, with some other data that you have either overlooked or never previously encountered. Enjoy! V (talk) 00:44, 16 February 2011 (UTC) Where do you get significant amounts of atomic hydrogen from? —Montana Mouse (talk) 02:59, 16 February 2011 (UTC) Good question. That's why NASA isn't actually using it as rocket fuel. I'm aware that small quantities have been made. The art may have improved since the 1960s, when the notion was being considered by NASA. Perhaps, today, it might be possible to make in quantity if you start with frozen-solid molecular hydrogen and shined a specially tuned laser on it. You want the laser frequency to be exactly the one that can break the molecular bond, with no energy left over to heat the hydrogen up.... V (talk) 07:26, 16 February 2011 (UTC) Do you now see where the hysteresis ("heat after death") comes from? Before any atomic Hydrogen or atomic Deuterium can be infused into the Palladium lattice, it must be split off from water or molecular gas. That takes energy. The atomic Hydrogen or Deuterium can then take up residence in the Palladium lattice. When the show is over, they are free to drift back out. As they emerge at the surface, they combine exothermically back to molecular gas, releasing "heat after death" which is just a variety of hysteresis, a well-known phenomenon in systems which undergo cyclic state changes. In this case, the fully charged battery just self-discharges, and all that energy that went into charging it up comes back as heat. It's not an uninteresting effect, but it's a well-known effect. One of the fun things about studying the literature of Cold Fusion is that you learn about interesting physical phenomena like the amount of electrical power in telephone noise signals and the difference between peeing away a gram of pee and evaporating a gram of sweat. —Montana Mouse (talk) 13:28, 16 February 2011 (UTC) I'm waiting for you to tell me whether or not molecular hydrogen gas spontaneously atomizes when it naturally soaks into palladium at ordinary room pressure (while helium is blocked). The conundrum that results from a "yes" is your problem to solve, not mine. Because in the electrolytic experiments, just because atomic hydrogen is produced that can more-easily enter the palladium than molecular hydrogen (meaning more energy can be released as the atoms enter the metal), the net effect is the same, you have to add energy to get the hydrogen out of the palladium, if the palladium has not been forced to hold more than is natural for it to be able to hold. V (talk) 22:32, 16 February 2011 (UTC) It's a function of the pneumatic pressure, per Sievert's Law: Hydrogen dissolved in metals at low concentrations exhibits a linear relation between the concentration and the square root of the pressure, p, of the molecular gas. This is proof that hydrogen dissociates when it enters the metal. Did you read Oriani's paper that explains Sievert's Law? There doesn't seem to be a Wikipedia article on it, but you can read Oriani's paper and therein find the formula that says how much atomic hydrogen you can force into the Pd lattice as a function of the gas pressure. —Montana Mouse (talk) 01:13, 17 February 2011 (UTC) To the extent that hydrogen absorption by palladium is exothermic, the pressure matters hardly at all. I'm saying that if you put a chunk of palladium in a vacuum chamber, with just a whiff of hydrogen, after a while the whiff should disappear and the degree-of-vacuum will be enhanced, because it is energetically favorable for the hydrogen to enter the palladium and mostly stay there. (There will always be some sort of equilibrium, based on the temperature of the metal, where some hydrogens in the metal can acquire enough energy to go back out of the metal.) All this is a logical consequence of the observed fact I've mentioned before, that you can put more hydrogen into solid palladium metal than you can into an initially empty same-volume container, at the same pressure. For other metals, though, where it takes energy to push hydrogen into the metal, I have no objection to Sievert's Law. For palladium, though, as long as energy is released when hydrogen goes in, then energy is required for it to get back out. Period. At normal temperatures, a process equivalent to evaporation (an energy-absorbing process, from that room temperature) can allow a chunk of palladium to gradually lose all or almost all its hydrogen. And, of course, while that happens, palladium can catalyze a chemical reaction between hydrogen at its surface and atmospheric oxygen, releasing significant energy. But as Jed has pointed out, the quantity of energy produced that way (which, by the way, would be greater than the quantity produced by the H+H->H2 reaction), is still woefully inadequate to explain the energy released in those successful electrolysis CF experiments, after the electricity is turned off. V (talk) 04:43, 17 February 2011 (UTC) You wrote: "In this case, the fully charged battery just self-discharges, and all that energy that went into charging it up comes back as heat. It's not an uninteresting effect, but it's a well-known effect." It is also 5 to 8 orders of magnitude smaller than many of the heat-after-death energy releases, so it cannot be the cause of heat after death. - Jed Rothwell Jed, do you have any peer-reviewed citations for that? —Montana Mouse (talk) 21:24, 16 February 2011 (UTC) Phys. Lett. A, 1994. 187: p. 276 - Jed Physics Letters A Volume 187, Issue 3, 18 April 1994, Pages 276-280 M. Fleischmann and S. Pons, Reply to the critique by Morrison entitled: “Comments on claims of excess enthalpy by Fleischmann and Pons using simple cells made to boil” Abstract We reply to the critique by Morrison [Phys. Lett. A 185 (1994) 498] of our paper [Phys. Lett. A 176 (1993) 118]. Apart from this general classification of our experiments into stages 1–5, we find that his comments are either irrelevant or inaccurate or both. Jed, a dismissive reply to a critique is not a peer-reviewed paper. —Montana Mouse (talk) 04:30, 17 February 2011 (UTC) The critique by Douglas Morrison and his ensuing debate with Pons and Flesischmann can be found here. Morrison's critique has to do with heat of formation as atomic hydrogen bleeds out of the Pd lattice and recombines to form molecular hydrogen. However there is another issue with that cell which is driven to boiling dry. It's an open cell, so that all the moisture in the electrolyte is vaporized. The problem, however, is that the vapor which is carried off is not dry steam. It includes entrained mist. The energy budget model of Miles and Fleischmann assumes that all the moisture is evaporated, and none is conveyed as entrained mist in the liquid phase. For every gram of moisture that is conveyed as mist, the Miles-Fleischmann Model will falsely credit the cell with producing 2267 joules. This is like peeing away a gram of pee rather than evaporating a gram of sweat. Finally, the AC burst noise is also omitted in energy budget for those experiments. —Moulton (talk) 05:08, 17 February 2011 (UTC) Careful Moulton Mouse or you may find yourself at a grain boundry of reality and wind up in March of 1989. Wouldn't that hysteresis loop be hysterical. Seriously though, why are you wasting time arguing about excess heat measurements in experiments where an inaccurate measurement of entrained microscopic water droplets gives any crackpot in the land the latitude to engage in a 22 year bout of I know you are but what am I? Is it because you cannot be proven wrong? What good are measurements of excess heat? They are absolutely useless. Repeatable measurements of high energy particle flux and quantifiable observations of transmutation of elements now that is something that is not so easy to misreport. It is also an experimental avenue which might actually lead to useful insight into the mechanisms of this mysterious phenomenon, should it actually exist. High energy particles and nuclear transmutations can lead to insight into the mechanisms at work in these reactions whereas excess heat is mere vapor (or mist as the case may be). Also it may be wise to only use one alias per topic, Enric Naval may accuse you of being a sockpuppet. Crawdaddy74 (talk) 05:58, 17 February 2011 (UTC) The whole point of the scientific method is to posit hypotheses with explanatory and predictive power that can be proven wrong. There is good evidence for the phenomenon of entrained mist in open cells of the type used in 1993. There is undeniable evidence of AC burst noise when bubbles form and slough off the electrodes. Not only was this phenomenon observed and described in the 19th century, the underlying effect was tamed by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 to produce an intelligible voice telephone signal. These are not mysterious mechanisms. Almost everyone has enjoyed effervescent beverages and spoken into a telephone mouthpiece. I'll grant you that most people don't stop to measure how much spritz they get from a can of ginger ale or how many decibels of signal power are transmitted by a carbon button microphone, but one could learn to model and measure these effects with little more than a high school education. —Montana Mouse 11:46, 17 February 2011 (UTC) I agree with the that the whole point of the scientific method is to posit hypotheses with explanatory and predictive power that "can" be proven wrong. But why do people posit hypotheses in the first place? To explain experimental observations of course. If I claim that cold fusion is real and hand you a glass of hot water I have wasted your time and mine because the experiment I performed measured a variable 3 steps removed from the phenomenon I am trying to prove. How does a glass of hot water, even one that I know the exact temperature of help me to refine my theory that cold fusion is real? Your argument about AC burst noise may be correct, but it does not disprove cold fusion and it will never be included in the Wiki article because it doesn't rise to the required level of "reliability". I am trying to generate some interest in measurements of high energy particles generated from cold fusion experiments. These measurements are (or could be) only 2 steps removed from the phenomenon we are hypothesizing about. These measurements don't suffer from AC burst noise or entrained mist. Even if you examined every report of excess heat ever made and disproved them all using reasoning within reach of any high school graduate, the observation of high energy particles from cold fusion experiments, a much more reliable observation than excess heat, would still "invalidate the laws of physics!". Let us allow the rules regarding reliable sources and peer review to weed out the erroneous and fraudulent claims made about excess heat and Cold Fusion. In my opinion this article would benefit from the omission of any and all references to excess heat in cold fusion experiments. It is analogous to filling the article about the sun with a finely parsed discussion of exactly how much it heats up the ocean, irrelevant. If I worked at the MIT media lab, I would print out the latest SPAWAR paper, walk over to the physical science building and present the paper to the first nuclear chemist I found. That might lead to a productive discussion and subsequent revisions of the Cold Fusion article, which is what I am here to do.Crawdaddy74 (talk) 17:32, 17 February 2011 (UTC) My objective is to help Rob Duncan construct a falsifiable theory that otherwise successfully explains the "excess heat" for which there is currently no satisfactory theory. With respect to McKubre's experiments, his assumption that there is no AC noise power seems to me to be unsustainable. What's left is to model it and measure it. I wrote up a simple model using sophomore level AC circuit analysis. Dieter Britz is currently reviewing that model (and presumably refining it). Now we wait for others to report whether that model has legs (no pun intended). —Moulton (talk) 23:48, 17 February 2011 (UTC) Good luck to you. How do you plan to account for the fact that the authors report being unable to repeat their excess heat measurements using the exact same electrode and setup? Or the countless reports of irreproducibility of the experiments. Wouldn't your model necessitate that "AC burst noise" would result in "excess heat" every time the experiment was done by the experimenter? Wouldn't excess heat be observed at high current density regardless of the electrode used? I guess your model will include a detailed examination of the fluid dynamics of bubble formation during high current density electrochemical experiments and account for differences between deuterated reactants and simple hydrogen. All this for an 18 year old paper? Couldn't your considerable energy be better spent contributing meaningfully to the discussion and editing of the wiki article that this page is meant to facilitate? Crawdaddy74 (talk) 01:09, 18 February 2011 (UTC) If the AC Burst Noise Model is correct, then the excess heat should correspond to the AC Noise Power (which is directly measurable). At the same time, the measurements can be compared to the mathematical model, along the lines of the one I proposed: If the ohmic resistance is fluctuating R±r from the bubbles forming and sloughing off the electrodes, then PAC ≈ α²PDC, where α = r/R. If that model (or something like it) is sustained, it will have to wait for someone to publish results to that effect, and then someone else will have to edit the article. As you know, WP does not publish original research. Note that the ohmic fluctuation, R±r, would be expected to be about twice as great for D2O cells as for H2O cells, since D2 is twice as dense (and half as buoyant) as H2. So now we wait and see. Moulton (talk) 02:57, 18 February 2011 (UTC) "Enric Naval may accuse you of being a sockpuppet". God forbid I accuse Moulton of using IPs to bypass an indef block and a global account lock enacted by Jimbo himself, and of using sockpuppets to enact little dramatic stories. And of being unrepentant about it. And of misusing this talk page to needle cold fusion supporters. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:27, 17 February 2011 (UTC) The hypothesis that unboiled water left the cell was tested rigorously by several methods, in hundreds of experimental runs at Toyota, the French AEC and elsewhere. It was shown to be incorrect. Some of the methods were: 1. A careful inventory the salts left in the cell showed that only D2O left the cell. 2. Heat after death was confirmed with closed, boiling cells, using different calorimeter types. 3. Boil off events in null cells were induced with high powered electrolysis (instead of cold fusion heat), and the input power required to drive the water out agreed with textbook heat of vaporization. The cells are designed with buffers and small holes at the top to prevent unboiled water from leaving the cell. This is essential for various other reasons, such as keeping contamination out of the electrolyte. - Jed Rothwell Which leaves us with AC burst noise as the unexamined hypothesis of the moment. —Moulton (talk) 23:48, 17 February 2011 (UTC) There can be no AC burst noise during these events. A gap opens between the anode and cathode, and power input drops to zero. That is why it is called "heat after death." The cell remains hot, usually for hours, and up to ~20 hours in a recent set of events. (The ones covered by "60 Minutes," but not described there.) With closed reflux boiler cells and other types where the fluid remains, you have to cut power manually. I mentioned the boil-off simulation with electrolysis. That stops abruptly and more fluid is left at the bottom of the cell than in a cold fusion boil-off, but it is similar. Hydrogen evolution from the cathode actually takes a few weeks but if you could speed it up enough to produce the level of heat from these events, it would last 5 or 10 seconds. Since the events last for hours, chemical heat from hydrogen cannot explain them. In one case continuous heat after death produced more than 85 MJ, at ~100 W, which is more than you could get by burning everything in the cell, and the table, and all of the books in the room. That is why researchers conclude that the reaction cannot be chemical. The AC noise during electrolysis is far too small to cause spurious heat or affect the measurements significantly. This was established long before cold fusion was discovered. The balance of energy in ordinary electrolysis has been measured at zero for over 100 years. If bubbles affected this measurement, that would not be the case. Blank Pt-H cold fusion cells have exactly the same electrochemical conditions and bubbles, yet they never show excess heat. - Jed Rothwell In one case continuous heat after death produced more than 85 MJ, at ~100 W. Jed, I'm confused. If the external power has been cut to zero, what is the 100 W measuring? —Moulton (talk) 03:32, 18 February 2011 (UTC) You wrote: "If the external power has been cut to zero, what is the 100 W measuring?" Output heat. "Heat after death" refers to a situation where input electrolysis power is 0 and output heat continues. In this case (Mizuno, April 1991) it was ~100 W for 4 days, before gradually fading to zero at day 10. - Jed Jed, I searched for a citation for this event. Here is what I found: Mizuno wrote this short book about his work and personal experiences. It is the best informal account yet written about the daily life of a cold fusion researcher. It gives you a sense of what the job feels like. It is not intended to be technical. For technical details, the reader is invited to examine Mizuno’s numerous scientific papers, some of which are listed in the references. One event described here which is not described in the technical literature is an extraordinary 10-day long heat-after-death incident that occurred in 1991. News of this appeared in the popular press, but a formal description was never published in a scientific paper. Mizuno says this is because he does not have carefully established calorimetric data to prove the event occurred, but I think he does not need it. [Source: Jed Rothwell (1998), Science Mysteries, "Alternative Energy: The Cold Fusion" (from the Introduction to the English translation of Mizuno's book, Nuclear Transmutation: The Reality of Cold Fusion, English language translation by Jed Rothwell).] Jed, is that the singular event you are citing? —Churlatan (talk) 11:42, 18 February 2011 (UTC) User:Moulton (talk) 11:42, 18 February 2011 (UTC) Yup. As noted, that was not well documented. Many less dramatic heat-after-death events were fully recorded and published by SRI, Toyota, Energetic Technologies and others. Mizuno's event was described in more detail by me, here: lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTnucleartra.pdf. - Jed Rothwell There is a rather amusing discussion about the event in Sci.Physics.Fusion (2002) demonstrating that Dieter Britz, Kirk Shanahan, and Jed Rothwell can all have a good laugh over a missed opportunity. —User:Moulton (talk) 20:51, 18 February 2011 (UTC) I have to say I am with Jed on this one. Perhaps we should move on from this discussion and wait for your publication Moulton. I stand ready to add it to the article as your editor should it ever be published in a reliable source. Now can somebody please address my desire to change the article as I describe in the next section? I know that some of you probably have some issues with it. Lets come to a consensus before making changes to this controversial article. Crawdaddy74 (talk) 03:26, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Proposed changes to Helium, heavy elements, and neutrons

The first paragraph of this section is not well researched.

It begins by talking about the branching ratio's of D-D fusion and the neutrons that result from the n + tritium reaction. These neutrons are around 3 MeV in energy. The work of Mosier-Boss et al. cited in the second part of the paragraph is concerned with high energy neutrons that produce triple tracks. The energy of neutrons that produce triple-tracks in CR-39 are above 9MeV. Neutrons of this energy are characteristic of a secondary D + T reaction. The Mosier-Boss group's most recent publication quantifies the neutron energies and flux in their experiment by calibrating their results with a conventional D-T neutron source and presents strong experimental evidence of high energy neutrons close to the energy of those from the D-T reaction.

Oopsies above should read n+Helium3 sorryCrawdaddy74 (talk) 03:50, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I propose that we change the section to reflect more accurately the experimental observations of the cited paper and include the group's latest publication quantifying their neutron energies. As I am new to Wikipedia I am having trouble figuring out the formatting of references, it would be great if someone else could do the edit.

I can try to make the changes myself but would love to calm the misgivings of any other editor who might revert the changes out of hand before I put in the effort. Crawdaddy74 (talk) 02:39, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

This is the paragraph to which I refer.

"Known instances of nuclear reactions, aside from producing energy, also produce nucleons and particles on ballistic trajectories which are readily observable. In support of their claim that nuclear reactions took place in their electrolytic cells, Fleischmann and Pons reported a neutron flux of 4,000 neutrons per second, as well as detections of tritium. The classical branching ratio for previously known fusion reactions that produce tritium would predict, with 1 watt of power, the production of 1012 neutrons per second, levels that would have been fatal to the researchers.[108] In 2009, Mosier-Boss et al. reported what they called the first scientific report of highly energetic neutrons, using CR-39 plastic radiation detectors,[109][110] but the claims can not be validated without a quantitative analysis of neutrons.[76][78]"

I propose to change it to:

"Initial experiments aimed at detecting the tell tail products of nuclear fusion, high energy neutrons, protons, and alpha particles, initiated after the Pons and Fleischmann announcement were inconclusive or gave negative results (see PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS Vol/Issue: 63 (18), Date: 1989, Pages: 1926-1929). Beginning in 2002, a research group headed by Pamela Mosier-Boss began to report qualitative observations of high energy particles using CR-39 detectors. In 2009 the group reported the observation of high energy neutrons which they claimed resulted from deuterium-tritium fusion in their electrolytic cells [109], criticisms of the qualitative nature of the results were leveled [76], and the group has attempted to address them with a more quantitative analysis (see Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. 51, 20901 (2010)).

How's that for an improvement? Let me know what you think. Please discuss this edit before it is made instead of reverting it after the fact as the guidelines at the top of the discussion page advise.Crawdaddy74 (talk) 07:14, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Can someone help me figure out how to add these references? The help pages seem to be a little too basic to let me figure out how to link a reference and add it to the bibliography. Along those lines there appears to be an error in the reference list as of Enric Naval's addition of a new reference 2.Crawdaddy74 (talk) 19:21, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Initial experiments aimed at detecting the tell tail products of nuclear fusion, high energy neutrons, protons, and alpha particles, initiated after the Pons and Fleischmann announcement were inconclusive or gave negative results . Beginning in 2002, a research group headed by Pamela Mosier-Boss began to report qualitative observations of high energy particles using CR-39 detectors. In 2009 the group reported the observation of high energy neutrons which they claimed resulted from deuterium-tritium fusion in their electrolytic cells , criticisms of the qualitative nature of the results were leveled , and the group has attempted to address them with a more quantitative analysis

• Mosier-Boss, Pamela A.; Dea, J.Y.; Forsley, L.P.G.; Morey, M.S.; Tinsley, J.R.; Hurley, J.P.; Gordon, F.E. (2010), "Comparison of Pd/D co-deposition and DT neutron generated triple tracks observed in CR-39 detectors", Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys., 51: 20901, doi:10.1051/epjap/2010087

• Price, P.B.; Barwick, S.W.; Porter, J. D (1989), "Search for energetic-charged-particle emission from deuterated Ti and Pd foils", Phys. Rev. Lett., 63 (18): 1926–1929, doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.63.1926

My first edit is ready! Crawdaddy74 (talk) 05:22, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Ugg sorry about my refs being displayed in your topic there EN...Crawdaddy74 (talk) 07:48, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

The only Mosier-boss paper that appears in sources is the 2009 paper, and only because it was announced in the 20th anniversary of CF. The new text tries to analyze and give relative weight to papers that have not been analyzed and given relative weight --> original research from primary sources. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:16, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

removed x-rays

The X-ray part only had primary sources. Looking a secondary sources, I found no mention of any X-ray detected by Fleischmann. As in no mention at all, only mentions to a "X-ray laser fiasco" by Hagelstein a few years before. Either Fleischmann didn't claim to detect X-rays, or it was a very little important claim when compared with his claims of helium, tritium and gamma rays. It doesn't appear either in DOE 1989, Not sure about DOE 2004 because archive.org is failing.

I replaced it with a cite from Bart Simon's book.

Though lacking gamma-ray detection, Fleishmann and Pons reported x-ray signals which failed to be independently replicated. Subsequent proponents continue to insist that x-rays are detected from their cold fusion cells.

• Wang, D.; Chen, S.; Li, Y.; Wang, M.; Fu, Y. (1995), "Research and progress of nuclear fusion phenomenon at normal temperature", Trends in Nuclear Physics, vol. 12, pp. 31–2 (in Chinese)

--Enric Naval (talk) 23:45, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

(Cold_fusion#Calorimetry_errors is also packed full with primary sources, but I don't recall right now any secondary source that can replace them. I'm going to leave it alone until I have looked at more sources.) --Enric Naval (talk) 00:26, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Nice job. Is there anyway you could give me hand with the edit I proposed above... I am still having trouble with figuring out the reference thing.Crawdaddy74 (talk) 02:50, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

And these two sentences look like dumping grounds for primary sources (sorry for the crude analogy):

Subsequent researchers who advocate for cold fusion report similar results.[92][93][94][95][96][97]

This type of report also became part of subsequent cold fusion claims.[101][102] --Enric Naval (talk) 03:07, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Banned user

The following discussion is from (as expected from the verbose style) the banned user:Abd. I have archived it. Guy (Help!) 02:23, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Extended content

I have been spending a number of hours going over Schwinger's 1990 papers on the probability of Coulomb barrier penetration. The main arguments against them break down to the fact that his model did not predict the CF results; therefore, they could not pertain. The argument(s) against the process itself seem very weak. Also, Schwinger was no longer alive to counter it. Since the 1st paragraph of the Explanations section ends with: "Skeptics claim that cold fusion explanations are "ad hoc" and lack rigor.[112][113]" I would suggest that we add: "On the other hand,Julian Schwinger, recognized as one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century, wrote a well thought out and knowledgeable paper [1] on how the Coulomb barrier can be penetrated in a lattice. An excellent review paper [2] that countered the available CF models at the time (1994) did not have a strong argument against Schwinger's model, but did emphasize that it did not predict the results observed in CF." 1. J. SCHWINGER, “COLD FUSION : A HYPOTHESIS” Zeitschrift für Naturforschung A, ISSN 0932-0784 CODEN ZNASEI 1990, vol. 45a, no5, p. 756 2. V. A. Chechin, V. A. Tsarev, M. Rabinowitz and Y. E. Kim, “Critical review of theoretical models for anomalous effects in deuterated metals,” 1994, Volume 33, Number 3, Pages 617-670 Aqm2241 (talk) 18:08, 24 May 2011 (UTC) there's way to many opinionated words in that suggested content. i get what you're saying and in general agree. i mean, you got two sides: "Skeptics claim that cold fusion explanations are "ad hoc" and lack rigor.", and then how i would paraphrase: C.F. researches acknowledge that they don't understand what's going on, and say "that is in fact precisely why we are researching it!", adding "duh!". they also point out that skeptics arguments are "'ad hoc' and lack rigor.", and "many are in fact quite specious, and baldly so. and besides, all the arguments and reasoning in the world isn't going to change what nature actually does because after all, nature really doesn't care what we have to say about it, which is the whole point of science, and you should know that already. so quit your squabbling and let's see what's actually going on here." that, IMO opinion, would clearly and pretty faithfully get across what C.F. researchers feel and have to say. and it would be quite informative to the reader in that regard. however, i don't really think that language i just wrote there is very neutral, and don't get me started on WP:SYNTH and WP:OR, and WP:V! so anyways, point is, that's what we're dealing with. we really got to be careful with the language, including avoiding words like "excellent" and "well thought out", however accurate they may be. rules we've got to play by, yet still somehow manage to right a decent, informative article. Kevin Baastalk 20:35, 25 May 2011 (UTC) Kevin, I thought that I was being balanced by praising both papers. However, you are correct; the whole addition would be rejected because I did not reference the praise and therefore it would be considered POV. I'll try again - unless you want to take a shot at it. With regard to Swinger: should I just say again "Nobel Laureate in Physics," which is mentioned later in the article, or should I (can I) refer, via link, to the Wiki article on him that I quoted from? Aqm2241 (talk) 17:55, 28 May 2011 (UTC) Let's look at this. The sources for the "ad hoc" and "lack rigor" comments are Derry (2002) and the 2004 U.S. DOE report. Derry is a tertiary source, a popular explanation, although academically published, not a scientific paper or monograph on the field. The section on cold fusion seems to be about four pages, in what I could see on Google. Derry says many things that are contradicted in later peer-reviewed reviews of the field. What Derry actually says: ... The first mystery is how fusion can occur at all [under cold fusion conditions] ... the second mystery is why there are not enough fusion products to account for the heat produced. Several theorists attempted to explain these two mysteries, but the proposed explanations all suffered from the same problem: they were all ad hoc explanations. An ad hoc explanation is an explanation that is not based on anything, an explanation where you just make it up as you go along and use any assumptions you need to achieve the result you want. No coherent theory that really explains the results has ever been proposed to explain cold fusion. A highly developed and interconnected set of theories and experiments, on the other hand, has evolved over fifty years to give us a coherent picture in which cold fusion is not possible. This text is not reflected in our text, which has "Skeptics claim that cold fusion explanations are "ad hoc" .... Is Derry a "skeptic?" What is the source for that? Derry has presented his own opinions, he doesn't source them. And there are some severe problems with what he wrote. In particular, the comment about "not enough fusion products to account for the heat produced." Long before he wrote, the ash, helium, was identified and found to be commensurate with the heat. There is imprecision in the ratio (20%, according to Storms, 2010[15][16]), but Derry is just plain wrong, and that work had been done and published long before he was writing, and is covered in other secondary sources as well. Derry's position that there is no "coherent theory that really explains the results," however, agrees with Storms, who has criticized cold fusion theory on much the same basis. That is not a "skeptical" position, it's accepted by many researchers in the field. The most severe problem with Derry is the claim about fifty years of work producing a coherent picture in which cold fusion is not possible. That's only true if "cold fusion" is presumed to be a specific reaction, the brute-force or even simply catalyzed fusion of two deuterons to form helium, just like that, which would, from experiment and theory, produce radiation that is not observed. Low-temperature fusion is possible, though, and is known and accepted: muon-catalyzed fusion. "Cold fusion" is, instead, an "unknown nuclear reaction", as Fleischmann claimed it was, and calculating, with all that established theory, the probability of an "unknown reaction", is not possible! But what Storms shows, in the most recent secondary reliable source we have, under peer review, is that the fuel is deuterium and the product is helium, at about the right amount to account for the heat. Plenty of mystery remains about mechanism. So, the question for our article is "what theories are there?" Storms answers this in his 2007 book, and in his 2010 review, and there is an excellent early source that covers what had been proposed early on, the review by Chechin mentioned above, which is also peer-reviewed secondary source, what we prefer to base science articles on, the only problem being its age (1994). Schwinger's paper is of interest, perhaps, but is not historically important, as far as can be seen at this time, it only shows that physicists of high repute worked on the problem; others could be mentioned, including Edward Teller. We need to focus on what is in peer-reviewed secondary sources in the mainstream scientific journals or academically published material of authority on the topic, not just passing mention. --EnergyNeutral (talk) 05:11, 29 May 2011 (UTC) This comment is taking a lot of clues from User:Nrcprm2026 [17][18] and from User:Abd [19][20]. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:55, 29 May 2011 (UTC) Typical detractor response: Attack the person making a post, and not the substance of the post. How can that policy help the article? It Can't. But this doesn't stop the detractors from attacking posters, anyway. Me, I don't care if the poster is an evil alien bent on world extermination; if the data is valid, that's all that matters for the article! So, Enric, is the data in that post valid? V (talk) 15:25, 29 May 2011 (UTC) I don't understand the point here. Enric Naval, who were Nrcprm2026 and Abd such that this comment is relevant here? Abd I know about from his lengthy and rambling comments on mailing lists and blogs related to cold fusion, but not the other person. The links you provide don't clear the matter up. --EnergyNeutral (talk) 22:55, 29 May 2011 (UTC) I see from your edit summary, these are banned editors. I read our article, based on Derry, I read that source, and read some of Chechin, linked above, and looked at what's prominent in the field. I don't see the connection between your links and what I wrote, could you explain, if it's relevant here? If not, don't, please. I'm basically opposing the suggested changes here, which I think not appropriate, but working toward fixing the problem. Are you on board? --EnergyNeutral (talk) 23:10, 29 May 2011 (UTC) OK, I'll address the substance of the post. Tertiary sources can be used to assess the scientific consensus in a field. The info also appears in other tertiary source such as Gyerin's Cultural boundaries of science p 184,217. There are secondary sources that also say the same things (I have added them to the article). Storms is a cold fusion advocate that makes overly-optimistic reports of the field (and I can source that over-optimism to Huizenga's book). I guess there is no problem on using Chechin. But note that scientific articles are summaries of the field, not detailed briefings of every explanation that has ever been proposed. At most, we summarize the mainstream-accepted explanation. Non-accepted explanations might be mentioned if they help understand the history of the field or they are significantly mentioned in reviews (for example, the probability of the third pathway) --Enric Naval (talk) 09:23, 30 May 2011 (UTC) Thank you, Enric. V (talk) 18:11, 30 May 2011 (UTC) Thanks. Tertiary sources, written by non-experts in a field, will show some kind of general consensus from the past. There is no doubt: there was a general opinion among scientists that cold fusion was rejected, but, when we find this opinion expressed, it is often associated with ideas that did not remain true, as shown by more recent and stronger sources. You wrote about Storms and cited Huizenga. Huizenga is not unbiased. From Hoffman (1995): John Huizenga has impeccable credentials ... he is also an intensely anti-cold fusion warrior, and his book reflects that stance. That's neutral, reliable source, on Huizenga. Hoffman was certainly not a "believer." Following Hoffman, Huizenga is useful as to facts, not judgments, and his opinions should be attributed. Above, it seems, you seem to give your point of view, and cite Huizenga for it. This would be Huizenga's opinion, he'd never have gotten that into a peer-reviewed journal. I looked through Huizenga, who often mentions Storms, and did not see where he said what you implied. Page number? What I did find was mostly neutral mention, but in a few places he adds personal judgments without evidence (such as calling a comment by Storms, "self-serving".) --EnergyNeutral (talk) 17:40, 30 May 2011 (UTC) Huizenga's book has tons of reviews saying that it's a very good book, or that it's the definitive book on cold fusion, and it's cited many times. Hoffman's book doesn't have any such thing. Also, Huizenga's credentials >>> Hoffman's credentials. Also, all the RS that say that nothing has changed since 1989. Also, claiming that the situation has changed, while providing RS that don't say such a thing, or providing sources written by insiders of the field (aka, non-independent non-third party views). --Enric Naval (talk) 17:58, 30 May 2011 (UTC) I'm puzzled. Suppose something changed, say last year. How would we know? Suppose that all the people who used to believe something still believe it, but the peer-reviewers at mainstream journals start approving something else? Who is going to write the articles that the reviewers approve? The confirmed believers in the old views? Or someone who works with the field? Enric Naval, it seems to me that you are expressing your point of view. Is that correct? Isn't saying that Huizenga (1993) is the "definitive book on cold fusion" excluding the possibility of anything new? Hoffman (1995) was very knowledgeable on cold fusion, he was commissioned to report on it by the Electric Power Research Institute. Secondly, he was a skeptic (cautious) and he was neutral, he came to no conclusion about cold fusion. Third, he reviews Taubes (1993), Huizenga (1992), Mallove (1991) , Close (1990), and Peat (1989), comparing them. You are dismissing Hoffman? Why? I thought that Wikipedia depends on publishers (and peer-reviewers at mainstream journals) to decide what's notable and reliable, not the authors, otherwise we would think that a self-published work was equal to one published by an independent publisher. Authors of peer-reviewed papers, and especially of reviews, are always experts in their fields, so isn't your argument circular, self-confirming? --EnergyNeutral (talk) 21:28, 30 May 2011 (UTC) We would know that something has changed by looking at what RS say. If the RS contradict each other, then we should look at how many RS say each thing, and the relative weight of each RS. Hoffman appears to have received no reviews outside of the cold fusion world, while Huizenga received lots of glowing reviews[21] and has much better credentials. Does Hoffman say that Storms' style has changed from 1992 to 1995? No? Then that means that they are talking about the same author and assessing the same reliability. In such a case I'll just go with the RS that has the best reputation. (P.D.: I just realized that Taubes 1993 mentions a cold fusion experiment coauthored by Storms in 1989, p 331-334: Storms and Talcott tested 150 cells, but they only ran 6 control cells, and only 4 of the controls used light water, and they failed to account for tritium contamination, "The Los Alamos experiment, in Dick Garwin's words, was really bad work". Taube's book also had good reviews[22].). No, articles are based in "reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". (All the nuances are explained at WP:RS, this is not the place to rehash them). The reviews of Huizenga's and Taube's books show that reputation. You need RS to show that Hoffman has that reputation, our personal opinion is not relevant. There is a lot of difference between a) asking a mainstream expert in a mainstream field about technical aspects, and b) asking a advocate in a non-mainstream field about how mainstream scientists view the field. The latter one would fall under WP:FRINGE. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:00, 31 May 2011 (UTC) Very good, we may be getting somewhere. We would know that something has changed by looking at what RS say. If the RS contradict each other, then we should look at how many RS say each thing, and the relative weight of each RS.. RS published in 1993 says "nothing has changed." RS published in 2010 says "X has happened." Is this a contradiction? How can earlier sources contradict later ones, when the knowledge of the field (and thus of peer reviewers) has surely advanced and not retreated? --EnergyNeutral (talk) 00:28, 31 May 2011 (UTC) How about a recent textbook, Models of the Atomic Nucleus, by Norman D. Cook, Springer, 2010 (Second edition), which has a newly added chapter on LENR?[23]. Amidst the continuing debate, enough experimental work has been done to establish the reality of at least some of the "anomalous" work involved deuteron-loaded Palladium electrodes. Precisely what conditions and ingredients and what quantum mechanical rationalizations will be required remain topics for specialists to thrash out, and further controversy can be expected. But "anomalous results" have been reported several hundred times over the past twenty years (reviewed in Storms, 2007) and the glib dismissal of cold fusion as "junk science" in 1989 has been shown to be truly "junk evaluation." Springer published the first edition of the book in 2006, and Cook doesn't seem to have written anything on cold fusion until 2008, so he is not some long-term "advocate." --EnergyNeutral (talk) 02:26, 31 May 2011 (UTC) (edit conflict, you posted your last comment while I was still writing mine, I am adding a note at the end) If the 2010 source has very low quality, one could argue that it's not reliable enough to counter the affirmation made by an older source. Otherwise, mainstream sources would have to repeat their assertions every x years. Anyways, this is not about an isolated 1993 source. RS continue to say that CF is not accepted, for example: long list of books "Nothing's really changed in 20 years. I'm not at all surprised that something is being said today," Professor (Frank) Close told BBC News., Charles Seife's Sun in a bottle, 2008, p 128, "cold fusion has burst upon the world nearly two decades earlier and had long since been discredited by the mainstream scientific community. Yet today it still has a strong following, a core of true believers (...) the dream of unlimited energy through cold fusion is so powerful that for almost twenty years the faithful have been willing to risk ridicule and isolation to follow it." He doesn't mention of any change of status in the last years. Goodstein's 1994 article (cited in our article), republished in his 2010 book with no changes, he mentions cold fusion in his prologue but he doesn't mention any change. Shamoo's Responsible Conduct of Research, 2009, p 132 "Although cold fusion research continues to this day, and Pons, Fleischmann, and others continue to publish results, the cold fusion community has become isolated from the traditional fusion community." doesn't mention any change). Also, books on Philosophy of Science keep saying that most scientists don't believe cold fusion: Worldviews: An Introduction to the History and Philosophy of Science, 2010: "In the case of cold fusion theory, eventually the quantoty of disconforming evidence increased to the point where there are now relatively few who still accept cold fusion theory (though, notably, there are still those who continue to adhere to cold fusion theory and reject the ever available auxiliary hypotheses)" [24] in page 68 it explains how CF proponents have had to resort to more elaborated explanations, some crossing the line from reason to unreason. And books on history of science: Physical Sciences: Notable Research and Discoveries, 2010, p 21-24 [25] And science textbooks: Chemistry: Principles and Practice, 2009, [26] Elementary science methods: a constructivist approach, Volumen 3 [27] (this one even cites a book review of Taubes' book) And other educative books about science: Lies, damned lies, and science: how to sort through the noise around global warming, the latest health claims, and other scientific controversies, 2009 [28] Also, circumstantial evidence: other scientific books keep treating cold fusion as if it was still discredited: Franklin H. Cocks, Energy demand and climate change: issues and resolutions, 2009 p 155-156 "One apcryphal method, cold fusion, was loudly trumpeted because it involved neither high temperatures nor high voltages. This fusion process has never proven, although reports of anomalous heat generation (possibly from hydrogen enbrittlement and subsequent cracking of the palladium rods used in this process) have lingered for years." [29] An Introduction to Science and Technology Studies, 2009, [30] Charged and Neutral Particles Channeling Phenomena: Channeling 2008: Proceedings of the 51st Workshop of the INFN ELOISATRON Project, 2010 (actually written in 2008) p 275, "The scientific community still rejects the interpretation of cold fusion experiment". [31] All of the above are third-party, and we could look by separate at the reputation of each book (looking at author's reputation + book reviews, weighting the publishers, etc). Also, note the lack of textbooks saying that cold fusion is valid or accepted, or saying that the situation has changed. If you use Storms 2010 to claim that the situation has changed, then you are probably running afoul of WP:FRINGE (mainly WP:FRINGE#Reporting_on_the_levels_of_acceptance). Giving a wrong idea of the actual levels of acceptance in the field (CF covers the fields of physics, nuclear physics and chemistry, I just say "the field" for brevity). And look at all the sources I listed. Using Storms 2010 to claim that cold fusion is now accepted, without any context about how this is only the opinion of one of the proponents of the field, would be a violation of both W:UNDUE (giving undue weight to one source when you have many sources that contradict it) and WP:FRINGE#Quotations (the quotes of proponents should be contextualized to avoid misleading the readers and losing neutrality). P.D.: To go back to Schwinger topic, read page 63 in Thirteen things that don't make sense (search for "schwinger" to find the page). It says that, in his latest years, Schwinger was disconnected from the latest developments in physics, also "Schwinger made several attempts to explain the cold fusion results and wrote eight theory papers. None of his theories properly explained the observations, but he never gave up (...)". Also, in the prologue of a collection of Schwinger's papers, p 13-15, also mentions the disconnection and gives a detailed account of the rejection of his papers (his first paper had to be published in the journal of a friend, second paper being published in prestigious journal despite getting negative peer reviews, with an editorial note saying that the journal didn't take responsibility for the content, third and fourth papers rejected for publication) [32]. (these details should be added to Julian_Schwinger#Career?) If we present his papers as "On the other hand (...) recognized as one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century, wrote a well thought out and knowledgeable paper", then, we are stripping all the context and we are framing his explanations as being well-accepted in physics? Are there any followups to his work outside CF? And inside? (to assess if it should be mentioned as one of the theories proposed by proponents) P.D.D.: OK, you found one scientific book (I understand that "textbooks" are for teaching stuff in classrooms and similar). Is this the Norman D. Cook that already supported CF back in 1989[33]? A short term advocate is better than a long term advocate? Didn't he write the LENR part of the book after he started publishing in CF conferences? Ah, whatever, the point is that the immense majority of science books present CF explanations as discredited or not accepted. --Enric Naval (talk) 03:12, 31 May 2011 (UTC) This is an article on cold fusion, fringe science at worst, so we expect more coverage of what may be minority views, though never presenting them as if they were the majority view. I'm not advocating any particular conclusion on the balance, but that we stop giving media and popular sources the same weight as peer-reviewed secondary sources. It's clear that there is support for cold fusion, some of it new, and there is also common rejection, or an opinion of rejection, which lingers or persists. I'm suggesting we look at substantial coverage in peer-reviewed mainstream secondary source, and use that. Cook (2010) was mentioned because this is a nuclear physics textbook, published by Springer, newly revised, giving more than passing attention. Obviously, there remains controversy on cold fusion, as Cook notes. The invented emphasis on "supported" or "advocate" or "believer"" is a division of scientists into political camps, whereas any scientist worth their salt maintains an objectivity, is skeptical of their own beliefs. Primary scientific sources are not in conflict. If source A says that "I did X, and saw Y," and source B says, "I did X, and saw Z," there is no conflict. A saw Y and B saw Z. Conflict arises in interpretation and judgment, and that is personal, which is why, if there is conflict, we attribute the judgments. "According to Storms (2010), [blah blah]." --EnergyNeutral (talk) 13:14, 31 May 2011 (UTC) It's worth quoting what Norman Cook wrote in 1989. Norman D. Cook (Oxford University, England), "Computing Nuclear Properties in the fcc Model.", Computers in Physics, Mar/Apr 1989, pages 73-77. [Article describes both a model and a computer program for calculating three nuclear properties for any specified nucleus: the rms radial value, the total Coulomb repulsion, and the total binding energy.] Editor's note: Dr. Cook writes, "I have been engaged in theoretical work in nuclear structure theory for many years, and am convinced that there are enough unsolved problems at the level of nuclear structure (quite aside from lower level problems) that, on theoretical grounds alone, it would be quite premature to dismiss cold fusion as theoretically unlikely." That's remarkable. It does not "support cold fusion." It opposes premature dismissal based on supposed theoretical impossibility. --EnergyNeutral (talk) 13:36, 31 May 2011 (UTC) WP:FRINGE#Quotations requires a bit more than "According to Storms (2010)".... --Enric Naval (talk) 14:48, 31 May 2011 (UTC) Depends on context. Supplying description of Storms based on original research, however, isn't cool, and we don't cite Huizenga with description of Huizenga from reliable sources, even, and there is plenty. Huizenga is RS, by straightforward standards, and so is Storms. Each one has opinions of the other, which is mostly moot for us. I'm suspecting that some editors have formed a strong point of view, and want the article to reflect that, instead of letting the sources speak through us, through our consensus. Is that what's been happening here? --EnergyNeutral (talk) 16:13, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

This Article

Sorry, some of this article is just written HORRIBLY! I mean, just a mess. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.153.128.84 (talk) 02:49, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

It is indeed a mess. That is because irrational hard-core opponents of cold fusion insist on filling it with nonsensical, hand-waving objections to the research, instead of facts from the peer-reviewed literature, and an organized overview of the subject. Whenever anyone who knows about cold fusion tries to correct their nonsense, they ban that person from Wikipedia. This an acute example of the problems with the Wikipedia structure. Experts are denigrated and thrown out. Biased, ignorant fools dominate. This is true of the article on cold fusion and many other subjects I have checked. - Jed Rothwell —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.120.10.38 (talk) 00:17, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm surprised that this comment from Jed Rothwell has not been removed yet. Does it have anything to do with ScienceApologist having been indefinitely banned from Wikipedia [removed link with personal details on an editor --Enric Naval] ? Could it be that his mob has been silenced ?130.104.206.154 (talk) 11:39, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Nah, it's just that nobody cares (aka the continued existence of this comment here is not currently causing any particular disruption, tempers have cooled down since the last fights, etc. I could explain more reasons but I would fall foul of WP:BEANS). --Enric Naval (talk) 12:42, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I am also surprised to see this remark is not been erased. The thought police must be busy elsewhere. One of them, TenOfAllTrades, deleted another remark of mine, explaining that I am a "banned user" -- an honor I was unaware of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Energy_Catalyzer&diff=421321503&oldid=421320271

I grant that remark was snide but I thought it was pretty funny. A pity Mr. (Ms.?) TenOfAllTrades has no sense of humor.

Would it be possible for me to ban Mr. TenOfAllTrades? He contrived to lock me out of that article, which is a neat trick. I do not know the rules, or why some people are given these powers and not others, but it would be fun going around locking people out for no apparent reason.

To be serious for a moment, as I see it, what happens here is none of my business. I do not feel that I have any right to complain about your rules and customs. I have no idea who is in charge here but whoever it is, they have every right to lock me and other knowledgeable people out while they fill this article with blather. I am not being sarcastic. - Jed Rothwell, Librarian, LENR-CANR.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.232.7.250 (talk) 17:42, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

To the extent that anyone or almost anyone* is invited to edit articles, then the articles are "everybody's business". I will agree that this article has problems, but I don't think I would call it "a mess". It simply focuses too much on all the negatives that could be dredged up about CF, and ignores the positives as much as can be gotten-away-with. I expect some more positives to become non-ignorable in the future, as more results come in from pressurized-deuterium experiments. So, I'm merely biding my time. (*an example of someone not invited to edit: a spammer. Jed, I recall you got banned partly because some idiot wanted to expand the definition of "spammer" to include folks who like to brag about themselves with their signatures. By that argument, everyone who attches "M.D." or "PhD" after their names should also be banned. The REAL person to ban should have been the idiot....) V (talk) 18:02, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

You wrote: "It simply focuses too much on all the negatives that could be dredged up about CF. . ." It is much worse than that. Looking at the section on calorimetry, for example, these negatives are not "dredged up" so much as invented out of whole cloth. They are not a bit true, and even if they were true, they would not apply to any experiment I know of. They would apply only to an experiment in which the temperature is measured at one location in the electrolyte. No one does that. Fleischmann and Pons measured with an array of sensors ~1 cm long as I recall. Most others measure outside the cell, either at the walls or with flow or Seebeck calorimetry. This section is the product of the fevered imaginations of people who know nothing about the experiments or calorimetry. I have not carefully reviewed the other sections but at a glance they are equally bad.

I also noted that some of the references say the opposite of what is claimed in the article.

When I wrote that this is filled with blather, I meant it. That is no exaggeration. I believe the main problem is the "Randy in Boise" effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Randy_in_Boise. Plus in this case the anti-science, anti-intellectual mindset of people who oppose cold fusion. However, as I said, and I sincerely meant, if that is how people here want things to be, it is none of my business. - Jed Rothwell, Librarian, LENR-CANR.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.232.7.250 (talk) 19:01, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Bring the evidence, and I'm sure it can be added to the article. But blaming a vast conspiracy on skeptics who are quite educated, pro-science and pro-intellectual is amusing at best. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 22:46, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

The evidence can be found in the peer-reviewed literature, which you can read in any university library or at LENR-CANR.org. You will see that it contradicts the assertions made in this article. I said nothing about a conspiracy and I do not believe in one. This article is full of errors so it cannot be the product of people who are "quite educated" about cold fusion. Perhaps they are educated about other subjects.

Note that even if you do not believe in the scientific method, replication, or peer-review, and you have therefore concluded that the literature is mistaken, in a conventional reference book of this nature you would still be obligated to describe what the literature says. Not what you believe to be true, but what the experiments have revealed and the researchers have concluded. This article ignores the literature and describes only the self-published pet theories of a handful of anti-cold fusion fanatics. - Jed Rothwell, Librarian, LENR-CANR.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.120.10.38 (talk) 04:12, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Let me try to be a little more specific and helpful. As I mentioned, the section on calorimetry is now devoted to crackpot theories about imaginary calorimeters. I suggest that the authors of this article should read the literature and learn about actual calorimeters used in cold fusion studies. They should write conventional descriptions of these calorimeters, with schematics and sample data. They might say that a variety of different types (isoperibolic, flow, Seebeck) have been used in order to eliminate systematic errors. They might describe a few of the challenges of calorimetry as applied to cold fusion, and improvements that have been made over the years to meet these challenges. I wrote something along these lines here: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Cold_fusion

Even if the Wikipedia authors are convinced that all published calorimetric data from all ~200 laboratories is wrong, they should report what the literature describes, not what they themselves think of it. The present article describes only the authors' opinions and theories, with no description of the claims. - Jed Rothwell, Librarian, LENR-CANR.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.120.10.38 (talk) 13:41, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Did you find that amusing Orange Marlin? Someone who is pro-science pro-intellectual and educated would, at this point, begin actually researching the topic in primary literature. If that doesn't interest you, perhaps you should leave the article to people who actually care enough to do some work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.58.24.190 (talk) 14:59, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

A problem now rears its ugly head, that even the pro-CF people have to work with rather than against. This is a Wikipedia Policy regarding the uses of primary sources. A FEW can be offered as references, but they can't be used as direct sources of data for an article (almost any in-depth article). The Policy is that articles must get their data from secondary and even tertiary sources, articles about other articles, that is. Thus, while there are useful articles regarding CF experiments using electrolysis, I've been waiting for something like 2 years for some appropriate articles to appear regarding the direct pressurization of deuterium into palladium. The primary articles exist, but apparently they haven't caught the attention of most folks who write the kind of articles that Wikipedia wants as sources. V (talk) 06:37, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

And it's even worse. I'm reading some sources (the kind wikipedia likes) to add more stuff into the article, and they treat pressurization of deuterium as something ludicrous. You should be familiar with the caveats they list; citing from memory: molecules in the solid are farther apart than in the gas so they should have lower fusion rates, such high pressures are unattainable by simple electrolysis, the pressures would break the palladium rod, etc. (btw, I'm not interested in entering a looong discussion in technical details, just commenting on what I read) --Enric Naval (talk) 08:10, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Enric Naval wrote: "And it's even worse. I'm reading some sources (the kind wikipedia likes) to add more stuff into the article, and they treat pressurization of deuterium as something ludicrous. You should be familiar with the caveats they list; citing from memory: molecules in the solid are farther apart than in the gas . . ."

Those are not caveats. They are facts well known to people like Fleischmann. He literally wrote the book on metal lattices. If you are suggesting that fusion occurs because of pressurization, in a brute-force "squeezing" effect, that is ludicrous -- as you say. The pressure is typically 1 to 3 atm, so there would be fusion everywhere in nature it that were a factor. Your discussion appears to be a straw man: you are casting doubt about an assertion that no cold fusion researcher makes. Gas loaded systems work because the metal absorbs the hydrogen, not because hydrogen atoms are forced together or forced into the lattice under high pressure. What you are reading has no bearing on the subject.

I suspect you are replacing facts about cold fusion with your own ideas, your own original research, and “caveats” that you mistakenly suppose the researchers never thought of. - Jed Rothwell, Librarian, LENR-CANR.org

V wrote: “A problem now rears its ugly head, that even the pro-CF people have to work with rather than against. This is a Wikipedia Policy regarding the uses of primary sources. A FEW can be offered as references . . .”

That seems like an ill-advised policy. The farther removed from original sources you get, the more distorted and mistaken the report becomes. I have learned there are a number of other ill-advised policies here; see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Expert_retention

Anyway, primary or secondary, my point is that your sources and the text should be about cold fusion, not some other subject. This article tells the reader little or nothing about cold fusion. It does not say what the researchers do, what the main instruments they use are, what levels of power, energy, tritium or helium they measure, or any other relevant details. There is no sample data, a few inadequate schematics, and nothing about key concepts such as heat beyond the limits of chemistry or helium correlated with heat in approximately the ratio as it is with plasma fusion. This article should be titled "Imaginary skeptical objections to cold fusion."

I do not understand why the skeptics feel they must hijack this article and make it about themselves, just because they do not believe the results. I am honestly mystified by that.

I am highly skeptical about creationism. I don’t believe a word of it. However, if I were writing an encyclopedia article about it, I would not devote the whole article to explaining "Why Jed thinks this can’t be true." I would leave out my opinions. As accurately as I can, I would report what the creationists say and what they think. If I asked a creationist "what is your source of information?" and she said, "the Bible" I would not say: "Sorry, that’s a primary source, we can’t include it" or "that is not a valid source of scientific information, we can’t include it." I would say: "Okay, what chapter and verse?" I would reference that verse and explain why the creationists think it proves their point. Let the reader decide whether it does or not.

If I included skeptical objections to creationism, I would also include the Creationist's own rebuttals to these objections. I would not pretend the creationists never thought of these objections, or never tried to meet them. This cold fusion article is filled with skeptical objections. Most are physically impossible and irrelevant, like the nonsense in the calorimetry section. There are a few genuine issues, but the article does not point out that the researchers themselves knew about these issues, and addressed them in 1989. For example, the article mentions recombination: "Several researchers have described potential mechanisms by which this process could occur and thereby account for excess heat in electrolysis experiments." It should also say that in every actual experiment on record, these mechanisms have been ruled out by using closed cells with recombiners, by measuring the gas flow, or by assuming complete recombination occurs and counting only the heat above the limits of recombination. The text as written gives the reader the false impression that this objection applies to real experiments. That's either a stupid error or it is disinformation.

As I said, the whole article is like this. Nearly every assertion is either factually wrong or distorted. The only mention of tritium says that it was not replicated. It was replicated in over 100 labs, at levels ranging from ~40 times background to millions of times background. Again, whoever wrote that is either grossly ignorant, or he knows the facts and he is writing anti-cold fusion propaganda.

Anyway, I am glad I have nothing to do with this article. I know hundreds of cold fusion researchers. They seldom agree about anything, but all of the ones who looked at this article agree it is outrageous nonsense. Not only is this nonsense, it is not very good at what it sets out to do, which is to discredit the field. McKubre and I have both said we could write far more damning critiques of cold fusion than any skeptic. I have done that for several experiments, which is why I have some prominent enemies in the field. The authors here invent imaginary problems. I know of many actual, real weaknesses that the authors of this article have never dreamed of. The papers at LENR-CANR describe them; the skeptics have not even bothered to read papers that support their point of view! I just uploaded one yesterday. - Jed Rothwell, Librarian, LENR-CANR.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.120.10.38 (talk) 17:18, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Regarding these items posted by two different people: "molecules in the solid are farther apart than in the gas" and "Gas loaded systems work because the metal absorbs the hydrogen, not because hydrogen atoms are forced together or forced into the lattice under high pressure." Actually, if fusion actually happens, it is at least partly because inside the metal, the hydrogen does not exist as molecules or as atoms. The absorption process causes the gas to dissociate into electrons and nuclei. Even without fusion, such dissociation is the only way to explain why hydrogen can permeate palladium like a sponge, when helium (a smaller atom!) can't. So, in an electrolysis experiment when absorption takes place at atmospheric pressure, it can take a long time for enough bare hydrogen nuclei to get into the metal, for fusion to have a chance of occurring, while in a pressurization experiment, getting enough loose hydrogen nuclei into the metal is relatively easy. This is just simple logic and, as I've written before on this page, I'm pretty sure that every pressurized-deuterium experiment, with palladium, has produced anomalous energy. Talking about molecules inside the metal simply distracts from the observed facts (easy permeation, for hydrogen only, being one fact that nobody argues about). V (talk) 19:16, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

(My mistake, I keep using "molecules" for everything....)

Fleischmann did not "literally wrote the book on metal lattices". Let's not distort reality to make some authors look more authoritative than they really are, please. A couple of RS say that he didn't appear to have read the literature on the topic before starting, and that the phenomena inside lattices was well understood before Fleischmann started studying it (again citing from memory, btw). --Enric Naval (talk) 09:01, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

DIA document

Freelion thinks a certain DIA document should be discussed in the article [34]. This DIA document appears to be leaked, not published, which means that according to [35], it should not be used as a source. Is there something I am missing? (See also [36]) Olorinish (talk) 01:47, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

What you are missing is the fact that the Defense Intelligence Agency e-mailed hundreds of copies of this report to scientists worldwide, as well as a copy to Rothwell with permission for him to upload it. It may thus quite reasonably be considered official, and a valid source as far as Wikipedia is concerned. Brian Josephson (talk) 20:04, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

That's interesting Olorinish. I guess we could remove the source but what about the statement - is it contestable? Could I re-word the statement (as it is general info) and put it back into the intro without the source? Meanwhile, just for the record, can we consider www.lenr-canr.org as a reliable source? Freelion (talk) 05:03, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The recent work and support is already described by other, sourced, statements. Regarding the question of whether lenr-canr.org is a reliable source, it depends on what the statement is. Olorinish (talk) 12:00, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Editors here may be advised to review Jed's comments at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_72 with regard to the website he promotes. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:00, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Are you following me LeadSongDog? You're very busy aren't you. Do you think you could find the time to answer my question at Talk:Nirmala Srivastava#2011 proposed rename of article? Thank you for the internal link on lenr-canr.org, that's helpful, thanks.

Olornish, the DIA reference does contain additional info about international experiments sponsored by state or major corporations which aren't mentioned in the article. Brian Josephson (talk), do you have any evidence of the DIA releasing that report? Freelion (talk) 00:06, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to Leadsongdog we have an internal link to a conversation including the librarian of lenr-canr.org. He declares that he has permission to host all of the documents on the website. That means he has legally published these sources, which fulfills the requirements of WP:RS. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Freelion (talk • contribs) 00:37, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify, it's previously been shown that LENR-CANR may contain copyright violations: not all of the material is potentially a copyright violation, but some material hosted is included through under the permission of the author, not the copyright holder (the journal). Thus although LENR-CANR is no longer black listed, external links to articles on the site need to be checked to confirm that they meet the copyright policy. - Bilby (talk) 00:55, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

In that case I believe the DIA reference is OK. Jed Rothwell says that he has permission to host that report and as he says, all the copyright holders of all the reports he hosts have the opportunity to remove them. The DIA report is one he mentions. He says the DIA knows that he is hosting it and even cites his website as one of its references. This DIA report has been on his website for quite a while as is evident by a Google search - many other websites also link to the report on lenr-canr.org. So the DIA has had ample opportunity to ask him to remove it if it is in breach of their copyright. We can take it in good faith that this report is being published with the owner's permission so we are not knowingly breaching any copyright as per copyright policy. Freelion (talk) 03:04, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I do not know the copyright status of that article. However, just in the hope of clarifying the general situation, it doesn't really matter how long an article has been hosted on a site, as the copyright holder may simply be unaware that the article is there. More importantly, though, whether or not it is legally hosted, this isn't a reason for not using the article - it is only a reason for not linking to the article. The question as to whether or not the article has been formally published, or has been leaked, is a separate issue - a leaked document may not be a verifiable reliable source, but this isn't a copyright concern per se. - Bilby (talk) 03:14, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

My previous comment argues that it is fair to assume this report has not been leaked and does not breach copyright. Freelion (talk) 03:40, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

My two cents: I'm almost certain that anything/everything published by the U.S. Government is considered to be Public Domain (even when it's "classified" and kept secret). That's because of the "work for hire" rules associated with copyright ownership. Someone who pays someone else to create something can be the copyright owner. In the case of the U.S. Government, all its employees are paid by the U.S. Public. So, works produced by the U.S. Government are Public Domain. V (talk) 05:49, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Though there's a lot of discussion of the copyright status of the document above, I don't see that anyone has addressed Olorinish's central point, the question of whether this is a WP:RS per Wikipedia standards. Has this document been published anywhere, or is there a reliable secondary source that discusses it? Private correspondence that is not remarked on by other sources does not meet our sourcing standards, even if it can be shown to be authentic and not encumbered by copyright. --Noren (talk) 13:03, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

BAD assumption, Noren. The DIA document is not primary data generated by researchers in the field; it is a secondary source describing various primary sources, and therefore it doesn't need tertiary sources describing it. I will agree, however, that its status as a "publication" needs to be clarified before it can be used as a WikiPedia source-document. V (talk) 05:48, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Just above it was mentioned that this was mass-emailed to outside scientists by the department itself. That constitutes publishing. Kevin Baas^talk 22:45, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it sounds more like an emailing than a publishing. Is emailing reports the standard way of distributing them? I would guess that when they really want to publish a report, they put in on a web site or something. Olorinish (talk) 00:30, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Maybe if they REALLY REALLY want to publish it. That would definitely be something politically motivated. I've never heard of or seen that done before. Kevin Baas^talk 16:48, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Well it has been published - on the LENR-CANR website. As mentioned above, the DIA has had ample opportunity to ask Rothwell to remove it if it is in breach of their copyright. We can take it in good faith that this report has being published with the DIA's permission. They even use this website as a reference. Freelion (talk) 01:47, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Is there any objection to using this report in the article now? Freelion (talk) 09:55, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I still object to using it, since the DIA did not publish that report, which means that it likely does not represent the DIA's official position. Keep in mind that a very likely reason for not publishing such a report is that the evidence for cold fusion is still weak. If that changes, many organizations like the DIA will publish descriptions of it, after which this article should discuss it. Wikipedia isn't going anywhere. Olorinish (talk) 11:44, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

That doesn't fit any reasonable definition of "being published by DIA". Bilby's comment above would also apply. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:32, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Regarding "likely reason for not publishing...evidence is weak": note this article: [37] which has been widely published, and the evidence is much thinner and more tenuous than that for cold fusion. From a statistical perspective, in fact, the evidence is quite dismal. So you that assertion, "likely reason for not publishing...evidence is weak", is baldly contradicted by empirical evidence. And furthermore, in such cases, we don't even think to question the "publishability". Kevin Baas^talk 12:54, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

This in fact alludes to a more fundamental point: that historically speaking, strength/weakness of evidence, even plausibility, has not been a significant factor in decisions about information dissemination. But we have only to look at politics and religion to see that... Kevin Baas^talk 12:46, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

The attitudes of some folks around here is hilarious. Remember the "Pentagon Papers"? Where were the claims that those documents were forged or did not originate in the Pentagon? Why is it, just because this document is about Cold Fusion research and positive, its origin is questioned? What if it had been negative? I bet the detractors wouldn't waste two seconds getting it into the article and trumpeting such negative points! V (talk) 05:52, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

The bottom line is that the DIA report has been published by the LENR-CANR website. Olorinish is only speculating that this is not the DIA's official position. We can use the LENR-CANR website as the reliable source for this document. I have yet to find the rule on Wikipedia that specifies that a government report has to be officially released. Freelion (talk) 03:15, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

This edit [38] would give far too much weight to a minor event, the emailing of a report by its author to people she knows. That is very different from a major institution publishing a document, since it may not have received the full review that published documents receive. Linking to the LENR-CANR web site doesn't bother me; perhaps someone should place the link (without comment) with the other references after the word "fusion" in the phrase "However, a small community of researchers continues to investigate cold fusion..." in the introduction. Would people be OK with that? PS: I think "small community of researchers" should be replaced with "some researchers." Olorinish (talk) 12:09, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Olorinish, I agree that we could avoid trying to imply the DIA has an official position. There is a lot in that document which is neutral though, like the list of ongoing projects. Here are 12 projects which are not mentioned in the article:

• Y. Iwamura at Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries detected transmutation of elements when permeating deuterium through palladium metal in 2002.

• Additional indications of transmutation have been reported in China, Russia, France, Ukraine, and the United States

• Researchers in Japan, Italy, Israel, and the United States have all reported detecting evidence of nuclear particle emissions.

• Chinese researchers described LENR experiments in 1991 that generated so much heat that they caused an explosion that was not believed to be chemical in origin.

• Japanese, French, and U.S. scientists also have reported rapid, high-energy LENR releases leading to laboratory explosions, according to scientific journal articles from 1992 to 2009.

• Israeli scientists reported in 2008 that they have applied pulsating electrical currents to their LENR experiments to increase the excess energy production.

• As of 2008 India was reportedly considering restarting its LENR program after 14 years of dormancy.

• U.S. LENR researchers also have reported results that support the phenomena of anomalous heat, nuclear particle production, and transmutation.

• At the March 2009 American Chemical Society annual meeting, researchers at U.S. Navy SPAWAR Pacific reported excess energy, nuclear particles, and transmutation, stating that these effects were probably the result of nuclear reactions.

• A research team at the U.S. company SRI International has been studying the electrochemistry and kinetics of LENR since the early 1990s, reporting excess heat and helium production.

• In May 2002, researchers at JET Thermal in Massachusetts reported excess heat and optimal operating points for LENR manifolds.

• Researchers at the China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center in California first reported anomalous power correlated with Helium-4 production in 1996

Plus there are more details about Y. Arata from Japan and Violante from Italy. Freelion (talk) 04:07, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

(I haven't taken a through look, but, it those facts are notable, then it should be possible to find better sourcing for them.) --Enric Naval (talk) 08:58, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

• In case it wasn't obvious, LENR-CANR is not an appropriate source here. We previously had a "convenience link" to the DOE report which turned out to be editorialised, Rothwell is not an honest broker here. Also his claims to have copyright permissions are dubious - they include material from publishers of whom I have previously asked similar permission (i.e. permission to reprint content written by co-members of the editorial board of a website) and been refused. I simply do not believe any claim of permission for copyright material on LENR-CANR, anything they claim is public domain should be linked from the original public domain source not from LENR-CANR due to its biases, and anything whihc is only on LENR-CANR and not discussed in reliable independent sources should be rejected on that basis alone. Guy (Help!) 20:08, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Letter to editor in bibliography

This was added to the bibliography, as "published in Nature". However, this is not an article but a letter to the editor. We shouldn't give it a place in the article unless a secondary source says that this specific letter was important for some reason.

• Gryziński, Michał (27 April 1989), "Cold fusion: what's going on?", Nature, 338: 712, doi:10.1038/338712a0

--Enric Naval (talk) 11:09, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I tried the link and the text is behind a paywall. It doesn't make sense to me that a "free for anyone" encyclopedia should link to sources that only people who have money can access. OTHER than that, though, the text could have been important if the Editors of Nature had replied to that letter. They represent a significant voice in the scientific community, see, especially in terms of mainstream thinking at the time such a reply was (if it was) published. V (talk) 17:24, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Excess Heat and Energy Production

Since Scaramuzzi, F. (2000) is an accepted reference (117,119,124), I would suggest the following sentence, based on p. 9 of that source, be added to the end of the first paragraph of the section: Nevertheless, as early as 1997, at least one research group was reporting that, with the proper procedure, "...5 samples out of 6 that had undergone the whole procedure showed very clear excess heat production (4)." Aqm2241 (talk) 07:36, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

The article should give a general overview of replicability of excess heat in the field. What's the point of giving WP:WEIGHT to this specific paper? This appear to be an isolated paper that had no repercusions in the general replicability of CF, we are giving it a lot of weight by mentioning it here, as if it was an important experiment. If the replicability of this specific experiment is so important and relevant, then why is this experiment not mentioned prominently in other sources since 2000? Why Hagelstein didn't consider it relevant enough to include it his 2004 report of the field, where he was trying to show that cold fusion was a replicable effect. Have other groups replicated it successfully? We shouldn't include specific papers unless they are really relevant for the field or they are needed to explain specific events. This paper doesn't seem to cut it. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:46, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Enric, are you then advocating that we delete all 3 of the present references to Scaramuzzi's paper? They have been there for as long as I remember.Aqm2241 (talk) 06:07, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

No, I'm saying to remove the mention of the "5 samples out of 6" experiment. --Enric Naval (talk) 07:07, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

If I find 5 better references in Hagelstein, are you likely to find any of them acceptable? This paper is 'relevant' in the field because Wiki editors have accepted it and it balances an argument put forth in the previous sentence.Aqm2241 (talk) 07:48, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Mentioning this isolated paper gives it a lot of weight, as if it had a lot of relevance on assessing if the effect of excess heat has been reliably reproduced. I don't see any source saying that CF experiments now can be replicated reliably 5 out of 6 times, and this is the impression given to readers by citing this experiment there.

Re Hagelstein, I suppose that you mean the report that he sent to the DOE in 2004. The DOE 2004 report said, among other things, "Most reviewers, including those who accepted the evidence and those who did not, stated that the [excess power / excess heat] effects are not repeatable, the magnitude of the effect has not increased in over a decade of work, and that many of the reported experiments were not well documented." They don't mention the 5 out of 6 experiment. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:17, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

it should be noted that: a) by "not repeatable" they, of course, mean not _reliably_ repeatable (and some would argue to the contrary - they are experimental setups which some claim reliably repeatable), and b) if "the effect" had "increased in over a decade of work ", that would in fact be evidence that it was really experimental error, rather than some interesting physical process, as a physical process would be consistent in its magnitude. (though oddly they seem to be placing the statement so as to persuade the opposite) Kevin Baas^talk 13:01, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Enric, your argument about the undue weight of that paper is correct. It is used 6 times (based on a single paragraph that is reviewing the arguments that have been proposed against CF. (The lead in to these statements is "It has been said that..." Here is a proponent of the field that is repeatedly quoted for anti-CF statements. Unless, at least one statement that represents the purpose of Scaramuzzi's paper is included in the Wiki article, I will have to eliminate all of the other comments on the same basis that you removed my contribution from his paper.

I have undone your revert. Aqm2241 (talk) 19:13, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

lenr-canr.org link in article

This website is cited or mentioned in many RS. i think it's time to accept that the wikipedia article should include it, even if it's only in the "external links" section. I propose this:

• lenr-canr.org, advocate website with bibliography.

--Enric Naval (talk) 10:50, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

When I search on "contributory prefix:Talk:Cold fusion" I find three archives that have discussed this site, there may be others elsewhere. Unless the search misses a resolution, I see no excuse for assuming this would not be wp:CCI.LeadSongDog come howl! 13:19, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it would be POV to call it an advocacy site. Just because through a site you can learn about research that has been done about a topic, doesn't mean said site advocates a position about said topic. It seems ppl are assuming that not allowing access to research is the "default" position and represents neutrality, and thus allowing it would be "advocacy". Both the premise and the logic of that are false. Kevin Baas^talk 17:56, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I received a lengthy email from User:Abd (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) responding to the above, in which he provided links to two discussions Talk:Martin_Fleischmann/Archive_1#Lenr-canr.org_allegedly_hosts_copyright_violations and [39]. Since he chose off-wiki communication and I do not wish to proxy for anyone I'll simply pass those links along without further comment at this time. LeadSongDog come howl! 13:26, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

The difficulty with lenr-canr.org is that they publish articles with the permission of authors. However, the authors don't always have the right to republish the articles, as the copyright belongs to the journal/publisher, and in some instances lenr-canr.org distributes papers which can reasonably be seen as copyright violations. Thus there has to be care taken about linking to individual articles in order to confirm that the individual link isn't linkvio. I'm not sure what this means with linking to the site as a whole, but I think there is some cause for considering the correct position. - Bilby (talk) 00:36, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

That's one difficulty. Another is that some of the material hosted there has been found to contain editorialising. A third is that site owner Jed Rothwell is banned for pushing links to the site. Another is that it uncritically represents the minority view only, without adequate context (unlike mainstream science and popular science sites, which report both positive and negative results (the problem being, for cold fusionists at least, that the negative results vastly outweigh the positive). Has anyone here seen Brian Dunning's "Here Be Dragons" movie? 40 minutes well spent. For the rest - well, this is just like arguing with homeopaths. It doesn't matter how often you point out to them that their field has no credible scientific mechanism, they will still keep repeating the same assertions based on the same work by the same people. As Abd found, sometimes the only answer is to tell them to shut up and go away. If any proof emerges for the supposed field of low energy nuclear science then it will have to come fomr quantum physics, not from endless repetition of anomalous empirical results. This is what the DOE review said (and of course the CF crowd represent that as a call for further research, rather than an instruction to go away until there is a credible mechanism to support their theory). Guy (Help!) 01:24, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I've heard that Rothwell has actually been blocked rather than barred. But anyway, my own link, removed by someone, was to the Library page, meaning that people going to it would not see any of the editorialising/advocacy on the rest of the site but merely see strictly neutral information about the library context. Given the very positive value of the library as a reference source, and the rather nebulous objection, that a small proportion of the entries may be material to which publishers might take exception, it is a no-brainer, as they say in the US, that the library should be linked in. --Brian Josephson (talk) 09:10, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

In view of the following, from WP:Copyrights:

"The copyright status of Internet archives in the United States is unclear, however. It is currently acceptable to link to internet archives such as the Wayback Machine, which host unmodified archived copies of webpages taken at various points in time. In articles about a website, it is acceptable to include a link to that website even if there are possible copyright violations somewhere on the site.", User:LeadSongDog's addition of a 'copyright violation' tag would appear to be inappropriate and I am therefore reverting it. --Brian Josephson (talk) 21:28, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

This is not an article about the website. This is an article about Cold Fusion. Lenr-canr.org is also not an internet archive, but a collection of published papers. - Bilby (talk) 21:49, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Just to bring newcomers up to date, the web site came up for discussion because some people wished to exclude it from the article, and that made it very relevant.

I quoted the above since it enunciates the principle that 'possible copyright violations' do not render it unacceptable to link to a site. Since no-one has produced any reason for not linking to the LENR site that passes muster I will be restoring the link. --Brian Josephson (talk) 21:43, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually, what is says is that there are exceptions under which it is ok to link to a site containing copyvio - the major one being where the site, itself, is the subject of the article. This is not the case here, so the exception thus outlined is not relevant in this situation. The other exception relates only to internet archives, which exist in a legal gray area. However, once, again, that's not the case here. So you are right in saying that there are times when it is acceptable to link to such sites, but there is no evidence presented thus far that this is one of those times. - Bilby (talk) 01:04, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Repeated removal from article

User:Brian Josephson added the lenr-canr.org link to the article, and it was removed by User:2over0 without explanation. I replaced it, asking why it was removed and referencing this discussion. 2over0 removed it again, saying, "Undid revision ... by EnergyNeutral ... contributory copyright infringement and WP:ELNO, same as it always was." I don't see the application of WP:ELNO to lenr-canr.org, and looking above, it seems this issue has been discussed before, at length, with different conclusions than 2ocer0 implies, so, unless there was something else not referenced, "same as it always was" doesn't make sense. Will 2over0 or someone else please explain this?

Above, I see that LeadSongDog has referred to WP:CCI. I thought that CCI meant "contributory copyright infringement," after the term 2over0 used, but it doesn't, it means "contributor copyright investigations," about contributors repeatedly adding copyright violations. Has this happened with lenr-canr.org? --EnergyNeutral (talk) 01:49, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I think this would be the policy: WP:LINKVIO. The present situation is not exactly covered. It's clear that we should never link to a page where we know that the page is copyvio. The lenr-canr.org bibliography, however, contains no copyvio, it's an original work itself. The issue would be whether the possibility that there are one or more supposed copyright violations, perhaps somewhere linked from the bibliography, should be enough to prohibit linking. While it's not specific for our situation, In articles about a website, it is acceptable to include a link to that website even if there are possible copyright violations somewhere on the site. If the possible existence of violations somewhere on a site created contributory copyright infringement by linking to the site itself, that the article was about the site itself would be no excuse. --EnergyNeutral (talk) 05:35, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

EnergyNeutral is correct. I used the wrong shortcut, wp:CCI when I intended wp:LINKVIO, which cautions against contributory copyright infringement. My apology for the confusion.LeadSongDog come howl! 05:55, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, I remain confused. What precisely is the problem with lenr.org? Can you be more specific, rather than just mouthing generalities? --Brian Josephson (talk) 21:39, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Just wondering -- do these editors advocating removal on what to my mind are tendentious grounds examine all links in articles with equal diligence? If not, this rather tends to suggest an agenda on their part. --Brian Josephson (talk) 08:59, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

The motivations of editors is moot. lenr-canr.org is a notable resource for information on cold fusion, positive and negative and neutral, and is so mentioned many times in reliable source. I've restored the link. If editors think there should be some additional comment there, that would be something to consider, but we cannot just exclude this site based on the kinds of arguments that have been presented. I'm not thrilled by labels based on our original research, though "advocacy site, pro-cold fusion." The site's description of itself might be used, or how it is mentioned in reliable source, or both. Or nothing. --EnergyNeutral (talk) 16:04, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that's how it should be. --Brian Josephson (talk) 16:42, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

My complete list of contributions is open for inspection. I usually use an edit summary like cleanup external links or prune per WP:ELNO or something along those lines if you would like to evaluate and improve upon my handling of external links. Please comment on the content, not the contributor (but see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution for dealing with non-content matters that do not belong on an article talkpage). As well, EnergyNeutral, please check your opening statement. You may have found my initial explanation insufficient, but that is an entirely different matter from failing to provide one. Longstanding editing standards hold that it is best practice to seek explanation for an edit whose motivations you do not understand before undoing it. There is no deadline here. - 2/0 (cont.) 14:11, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

The objections against linking to lenr-canr is to some extent bound up with the past behaviour here and elsewhere of User:JedRothwell (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), who runs it. You can see here the consequences. Additionally, there is reluctance to introduce a massive selection bias. If we could trust that the contents in that library were fairly representative of the literature as a whole, I would be less reluctant to cite them. Providing convenience links there still seems a step too far in the direction of contributory copyright infringement. If the copyright owners genuinely wanted their works available on the internet they would simply make them available on their journal websites. The idea that lenr-canr has permission to republish but can't or won't show evidence of that permission is simply too farsical to credit. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:34, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

If you believe there is massive selection bias, I suggest you provide evidence. I don't believe a full investigation would support that belief. There may be a degree of selection bias, but hardly 'massive'. Your unsupported guesswork can't be considered good reason for blocking the lenr library.

Re your other argument: if whole issues were made available en masse free, requiring only going to the publisher's web site, and finding the desired article to download, that would hit sales -- one can imagine people arguing that subscriptions were really not needed. In general publishers don't object to individual articles being posted because most people who read them would not have bought the article concerned anyway. The failure in logic is to assume that one of the following must be true (i) publishers want to have their works available in toto free (ii) publishers don't want people to be able to read free anything they publish. In fact, neither of these is true; it is illegitimate to argue that if (i) is false then (ii) must be true. Case dismissed! --Brian Josephson (talk) 20:11, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

This is incorrect. Journals sell individual articles, and clearly make a proportion of their income from doing so. Furthermore, it is not relevant - whether or not they make money from individual sales, the articles concerned state that they are copyrighted and cannot be republished without the publisher's permission. Under those grounds, republishing them without such permission is copyright infringement, and linking to a copy posted without permission is a contributory copyright violation. - Bilby (talk) 21:55, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

This is answered by my quote above from the copyright violation page. --Brian Josephson (talk) 21:43, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

If someone were to create a website dedicated to hosting reprints of my work or if I found my papers being eagerly passed around the samizdat torrent networks, I would be overjoyed. Galling though it may be at times, however, I do not have the legal authority to authorize or initiate either of these actions. Prior to publication, I signed the copyrights over to the several journals, allowing them to do things like create a digital archive without contacting me or my estate (as well as to profit from the added value publication gives my work). As a private individual, I can and do pass around copies of my papers for private use, but I may not publish them elsewhere nor authorize someone else to do so. The library at lenr-canr is a new publication of old work that has not been authorized by the copyright holders. Knowingly linking to such could be contributory infringement, even in the absence of a DMCA takedown notice.

We have a dedicated External links noticeboard for wider discussion of whether a particular link should be included. If the above remains unclear, please seek additional input there (making note here and linking this discussion). - 2/0 (cont.) 14:11, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

This is answered by my quote above from the copyright violation page. --Brian Josephson (talk) 21:43, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I believe that you are misinterpreting the policy you quote, as by my reading those sentences do not apply to this situation, while the immediately preceding sentences do. lenr-canr.org is not analogous to the Wayback Machine website, and this article is not about the website. The first provision is primarily to allow us to use an old version of a website in a citation; while lenr-canr.org's library is an archive, it is not of the type of archived being discussed there (which is itself anyway a bit of a grey area). The second provision allows us to link to The Pirate Bay on the article about the website despite the fact that that site exists primarily to violate copyright. Neither of these provisions seem to me to obtain here.

Please also be aware that repeatedly making the same edit against the reasoned objections of your fellow volunteers is considered edit warring, and may lead to your account being blocked (note that I could not myself block anyone here, as that would contravene our policy on admin involvement). Please seek outside opinions at the External links noticeboard before inserting the link. - 2/0 (cont.) 04:03, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

OK, since you request this -- I had not read your comment before I reinserted the link and have reverted it now. --Brian Josephson (talk) 07:51, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Now done: see External links noticeboard -- Brian Josephson (talk) 09:13, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for starting that discussion; I have added the counterarguments there. These discussions usually work best if the prior participants avoid further comment unless a major point has been omitted (we participating here are already at an impasse, so merely changing venue for more back-and-forth would be less than useful). Hopefully consensus one way or the other can be reached in a week or three. - 2/0 (cont.) 10:20, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Publications

The last paragraph of the article states:

"This decline of publications in cold fusion has been described as a characteristic of pathological science[67][68] and of a "failed information epidemics".[69] Cold fusion researchers occasionally succeed in publishing papers in prestigious journals; the 1993 paper in Physics Letters A is an important example because it was the last paper published by Fleischmann, and "one of the last reports to be formally challenged on technical grounds by a cold fusion skeptic".[68]:1919"

I would suggest adding: "On the other hand, the recently released Volume 4 of the peer-reviewed Journal of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science [JCMNS, http://www.iscmns.org/news.htm] is a collection of 25 papers on the topic."

Since at least 4 of these papers are review articles, I would further suggest that, not being primary sources, at least these 4 papers would be legitimate references for the Wiki article.

By the way, does anyone know what the 1919 at the end of the paragraph means? Aqm2241 (talk) 07:26, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

That means "page 1919 in reference #68".

I understand that the JCNMS journal was formed by cold fusion proponents so they could have somewhere to publish. We could mention the journal in the article, as an example of how proponents had to build their own communication channels.

The journal editors are also CF proponents, right? And editors are the ones who assign the peer reviewers to each article. Reviews published only there are not independent from the field and should be taken with a grain of salt. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:29, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Thx, I would have assumed the page number to be in the reference, not the text.

I think that a mention of the community having to publish its own journal would be excellent. Do you have a reference that is acceptable? Do you want to open the can of worms about how 'powers' above journal editors have breached contracts to overrule editors of standard physics journals and books about to be published? As you say, if any editor did not want to publish an article, he has a list of reviewers who would be happy to 'kill' the paper.

Can you think of a journal that was started by opponents of any field of interest? (Maybe Nanotechnology?) Where would be the most appropriate place to publish a review? I know that some academics would try to publish in Nature just because it has high 'impact-factor and thus higher KPI points.

Should Die Naturwissenschaften be eliminated from the list of acceptable journals on Wikipedia, just because it now has an editor who is pro CF? If so, would you then say that it is 'OK' prior to that date? Do you think that editor would/should ask you to be a reviewer (assuming that you were qualified)?

Would you consider this to be a valid review article? V. A. Chechin, V. A. Tsarev, M. Rabinowitz, and Y. E. Kim, “Critical Review of Theoretical Models for Anomalous Effects in Deuterated Metals,” International Journal of Theoretical Physics, Vol. 33, No. 3, 1994 Aqm2241 (talk) 06:53, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Cold_fusion#Publications already mentioned having to create their own publications, I added the journal. You should find sources for that can of worms.

Saying CF people have to create their own publications is misleading since it implies that no work in the field can be published in ordinary journals such as Naturwissenschaften. The text you refer to seems to need changing. --Brian Josephson (talk) 16:56, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

No opinion on that paper, I'll let others look at it. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:30, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Enric. Thank you for separating the two groups of journals. However, it might be important to also remove the word "fringe" in the prior sentence, since that is POV, derogatory, and perhaps libelous. Replacing 'fringe' with 'alternative energy' would be safer and more accurate. (Unless you wish to claim Bubble Fusion to be 'fringe', as an example.)

Does anyone know what happened to the reference that goes with the citation ^ a b Labinger 2005 ? Aqm2241 (talk) 18:01, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Enric, Thx for fixing the Labinger 2005 Ref. Aqm2241 (talk) 19:32, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Dilbert

Dilbert's take on cold fusion. Enjoy :-) Guy (Help!) 19:59, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Process, explanation or claim

The lede sentence contains an ambiguous phrase, which may even mislead some leaders. (It certainly misled me.)

• a proposed nuclear fusion process of unknown mechanism offered to explain . . .

What in heck is a proposed process? How can there be a "process of unknown mechanism"? And just what exactly is being explained?

More importantly, is there really a process being "explained" any where in the article? If so, it's so buried in detail that I couldn't find it. (I didn't read every sentence, so if it's there, please indicate the section or better yet post the paragraph I'm supposed to read.)

Editorially, it looks like this article is more about the cold fusion controversy than about any supposedly discovered "process". I daresay the controversy is over whether anyone has ever been able to achieve cold fusion in the laboratory.

So I would like to rename and rewrite this article accordingly. I'd like a long main section about reports by researchers who claimed to have produced cold fusion: what they did, what measurements they took, etc. Followed by efforts of other researchers to reproduce these results.

A shorter section could be about pronouncements from DOE or the patent office along with how the scientific community in general regards the supposed phenomenon. (Note: I came here from Menstrual synchrony, another "supposed phenomenon", thinking about the best way to word the intro to a topic about a phenomenon that the original researcher reported in a scientific journal, although scientists generally are unable to confirm that the phenomenon occurs.) --Uncle Ed (talk) 15:28, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

i don't think any researcher has claimed decisively that they have created cold fusion in a lab. that, from my understanding, remains a hypothesis. what numerous researchers have separately claimed in numerous reports on experimental results are a number of measurements that seem extraordinary given our current understanding of physics. while some ppl have separately put forth theories to explain these measurements, nobody (save perhaps our old friend kirk s.) has claimed that any of these have been undisputably demonstrated by experiment to be the proper explanation for the reported extraordinary results. in short, "cold fusion" is a misnomer. but "unusual results on electrolytic cells of particular metals and deuterides, gas-loading, co-deposition, and other methods involving deutrium in low energy solid state confinement, reported as outside error margins and semi-repeatable and as-yet-unexplained, though some would argue that it is explained and is categorically not fusion, though they won't tell anyone what that supposed explanation is." would be a rather awkward title for an article. Kevin Baas^talk 20:05, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

It would appear you are unaware of the article published by Fleischmann and Pons, "Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion of deuterium" Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, 1989, 261 (2A): 301–308 that made precisely this claim in its own title, and not a few similar articles afterward including "Measurements of gamma-rays from cold fusion" published later that year in Nature. These are not obscure papers, they are rather central to the history of the alleged phenomenon. The degree of certainty expressed by those who claim to have observed this alleged phenomenon seems to have decreased over the years. In short, "cold fusion" was precisely the terminology used by the early (and most notable) proponents.--Noren (talk) 16:43, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

No, I am aware of it. I didn't feel that exception to be notable. It's certainly had its press, but this article is not about them. Kevin Baas^talk 17:36, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Ed Poor, I don't understand what you are proposing. All of the topics you say are important are already discussed in the article. Also, why is "cold fusion controversy" a better title than "cold fusion," which I would say better describes the topic and has the advantage of being concise. Is there a precedent on wikipedia to add the word "controversy" to the titles of controversial articles? Olorinish (talk) 04:14, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

"Unlikelihood of hot fusion"

An anonymous editor thinks that the section title "Unlikelihood of fusion" should be changed to "Unlikelihood of hot fusion." This is not an improvement because the section discusses all fusion, not just hot fusion. If you think otherwise, please discuss it here. Olorinish (talk) 02:26, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

That's laughable. There is no "unlikelihood" of hot fusion, at all; just about every star in the sky, including the Sun, is proof that hot fusion is very likely. Now, if the text associated with that heading has something to do with the likelihood of human-controlled hot fusion, even that would be faulty; the Farnsworth-Hirsch fusor is proof that hot fusion is easy to do and control (and has been controlled by high-school students). Of course, that's not all that people want; we want controlled fusion that generates more energy than it takes to make happen, so that we end up with a useful source of energy -- and there, so far, even hot fusion has failed to meet the desire. Still, given the amounts of money still being invested in hot-fusion research, such as ITER or the National Ignition Facility, there is associated with that a firm conviction that our ability to achieve the goal is much more likely than unlikely. Which basically means that the section heading under discussion should focus on cold fusion, since lots of people have considered it to be unlikely-even-in-theory ever since the notion was publicized by Pons and Fleischmann. It remains possible that all those people could be wrong, since the experiments refuse to stop offering evidence that could be interpreted as involving fusion. Only time will tell. V (talk) 04:57, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I think the title change is meant to focus on the fact that hot fusion is unlikely to occur in a cold fusion cell. And in that respect I agree w/Olorinish. Kevin Baas^talk 14:17, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Might be worth retitling that section; if it's supposed to be an explanation, it kinda fails since it's more about why researchers didn't think cold fusion was happening. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:45, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

What does the section want to tell us ? That the whole effect is unlikely, ie probably not possible ? Or that the effect is difficult to explain with the "normal" understanding of fusion processes ? I would like to mention that it is a fact that the environment plays a very big role in the fusion mechanism and that so far only the fusion mechanisms for plasma environments are thought to be well understood. The institute for solid-state nuclear physics in Berlin, Germany write on their webpage:So far, nuclear reactions have been regarded as isolated processes. Impact from the environment has been seen as negligible or as a trifling disturbance. However, several measurements show that the environmental influence can be significant on radioactive decays as well as on nuclear reactions. The investigations of the members of this institute yield that solid matter can modify the order, scale, and products of nuclear reactions in a massive manner.

So maybe the title of the section already is a bit POV and we should look for an alternative. "unlikelihood of hot fusion" is not the right one though.

Assumed the effect is real, is it fusion or some other nuclear mechanism. Just from the experiments that claim to have seen transmutations or tritium or helium one might say some kind of fusion was happening. Whatever it is, it is not identical with what is know about hot fusion. --POVbrigand (talk) 09:04, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

According to classical physics, there is no fusion in the sun. Our best and most accurate understanding of fusion comes from quantum physics, which by its very nature considers the entire environment. It is simply because the equations for isolated fusion events in a hot plasma are much simpler and the apparatuses have much fewer variables that it became the dominant avenue of investigation. Also noone ever presumed the effect of the environment in such a localized reaction could be all that significant. but the local quantum environment of solid state matter gives us marvelous things that are unheard of in a gas or plasma, such as ion band states, semiconduction, bloch waves, etc. and quantum physics tells you that environment does effect, for instance, radioactive decays. in the quantum view a process and its environment are inseparable - only together do they define a probability distribution of positions and momentums - and for the entire system at once. Kevin Baas^talk 11:41, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

So is there merit in comparing known fusion processes in a hot plasma to anything that happens in another environment that is not a hot plasma. We could turn the meaning of the section around so that it will state: "obviously it is not comparable to fusion in a hot plasma". --POVbrigand (talk) 12:46, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

yeah, some times some arguments are so logically flawed that i can't event tell what people are _trying_ to argue. "it can't be hot fusion." "well duh, we said that already. oh, you were trying to make an argument. i'll wait while you make it. oh, you did? sorry, i must've missed it." in any case i've never been all that satisfied with the section titles. they do not accurately reflect the content of the sections. Kevin Baas^talk 13:21, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

do you have a reference for your line: in the quantum view a process and its environment are inseparable - only together do they define a probability distribution of positions and momentums - and for the entire system at once.. maybe we could add that in connection with why hot fusion is not a valid benchmark for the reported effects. --POVbrigand (talk) 19:53, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

eh no, that was ad-lib. might be in a source somewhere but i don't recall ever reading anything that put that aspect that succinctly and explicitly. it's intrinisic in the equations. and where it not the case, metals wouldn't conduct. Kevin Baas^talk 01:39, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

You'll see in the non-compact forms of the shrodinger equation (Shrodinger_equation#Versions), the expression "V(x)". That "V(x)" represents the electric potential field; aka, the local electro-static environment. For instance, if you want a basic model of how an electron moves about a hydrogen ion (aka proton), you might put in for V(x) a model a parabolic function centered at the origin. This suffices to asymptotically "confine" the electron, and thus the electron experiences an entire harmonic spectrum of oscillations about the origin. Most of these oscillations are out of phase w/each other and cancel out, leaving only the orbitals that we know from experiment to be the electron orbitals of hydrogen, namely, those orbitals that are integer multiples of the bohr radius. and if you solve the equation you'll see that the bohr radius drops right out of it quite naturally. so anyways, there's an example of how the environment is an inextricable part of quantum physics equations and their solution. (and a very historically significant one, at that!) Kevin Baas^talk 14:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I have reworked the explanation section and got rid of this paragraph title. --POVbrigand (talk) 21:02, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

explanation section rework

what is the goal for the Explanation section, what explanations should be discussed ?

• a) the proposed explanations from cold fusion scientists / supporters
• b) the proposed explanations why Fleischmann-Pons were presumed to be wrong.

I think a) and therefore suggest the paragraph below can be deleted or should be shifted way up:

Other research groups initially reporting that they had replicated the Fleischmann and Pons results later reported alternative explanations for their original positive results. A group at Georgia Tech found problems with their neutron detector, and Texas A&M discovered bad wiring in their thermometers.[114] These retractions, combined with negative results from some famous laboratories,[9] led most scientists to conclude that no positive result should be attributed to cold fusion

The Unlikelihood of Fusion section is more or less what was once in 2009 [40] a discussion section, just with a new title.

If I look at the whole article, it isn't well structured, it's quite messy. --POVbrigand (talk) 20:13, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I will split the explanation section into two parts, one about how proponents think cold fusion can be explained. The other about how CF opponents explain why it can't be. Don't micro-revert every little change I make until I'm done --POVbrigand (talk) 19:44, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

OK, the first big part of the rework is done, I hope you like it. I think it is acceptable for now, but not for eternity. I will continue to rework. We need to add some references, I know. If you have a different feeling, let's discuss it here. Thanks --POVbrigand (talk) 21:07, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

flaws

I will go into great lenghts to show how this whole article is full of flaws.

in section conferences it says:

On 22–25 March 2009, the American Chemical Society meeting included a four-day symposium in conjunction with the 20th anniversary of the announcement of cold fusion. Researchers working at the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) reported detection of energetic neutrons using a heavy water electrolysis set-up and a CR-39 detector,[13][75] a result previously published in Die Naturwissenschaften.[76] The authors claim that these neutrons are indicative of nuclear reactions;[77] without quantitative analysis of the number, energy, and timing of the neutrons and exclusion of other potential sources, this interpretation is unlikely to be accepted by the wider scientific community.[76][78]

my observation:

• 1) this should not be under conferences, this is not about conferences it is about a report of experiments.
• 2) spawar published much more before and after this single publication
• 3) the last line is referenced: one article from "new scientist" and one from the "houston chronicle".
• 3.1) The new scientists article has nothing to support the last line.
• 3.2) The houston chronicle contains a quotation from some physicist saying:

But that does not mean the results indicate cold fusion, said Paul Padley, a physicist at Rice University who reviewed Mosier-Boss’ published work. “Fusion could produce the effect they see, but there’s no plausible explanation of how fusion could occur in these conditions,” Padley said. “The whole point of fusion is, you’re bringing things of like charge together. As we all know, like things repel, and you have to overcome that repulsion somehow.” The problem with Mosier-Boss’ work, he said, is that it fails to provide a theoretical rationale to explain how fusion could occur at room temperatures. And in its analysis, the research paper fails to exclude other sources for the production of neutrons. “Nobody in the physics community would believe a discovery without such a quantitative analysis,” he said.

So one single physicist is quoted complaining about that the authors did not provide a theory explaining how the coulomb barrier can be overcome to support the observations.

His complaint is flawed:

• 1) There is no necessity to provide a theory when reporting results from experiments. Experimental physicists are not theoretical physicists.
• 2) The coulomb barrier issue is surely an issue in hot plasma fusion. In a metal lattice the coulomb barrier might be overcome somehow or not play a big role, we don't know, there is no proof one way or the other.
• 3) The statement is outdated, it does not take into account subsequent publications by Spawar scientists.

my proposal:

• 1) the paragraph should move to another place
• 2) the last line without quantitative analysis of the number, energy, and timing of the neutrons and exclusion of other potential sources, this interpretation is unlikely to be accepted by the wider scientific community. should be deleted.

I found this kind of flaws throughout the whole article, it is a pretty bad piece. --POVbrigand (talk) 21:53, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

here, New Scientist article explaining that most scientists won't believe Mossier-Boss' experiments at all. It says that some agencies seemed to be more open to funding these experiments, no idea if the increase of funding ever happened. --Enric Naval (talk) 23:31, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree somewhat with POVbrigand. Paul Padley's (and others'!) failures of imagination is no excuse for ignoring actual evidence. And while POVbrigand is concentrating on the electrolysis-cell experiments, which have had a bad reputation regarding reliably replicable results, Arata's (and others') deuterium-gas compression experiments have, so far as I know, very reliably produced anomalous energy. Which needs to be explained, whether it is fusion or not. (Anyone for "total conversion of mass into energy"? --I didn't think so; Cold Fusion is MUCH more likely than that!) V (talk) 04:32, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

@Enric Naval: regarding the new scientist article that you offer "Cold fusion - hot news again? - 05 May 2007 "

• 1) the article is from 2007, how can an article from 2007 be used as a reference for a statement about a finding from 2009 ?
• 2) the article is not a reference to the paragraph. The references in the paragraph are:
  • [13] American Chemical Society. "'Cold fusion' rebirth? New evidence for existence of controversial energy source". Press release.
  • [75] Mark Anderson (march 2009), "New Cold Fusion Evidence Reignites Hot Debate", IEEE Spectrum
  • [76] Barras, Collin (2009-03-23), "Neutron tracks revive hopes for cold fusion", New Scientist
  • [77] Scientists in possible cold fusion breakthrough, AFP, retrieved 2009-03-24
  • [78] Berger, Eric (2009-03-23), "Navy scientist announces possible cold fusion reactions", Houston Chronicle

The article you provide mentions that: "Some physicists who have seen the initial results of the CR-39 experiments say Mosier-Boss and Szpak must have set up their equipment incompetently, read their data incorrectly, or somehow allowed radioactive detritus to contaminate their cells. Others suggest that anomalous background radiation from an unknown source or even showers of cosmic rays are responsible." - "Objectors also point to the difficulty of reproducing these results." - "The lack of a consistent theory to explain how the claimed fusion reaction might occur is another stumbling block."

I do not see anything in your article that supports "that most scientists won't believe Mossier-Boss' experiments at all". What I see is the same old objections since Fleischmann-Pons are recycled: there is no theory -> the observations must be wrong. Comparable to Huizenga claiming a priori: "Furthermore, if the claimed excess heat exceeds that possible by other conventional processes (chemical, mechanical, etc.), one must conclude that an error has been made in measuring the excess heat." --POVbrigand (talk) 08:24, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Nice cherry-picking, conveniently forgetting to quote all the parts that don't support your argument "(...) Most nuclear physicists don't think so, and dismiss Gordon's pitted piece of plastic as nothing more than the result of a badly conceived experiment. (...) most nuclear physicists since have refused to give the slightest credence to the idea. (...) There is, however, no consensus for how cold fusion might work, and with research groups struggling to reproduce each other's results, most physicists dismiss the few watts of extra energy that emerge from experiments like Mosier-Boss and Szpak's as some kind of aberration. (...) Many outsiders are less impressed. Some physicists [suggest] (...) Others [physicists] suggest (...) It would take independent verification from a number of labs to swing the tide in favour of cold fusion"

This is still the same experiment, published in the same journal. I'll suggest that sources reporting the reaction of mainstream don't become automatically outdated whenever the proponents manage to publish more papers. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:21, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for highlighting, hard to believe, but I missed that. I am not cherry picking, I want to improve the article. Your article is much better to use as reference for that line. Still I think we should not hide that the source is from 2007 whereas more data was produced in 2009 and 2010.

could you also say something about my original observations. The section doesn't belong here. --POVbrigand (talk) 15:08, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

P.D.: The Chronicle article is also skeptic: "If the work by analytical chemist Pamela Mosier-Boss and her colleagues is confirmed, (...) That’s a big if, however." The journalist decided to ask this physicist about the work, and then quoted him without qualifying what he said. The journalist explains more things in his Chronicle blog [41] --Enric Naval (talk) 12:02, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

The Chronicle article is not a valid reference to the line, the new scientist article is a better. The Chronicle blog doesn't add anything. --POVbrigand (talk) 22:20, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

P.D.D.: The Guardian Cold fusion raises its head above the parapet again "The field of cold fusion lost almost all of its funding and is now so tainted by the farce that scientists have been forced to rename it. It is now called "low-energy nuclear reactions"." It doesn't say anywhere that the field is no longer tainted.

The article says nothing negative about the Spawar experiment. The article cannot be used as a reference for the line "without quantitative analysis of the number, energy, and timing of the neutrons and exclusion of other potential sources, this interpretation is unlikely to be accepted by the wider scientific community.". Read my observation and discuss that. --POVbrigand (talk) 22:30, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Blog from Discover magazine A Tentative New Hope for Discredited Cold Fusion "Cold fusion is the dream that won’t die for some nuclear physicists. (...) Work on cold fusion has been relegated to the margins of science since a much-hyped experiment 20 years ago was discredited, but now a new team of researchers says they’ve conducted experiments that should reinstate the field. (...) However, the team didn’t prove conclusively that the neutrons were the product of fusion, and other researchers say the subatomic particles could have been created in some other, unknown nuclear reaction. For now, the debate over cold fusion will continue." --Enric Naval (talk) 12:21, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

You must be joking, you honestly want to prove something by refering to a blog that uses the word should. The replies to the blog are interesting though, have you read all of them. I think reply #6 is very enlightening. --POVbrigand (talk) 22:41, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Sources written after 2009 still talk of CF as a discredited/abandoned/whatever field. In January 2011 there was a flurry of news articles due to the Energy Catalyzer. Times of India "Cold fusion has been a controversial subject ever since two scientists in the US in 1989 demonstrated generation of power through nuclear fusion in an electrolysis apparatus. Though the scientific community across the world berated the theory, research has been going on in many labs." [42]. physorg.com "[Since 1989], all other claims of cold fusion have been illegitimate, and studies have shown that cold fusion is theoretically implausible, causing mainstream science to become highly speculative of the field in general."[43] Voice of Russia "Although the interest in cold fusion started to decay gradually by the end of 1990s, some undisclosed research is still under way somewhere in the world, namely in the US or India, where several research institutes recently recommended for the country’s government to allocate funds for cold fusion experiments."[44] --Enric Naval (talk) 12:32, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

You don't have to prove to me that the mainstream scientists don't believe cold fusion. I conclude that they just stopped listening after the big bang in 1989. I will review all those links to see if we can use anything for improving the article. It might take a bit, but hopefully I will read better this time :-) --POVbrigand (talk) 15:08, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

times of india - we all know that it is controversial. Interesting that the article mentions ongoing research in many labs. Can you sum them up for me ?

physorg.com - "all claims illegitimate" is flat out wrong on many levels. "Studies have shown ... theoretically implausible" what studies ? I would like to review those studies. Judging from these two lines, I fear this piece cannot be used for wikipedia.

Voice of Russia - "several research institutes recommended the country's government to allocate funds for cold fusion experiments" - that sounds very positive, tell me how you want to use it to prove that CF is abandoned ? --POVbrigand (talk) 23:07, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

"I would like to review those studies" and other statements. I think that you want to use your own original research to discard statements made by sources, which is not going to fly. You are not supposed to pit your own conclusions from primary source studies against the conclusions made by secondary sources from those same studies.

the piece from physorg.com is used twice as a reference in the article and I think those uses as reference are ok. However the lines quoted above are very dubious. I hope you'll agree with me that stating that "all claims are illegitimate" when numerous papers describing those claims were accepted and published by peer reviewed journals clearly is wrong. Maybe they were referring to claims from entrepreneurs saying:"I have a working free energy generator". I will gladly agree to that, because so far all the "working machines" have definitely not been proven. If they had working machines I would have bought one myself.

I also doubt that there exist studies that show that it is theoretically implausible. You don't need a study to say that there exist no accepted viable theory. That's why I said show me those studies. They do not exist. It is just wording by some journalist who want to write a juicy piece. Be careful with throwing wikipedia rules around. Original research is when I create a new theory here on wikipedia that doesn't exists outside. Original research rules do not prohibit me to use my brain to assess if a reference is valid for wikipedia or if much better references should be used instead. --POVbrigand (talk) 16:08, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Anyways. The SPAWAR is one, India had the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre but it stopped, one its scientists continued at the National Institute of Advanced Studies [45]. Japan has Yoshiaki Arata and maybe others. In Italiy, I think Frascati, Rossi, and maybe a few more. I think that all research is done by individual scientists with tolerance from the institute directors. I think that the SPAWAR's director got pissed at the harshness of CF detractors and started giving a little funding to Mossier-Boss.

Frascati research center from ENEA (Italy) is not mentioned in the article. I think it should.

I don't think it is about getting tolerated by directors. I think it is all very normally funded, just that there is not too much funding available. I think that the 2004 report even somewhat helped researchers getting funded. --POVbrigand (talk) 18:17, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

India abandoned CF years ago (search "India" in our article, it's sourced to [46], see also http://www.lenr-canr.org/Collections/BARC.htm), those institutes are asking to restart investigation because the government abandoned CF (there might be an inacuraccy there. I don't have a copy in this computer, but I recall that the petition was not made by individual scientists who work in those institutes, not by the institutes themselves in an official capacity). For "Voice of Russia", I tell you the same, the government abandoned CF research, individual scientists kept researching it, and they regurlarly try to get funding from the government. --Enric Naval (talk) 09:19, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

OK, you can read "voice of russia" both ways i guess. I still wouldn't use it if I wanted to prove CF is abandond. Also it cannot be used as a reference for the line: "without quantitative analysis of the number, energy, and timing of the neutrons and exclusion of other potential sources, this interpretation is unlikely to be accepted by the wider scientific community." which was the reason why I started this talk.

I think I will use your newscientist article as a reference for a rewritten line that objects to spawar's findings.

Still I think the paragraph doesn't belong there. Do you also think that ? --POVbrigand (talk) 18:17, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

That paper got so much coverage because it was presented during that conference. The other papers about the same set of experiments barely got any notice or repercussion outside the CF field. You probably want to split the paragraph, one part for the 20th anniversary conference, and another one for the Mossier-Boss. --Enric Naval (talk) 07:07, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I see, on the other hand I think the clarity of the conferences section would benefit if it only sums up the conferences and does not discuss papers presented at those conferences. I would much rather see this paragraph in a section that sums up the main or most interesting research groups and their claimed fiondings. --POVbrigand (talk) 09:42, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Bushnell Interview

I replaced the original Bushnell entry with one that I wrote for Energy Catalyzer. I got full approval for these quotes -- see Talk. But it seems to me that this paragraph could be moved to go AFTER the Rossi section in "ongoing work". Alanf777 (talk) 22:55, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Covers above quote as shown here. No accuracy guaranteed on my part and this isn't a mandate that the text remain intact or be included at all. This article is subject to sanctions and I will have no further involvement. – Adrignola talk 19:42, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Pathological science?

I removed the following sentence because it is not sufficiently supported and because it is, at least partially, original research: "However, the ongoing significant number of publications in the field, including some in regular journals, is inconsistent with such categorisations." The article already has sourced statements supporting the reality of cold fusion, so readers can investigate them and form their own conclusions. Does anyone disagree? Olorinish (talk) 15:03, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

My statement is verifiable

(@Noren particularly, who did a second deletion after I'd added an appropriate ref.) I presumed a certain degree of diligence and intelligence in readers, enough for them (a) to realise that by going to the bibliography I quoted (see earlier version) they could get the statistics for LENR, and then that (b) by studying the literature on pathological science they'd be able to see whether or not the LENR statistics fit. Verifiability is the issue here; there is no need to fill in full details. -- Brian Josephson (talk) FRS, FInstP —Preceding undated comment added 09:55, 12 June 2011 (UTC). It is a pity when editors can't figure out this sort of thing for themselves. --Brian Josephson (talk) 10:11, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

The list you refer to has a lot of things on it that are not publications. It would require a lot of original research to sort out peer-reviewed publications from other things, looking at the first page I see patent applications, a "Check List for LENR Validation Experiments", several powerpoint presentations, several things listing 'LENR-CANR.org' as the location they are published in, etcetera. This is an indiscriminate list, which may have its uses but it is not a scientometric study. For a actual bibliography of the field I would recommend Dieter Britz' work, which is already linked on the page. Note in particular the graph of publications per year on the last page of his statistics summary. While there was a modest uptick in 2008, it was followed by continued decline and the volume of papers is still profoundly below what it was in the early 1990s. The recent trends do not overturn the academic secondary source as published in the journal Scientometrics, and to argue that a minor uptick for a few years as seen in raw data refutes the (far larger) overall downward trend would be original research.--Noren (talk) 15:52, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

You draw erroneous conclusions from the statistics provided by Britz. When there is an exciting new discovery in science it attracts a lot of people to work on it, but after a time things generally settle down, so the steep decline is normal and does not indicate pathology. Your Scientometrics reference could have confirmed your point, were it not for the fact that is is out of date, and in consequence does not take account the recent very significant increase in publication rate (a sustained increase involving a factor of more than 3, with on the order of 20 publications per year the last 3 years for which statistics are available). Because of this recent increase the appropriate comparison is probably with phenomena which were at one time disbelieved, but subsequently came to be accepted as real. While of course I can't speak for Ackermann, I suspect that if asked he would agree with this analysis. --Brian Josephson (talk) 17:25, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Just to be clear, the edit is original research because it [[47]] combines "material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." When cold fusion's reputation improves that respected authorities in nuclear reactions believe it, then this article should definitely be changed to reflect that. Until then, we should be careful to give appropriate weight to claims of cold fusion. Olorinish (talk) 17:58, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree that what I've said above can reasonably be counted as 'original research', but will rewrite the addition appropriately when I have the time -- it is just a question of making clear something that evidently was not quite so clear to the editors concerned. --Brian Josephson (talk) 18:34, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

It's more a question of finding a reliable source that explicitly supports your edit. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:47, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Brian, the simple fact is, the CF "detractors" who edit this article do every single thing they can think of to prevent it from becoming up-to-date. I've been waiting more than 2 years for a secondary reference to appear, regarding the publication in major/Wikipedia-acceptable journals of the pressurized-deuterium experiments, every single one of which, so far as I know, has produced more energy than can be associated with the natural exothermic absorption of hydrogen by palladium. And I have to keep waiting, until such a reference appears, before I can edit this article to mention it. V (talk) 04:43, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I have taken advantage of my university's site licence to see the full paper and, in the cause of informed discussion, it is appropriate to summarise the relevant points. Ackermann begins with the criteria that have been proposed in the literature for pathological science, i.e. science that did not work out. He also assumes that cold fusion and polywater fit this category, and looks at the data to see if they fit. Indeed, publication levels do fall to a low level in both cases over the interval considered, which is 1989-2001 for cold fusion. That is fine as far as it goes, but as I have already noted recent data shows a significant rise. The author's aim was not to prove from the data that CF was pathological (he states explicitly that he is not 'concerned with examining the existence and nature of pathological science, or its applicability to either the Polywater or Cold Nuclear Fusion phenomena', and were he to reconsider that paper today, in the light of current data, he would be forced to conclude that either there are cases where an unaccountable rise occurs (beyond what might be expected by chance, as any statisticians watching will no doubt agree) or, more plausibly, that CF is not a case of pathological science. Indeed, that rise provides a certain degree of support for the alternative of 'knowledge growth'.

My conclusion is that the text as it stands is misleading and in due course I will add an appropriate clarification. --Brian Josephson (talk) 09:52, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

As I said above, you need to find reliable sources that directly support your edit. You might want to check Betterncourt 2009 (already present in the article). It goes up to 2005 and it was published in 2009. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:48, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Is this relevant, and if so in what way? And if it only goes up to 2005 then it misses the recent surge. --Brian Josephson (talk) 14:06, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Anyway, I about to add the comment, citing an existing and I believe more appropriate reference for the relevant information. --Brian Josephson (talk) 16:27, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I might add that some earlier text, The publication in mainstream journals has continued to decline but has not entirely stopped; this has been interpreted variously as the work of aging proponents who refuse to abandon a dying field, or as the normal publication rate in a small field that has found its natural niche is in need of amendment also in view of this recent rise. But I've done enough for today. --Brian Josephson (talk) 16:31, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

People who can't understand my recent edit ... (rest of comment deleted, in response to request, by poster) --Brian Josephson (talk) 09:21, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm shivering in my boots. I understand your reasoning quite well. It violates WP:OR, though. It also is very questionable - you should know how hard it is to make any statistically significant statement with such a small number of datapoints. Not to mention that Britz work, while looking good enough, is self-published. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:01, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Have you actually looked at the plot, may I ask? I'll post it here when I have a moment, so people can decide for themselves whether my comment is really OR or in fact blindingly obvious to anyone who looks. And I'll also ask an expert statistician what she thinks of your assertion regarding the statistics in this case. A single point can be significant unless it is an error, but is it credible that Britz counted 20 odd papers when the number was really only say 10?

And it's a bit of a joke, if I may be permitted to say so, that you are now casting doubt on Britz as a reliable source, as the source you quote to support the 'pathological science' theme actually used Britz's data in his analysis.

For this study then ... the Cold Nuclear Fusion field is defined by the Cold Nuclear Fusion Bibliography (BRITZ, 2004). ... an ongoing work compiled by the German chemist BRITZ (2004).

Interesting, is it not, that Britz is OK when he supports your POV, but when his update suddenly does not you try to discredit it with talk of self-publication. If Ackermann thinks Britz is reliable (and his paper is not self-published), that should be good enough for w'pedia. --Brian Josephson (talk) 09:21, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

--Brian Josephson (talk) 09:21, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

But we are citing Ackerman's conclusions from a secondary source. We are not citing directly the primary data that he used, and we are not making our own interpretations. Even if the primary data indicates that the publications have augmented, you need a secondary source to indicate the significance of the raise. Does it indicate a change of tendency, or is it a statistical bump? --Enric Naval (talk) 09:54, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Here's Britz's plot [48] -- which option does that suggest to you? Do you still think it might be a 'statistical bump'? I've done a quick calculation assuming the Poisson Distribution applies, and this indicates that the probability of that increase over the last 3 years is something like 0.01%. Significant enough for you? A statistician might suggest something more refined but I can't see even a refined calculation getting rid of the significance.

By the way, if you don't like 'interpretation', I can always quote what Britz says directly:

Added in October 2010: a final plot of total number of publications per year. This shows a decay after 1989/90 down to a minimum in 2004-5, and a subsequent rise since then. --Brian Josephson (talk) 17:23, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, we've moved on from the interesting physics question of whether or not cold fusion results are verifiable to whether or not the number of publications about cold fusion has increased significantly enough to still merit this field to be regarded as "pathological science". Count Iblis (talk) 18:25, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Indeed! IMHO the best thing now would be simply to remove the sentence:

The decline of publications in cold fusion has been described as a characteristic of pathological science[68][66] and of "failed information epidemics".[69]

Maybe someone did describe it thus once, on the basis of out of date statistics, but that fact is (given the circumstances) really not very interesting! Let's get rid of that rogue sentence; will you do it? --Brian Josephson (talk) 19:15, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but you don't have a published secondary source of similar quality to the sources used for that sentence. Your statement that the situation had changed is based on a) your own research b) a self-published source. You have already been presented links to the relevant policy (WP:NOR and WP:SYNTH, and I'll add WP:SELFPUBLISH for self-published sources) and you had the issues explained several times to you by several editors, in varying degrees of elaboration.

To go back to the content problem, I guess that a footnote could be crammed in the paragraph, if it can be inserted in a way that doesn't imply a disproving of the sourced conclusions. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:14, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Let's take an extreme case. Suppose a referenced paper contains a clear error (e.g. in arithmetic or algebra), rendering its conclusion invalid. Would it be necessary to find some published statement that there is an error to justify removal of the reference? Would it not be enough just to say as 'reason for edit', when deleting the bit of text citing the erroneous paper, 'eqn. n contains an error'? --Brian Josephson (talk) 15:54, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Talking about hypothetical situations is not productive, and hypothetical questions about the finest point of policies need to be made in the talk page of the relevant policy, on in the talk page of an interested editor. (Seriously, talk pages are for discussing changes to the articles. If we start arguing about the correctness of wikipedia policies, then, we'll get embroiled in a long-winded discussion that will cause no changes to the article. This page is for arguing cold fusion material, not for discussing if wikipedia works correctly.)

So, if you find a specific error in a cold fusion source then post it here. But I refuse to discuss here generic stuff about application of policies. Again, if you want a reply then you need to post in the talk page of the policy.

P.D.: As WP:PRIMARY currently stands, you should find a secondary source that says that the source is wrong. Doing otherwise would open the floodgates of cranks trying to invalidate sources in quantum mechanics, vaccination, homeopathy, etc. It would have to be an extremely blatant error to get away with removing the source. If you think otherwise, then feel free to go to the talk page of the policy. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:29, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Let me get these rules straight then. Are editors of this page not allowed to mention the primary, indeed the sole source of cold fusion data used in Ackermann's analysis of publication rates (referenced in the article in connection with pathological science)? That sounds to me absurd, if it is indeed the case. I should say however that I have no problem with putting the comment in a footnote instead if that works better for you. --Brian Josephson (talk) 08:15, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

WP:PRIMARY "(...) primary sources are permitted if used carefully. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.". And then you have WP:SYNTH, by placing the primary data in certain places, using certain wordings, you are introducing your own conclusions about what the primary data means.

Yes, the data can be crammed in a footnote, but not in a way that makes original research conclusions, or that changes sourced conclusions. I'm going to give a a last try, and see if it some other editor can salvage it, or if it finally gets removed until a secondary paper is released. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:42, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Then possibly something that is directly quoted from the primary source could be acceptable. In that vein, here is the Abstract from the Physics Letters A article that I mentioned earlier in this talk-page section: "A twin system for hydrogen absorption experiments has been constructed to replicate the phenomenon of heat and 4He generation by D2 gas absorption in nano-sized Pd powders reported by Arata and Zhang, and to investigate the underlying physics. For Pd.Zr oxide nano-powders, anomalously large energies of hydrogen isotope absorption, 2.4±0.2 eV/D-atom and 1.8±0.4 eV/H-atom, as well as large loading ratio of D/Pd=1.1±0.0 and H/Pd=1.1±0.3, respectively, were observed in the phase of deuteride/hydride formation. The sample charged with D2 also showed significantly positive output energy in the second phase after the deuteride formation." I need to say that I slightly edited the above phrase "Pd.Zr", because when copying pasting the period came through as "dot operator". If there is an actual "dot operator" symbol that should be used in a Wikipedia page, then the period needs to be edited again. Next, the link reference I used to obtain that Abstract is: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0375960109007877 Finally, I might also mention that while searching for that link, another page was found that might be a useful primary reference for the electrolysis CF experiments ( http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf ) V (talk) 13:39, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

The dot operator can be coded with {{unicode|·}} or you can write <math>\cdot</math> to render $\cdot$ if you prefer.LeadSongDog come howl! 15:41, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

arbitrary section break

Does everyone agree that none of the cited references asserts that decline in publications can be used as a diagnostic for pathological science? (if you don't agree, please specify precise details. As always, OR is ruled out in making your claim; it needs to be specifically stated in the cited reference). --Brian Josephson (talk) 16:25, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Ah, good catch there. According to Ball 2001, the 6th criteria in Langmuir's pathological science is "The ratio of supporters to crtics rises to about fifty-fifty and then declines to virtually zero.", not the number of publications. Bettencourt talks ratio of new authors per year, and also about the creation of a "dense" network of collaboration authors "nuclear cold fusion is a field that never found a solid experimental or conceptual proof of principle, and as such has never become a field

of collaboration and exchange. It shows α =1, manifesting the fact that it is mostly the product of small, disparate, and often incommensurate efforts. Thus densification (α>1) in the aftermath of new conceptual or technical practices seems to be a necessary, but possibly not a sufficient condition (see below) for a successful field to form and progress into the stage of normal science. " implying out of pathological science and into normal science. "All fields with conceptual or experimental frameworks grow and densify (i.e, show α>1), whereas fields in search of breakthroughs do not (α ~ 1), such as cold fusion. (...) Densification of collaboration graphs (increasing number of edges per node) for six fields. All fields with a robust set of shared concepts and techniques show a scaling exponent (α>1). Fields motivated by common goals (cold fusion) or driven primarily by societal needs (H5N1 influenza) do not show significant increase of the number of edges per node as the field grows. (...) The idea is that new fields nucleate around unifying concepts and techniques that allow them to both grow and exist as a community of shared concepts and practices. Because of these shared concepts and practices, collaboration becomes more widespread and leads to the emergence of a giant component in a graph of co-authorship." (this is the stuff that doesn't happen in cold fusion because it lacks those unifying concepts and techniques). Huizenga does talk about positive results. Close talks about positive replications. Simon only mentions supporters. Not sure if other authors relate number of publications with number of supporters in order to call Langmuir's 6th criteria. After all, the more supporters you have the more positive publications you can roll out.

I went again over some sources, and I rewrote that paragraph. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:31, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I hope you realize that some of what you quoted describes a chicken-and-egg situation. Because there are so many folks claiming that CF experiments are invalid, not enough folks are thinking about HOW they might be valid. (That is, if at least one experiment is undeniably replicable, then how does that anomalous energy get produced?) So, without a lot of thinkers tackling that problem, it logically follows that there is a shortage of concepts for the community of CF researchers to share, inviting others to join them at the task of winnowing out the concepts with more experiments. The preceding is a major reason why I've been waiting about two years for some non-primary sources to describe the pressurized-deuterium experiments. Because to the best of my knowledge, those are the experiments that are easily-enough replicable to start the "standard science" (definitely not "pathological"!) snowball growing, of concepts and experiments. V (talk) 05:33, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

outdated label

Read "‘Pathological Science’ is not Scientific Misconduct (nor is it pathological)" by Henry H. Bauer (convenience link) first and then discuss further.

"pathological science" is an outdated label. It is not a precise (let alone scientific) method for classification. Nevertheless, the use of the label "pathological science" label is still popularly used to push a POV.

The 6 Langmuir characteristics "do not provide useful criteria for distinguishing bad science from good science ... many praised pieces of research satisfy one or more of Langmuir’s criteria for pathology." (Henry H. Bauer)

The phrase "pathological science" is currently used 5 times in our WP-article !

• 1) reputation as pathological science - "By late 1989, most scientists considered cold fusion claims dead,[6] and cold fusion subsequently gained a reputation as pathological science.[7]"
• 2) example of pathological science - "Douglas R. O. Morrison, a physicist representing CERN, was the first to call the episode an example of pathological science.[6][38]"
• 3) kind of pathological science - "By this point, however, academic consensus had moved decidedly toward labeling cold fusion as a kind of "pathological science".[7][44]"
• 4) characteristic of pathological science - "The sudden surge of supporters until roughly 50% of scientists support the theory, followed by a decline until there is only a very small number of supporters, has been described as a characteristic of pathological science.[68][notes 3]"
• 5) symptoms of pathological science - "Skeptics call cold fusion explanations ad hoc and lacking rigor,[136][132] and state that they are used simply to disregard the negative experiments—symptoms of pathological science.[137]"

Why would we allow a POV pushing outdated label to be used 5 times ?

1) 2) and 3) are used in connection with describing the history of cold fusion. I personally think that's generally ok. But 3) "a kind of" is not necessary. Two times for describing the history should be sufficient.

4) Langmuir characteristic does not mention publications, it mentions supporters and critics: "The ratio of supporters to critics rises up to somewhere near 50 percent and then falls gradually to oblivion."

First of all, I expect that there are many scientific topics that do not see as many publications now than they did once upon a time. Who tied "number of publications" to "ratio of supporters to critics" ?

In the reports from events of 1989 there is no indication of 50% supporters. David Goodstein use the word "feeding frenzy" to describe the situation, but all the scientists trying replication can hardly be regarded as supporters. And after the APS meeting it was suddenly all over. What is Langmuir's definition of gradual ?

What is Langmuir's definition of oblivion ? 300 scientists ?

Furthermore the paragraph is about publications, there is no merit in mentioning "pathological science" here again.

5) is a reference flaw: Novel scenarios are commented by outdated statements. Also, Widom-Larson or Kim's theory proposal cannot be regarded as "ad hoc". Mentioning "pathological science" here has no merit whatsoever.

--POVbrigand (talk) 14:56, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

I will add one more thing to point 4) After 1990 editors from peer reviewed journals refused to publish further cold fusion papers. How evil it is to misuse a fabricated Langmuir criteria on the fact that almost no papers are published as proof for applying the label "pathological science", while it is evident that papers are denied from getting published. --POVbrigand (talk) 16:16, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

There are multiple reliable sources saying that CF is pathological science and is objectively considered as such. This is the label for CF research. Not fringe science, not pseudoscience, not fraudulent science. Of course it's mentioned several times over the article.

You have removed how the ratio of supporters confirms the label, why skeptics rejects CF explanations and the reaction of the scientific community. Apparently, only because they use a label widely supported by good sources. In the last edit you replace the negative response of the scientific community with a statement that they simply went to work in other topics, something that is not agreement with any source. That's plain not acceptable. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:50, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Even with my edit the label "pathological science" is still used twice in the article. You have not answered to the points above. Explain why you think is it useful to plaster the WP-article with "pathological science". I am not doing WP:OR. I am merely deleting redundancies. --POVbrigand (talk) 16:10, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

That's the label that has been assigned to CF, and this labeling has caused huge problems to CF research, sociologists of science interpreted and still interpret the developments in CF in terms of pathological science, and scientists still view CF in terms of pathological science, and CF has become a classic example of pathological science (literal wording in Bettencourt 2009). Of course it's mentioned at several points in the article.

And no redundancy. In the lead (1) summarizes that the scientific community has applied this label. Then the body (2) mentions the first apparition of the label, (3) the final consolidation of the label, (4) the comparison of publication rations with the label, and (5) the comparison of proponents' behaviour with the behaviour predicted by the label. All always sourced to multiple sources that make a direct comparison with pathological science. It's not the article's fault that sources give so much weight to the interpretation of CF in terms of pathological science.

Oh, and the article still lacks

(6) the reprinting of Langmuir's 1953 talk in the October 1989 issue of Physics Today and, of course

(7) why some people think that the label doesn't apply. I was thinking Goodstein 2004 and Simon 2002 as sources.

(8) why CF researchers can't get rid of the label (because they haven't been able to "rigorously and reproducibly demonstrat[e] effects sufficiently large to exclude the possibility of error (for example, by constructing a working power generator)" sourced to Labinger 2005, other sources might support this).

In summary, it's an ubiquitous label for the field, and making a through article on the field requires going back to it a few times. Not because anyone is interested in making cold fusion look bad, but because sources keep referring to it and using it when explaining the field. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:32, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

As previously mentioned I agree with (1) and (2). And I agree that cold fusion is used as a prominent example of the label and thus it should have a prominent place in the article. (3) to me feels like a repetition, very similar to (1) and I don't like the words "a kind of", either it is or it isn't. (4) cannot stay like this, we must inform the readers who made this claim and how thin the ice is. (5) is a reference fault, the line could go somewhere else and I am fine with it. And generally I think 5 uses across the article doesn't make a good read. I would prefer a concentrated explanation why the label is used that could also include (6), (7) and (8)--POVbrigand (talk) 22:51, 30 July 2011 (UTC)