Talk:Cold fusion

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Only a "few"?

Are you sure that it's only a "few" people who take the position that it's pseudoscience? I've followed this whole thing fairly carefully since its inception (being at the time a semi-hard science-fiction writer who, like my friend Jack Vance and other S.F. writers of my acquaintance, was blown away by the possibilities) and it seems to me that except for a few die-hards, it's long since been pretty much discredited.

But I'll certainly admit that there is a vast difference between being an advocate of a "pseudoscience" and being an advocate of an unpopular position that is somewhat outside the mainstream without being pushed by nuts and fanatics.

So maybe this is just a question of semantics in the CZ article?

My own impression of the article as at least the opening now stands is that there is not enough emphasis on the general rejection of the idea by the mainstream. But I certainly don't want to get into an ideological battle over this....

Cheers! Hayford Peirce 11:28, 14 September 2008 (CDT)

It depends on how you define pseudoscience. I would say this was bad science but not necessarily pseudoscience. Chris Day 14:33, 14 September 2008 (CDT)

That's my own feeling. So that I think it should be rewritten accordingly to say that whereas a few people think it's pseudoscience, most mainstream people simply consider it to be bad science. Hayford Peirce 15:46, 14 September 2008 (CDT)

Let us please not cite "my own feelings" for this sort of thing. Please cite some evidence in support of these claims. It is obvious that many scientists and magazines oppose cold fusion, but on the other hand I have a public opinion poll of scientists in Japan, and I have comments from the DoE panel and from readers at LENR-CANR. Based on this data, I believe that scientists are sharply divided with regard to cold fusion, but there is no overwhelming majority on either side. Based on the Japanese survey and the DoE panel, scientists are about evenly divided.

Let us not put statements into this article which are not supported by objective evidence and sources.

- Jed

Have rewritten the Intro to give a more skeptical view

I'm not an expert in this field, but I remember the initial excitement and the subsequent letdown. The Intro should reflect this actuality.

The more that I reread the initial effort here, the more I see it as a fairly unvarnished point of view that cold fusion actually exists.... Maybe it does -- but almost no reputable scientist believes that it does. Hayford Peirce 15:56, 15 September 2008 (CDT)

please stop trying to push your biased point of view here

Jed, you are relentlessly trying to undo what is a neutral, as well as a more truthful, approach to this subject. You obviously believe that cold fusion exists. Almost no one else in the world does -- and this article should reflect that fact clearly. Please stop your reversions to earlier versions by you -- while they are not exactly dishonest, they are slanting the way the events unfolded in order to present the most positive version of the affair. Hayford Peirce 16:05, 15 September 2008 (CDT)

I disagree. I think that you are biased.

Furthermore, this is not Wikipedia, so you are not allowed to delete my contributions as abruptly as you have done. I shall complain.

- Jed

What is the importance of neutrons?

I just cut the following from the background section to try and rework it here:

Nuclear reactions are normally initiated using neutrons or high-energy elemental particles. The process taking place under these conditions is well known and is the basis for the field called nuclear physics.

Reactions involving neutrons can occur because these particles do not have a charge and can pass through the barrier. However, neutrons are not observed to form under conditions that produce the cold fusion reactions and they are not known to exist as free particles in ordinary materials.

Why are neutrons important, especially the first bit relating to fission? The only relevance to fusion I can see is that plasma fusion gives off neutrons whereas cold fusion does not. Above seems to implicate them as being important for the fusion event. Is that true? And if so, it needs to be rewritten to establish why neutrons are significant. If not, then why are we discussing neutrons with respect to fission and the columb barrier? Chris Day 16:23, 15 September 2008 (CDT)

I suggest we include the section you deleted, as follows:

Reactions involving neutrons can occur because these particles do not have a charge and can pass through the barrier. However, neutrons are not observed to form under conditions that produce the cold fusion reactions and they are not known to exist as free particles in ordinary materials.

The established theory is that nuclear fusion reactions cannot be initiated without the input of significant energy because the charge barrier between nuclei, called the Coulomb barrier, cannot be overcome any other way. Cold fusion generated widespread publicity since it seemed defy these theoretical considerations and represented a potentially cheap and clean source of energy.

Please do not delete it again without a discussion and careful consideration. As I said, this is not Wikipedia. You don't just clobber paragraphs here. You modify them carefully.

Neutrons are important they are neutral, and if there were large numbers of free neutrons or other neutral particles such muons, there would be no argument about cold fusion. But there are not. That's a key reason why cold fusion is so surprising and controversial.

The other reason is that high energy input is not needed, but if you had muons or free neutrons, you would not need it.

This may seem obvious to a scientist but it is not obvious to the general reader.

- Jed