I mentioned the 1993 New Scientist article, the
all-time winner for chutzpah. Here is a
self-explanatory letter from Chris Tinsley to the
editor of the New Scientist about the article.
Martin Fleischmann and several others also wrote
to the magazine, but none with such panache. The
magazine did not respond to any of the letters
and it never explained or retracted.
You have to see the two graphs he refers to
understand the letter. They have been reproduced
several times. This is Fig. 9 in the Phys. Lett.
A paper and also Fig. 9 on p. 15 here:
http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf
The first graph shows the heat balance in the
early days of an experiment with bulk Pd. As all
readers here know, there is little or no
detectable excess heat from bulk palladium for
the first few days. The second the boiloff event
a week later. I'll let the New Scientist and
Chris tell the rest of the story . . .
Attached below is the text from the New Scientist and the letter from Chris.
- Jed
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Magazine section: This Week
Frosty reception greets cold fusion figures
New Scientist vol 138 issue 1871 - 01 May 93, page 6
Evidence of Fusion?
The men who told the world four years ago that
they had discovered cold fusion will next week
publish the most detailed account yet of their
experiments. The two chemists, Martin Fleischmann
and Stanley Pons, who now work in the
laboratories of a French company, IMRA Europe,
say the paper shows conclusively that their
test-tube experiments generate energy as intense
as that found in nuclear reactors.
But scientists who have attempted to replicate
their work say the new data show that the
chemists are not generating energy. They say if
the two have discovered anything, it is no more
than a minor chemical phenomenon of no practical use.
Fusion is the process by which the Sun generates
its energy. In March 1989, Fleischmann and Pons
created a sensation by announcing that they had
harnessed fusion in a test tube. Since then,
researchers at the United Kingdom Atomic Energy
Authority, the US Department of Energy and
Japan's National Laboratory for High Energy
Physics have tried and failed to find evidence of
cold fusion. Teams in France, Japan, the US and
Russia continue to claim success, but their work
has not been widely replicated. As a result, most
scientists believe cold fusion does not exist.
The new paper describes how Fleischmann and Pons
measure energy when an electric current is passed
between electrodes of palladium in 'heavy water'
- in which the hydrogen is replaced by the
isotope deuterium. Each deuterium nucleus, or
deuteron, contains a neutron as well as the
normal proton. The paper will resurrect two
arguments: is fusion taking place, and are the
cells really generating more energy than is pumped into them?
In 1989, Fleischmann and Pons suggested that the
large amounts of heat they detected were caused
by deuterons 'fusing' inside the metal
electrodes. But, since then, even experiments
which seem to have succeeded in generating energy
have failed to find evidence of fusion. Not
enough of the products of fusion - neutrons and
tritium nuclei (hydrogen nucleii with two neutrons) - are generated.
'The fusion ashes - neutrons, tritium and so on -
are not there in sufficient amounts,' says
Jean-Pierre Vigier, editor of Physics Letters A,
in which the paper is published. 'It is not fusion.'
The two chemists use a graph to display some of
their findings (see Below). They say the rise in
power generation on the right side of the graph
is evidence of fusion. But David Williams, who
led the UKAEA's experiments, points out that the
power generated by this increase is less than
that produced by the process dominating the left
side, which is due to the absorption of deuterium
ions into the palladium electrodes - a known
chemical process. 'It might be an intriguing
chemical phenomenon, but fusion? No,' he says.
'This paper shows it is a much smaller effect than was at first suggested.'
[SEE Fig. 9 on p.
15: http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf]
Vigier has not allowed Fleischmann and Pons to
use the word 'fusion' in their paper. But even
Fleischmann is now more circumspect about whether
fusion is taking place. 'I do not know,' he says.
'I am very cautious.' He does not rule out some
new form of fusion, but thinks it may only be part of the story.
This explanation makes the case even less
believable, says Douglas Morrison, a physicist at
CERN, the European centre for particle physics
near Geneva, who writes a sceptical newsletter on
cold fusion. 'Originally they claimed one
miracle,' says Morrison. 'Now it is many.'
In the experiment, as current is passed between
the electrodes, the cell gains and loses energy
through four known processes. Electrolysis of
heavy water generates heat; heavy water which
turns to gas uses up energy; some energy is
radiated from the cell into the surroundings; and
energy is both gained and lost through
conduction. By estimating how these processes
should affect the temperature and comparing this
with the measured temperature, Fleischmann and
Pons deduce the excess power being generated by
their experiment. They find extra power of up to
2 watts per cubic centimetre of palladium in the electrodes.
But Williams estimates that this power can be
accounted for by just a small discrepancy in the
measured temperature, or estimates of what it
should be. Fleischman and Pons expect the
temperature to rise by about 40 degreeC. But
Williams says without the extra power the two are
claiming, the temperature rise would be only 1 or
2 degree less - well within the margin of error
for the experiment. 'It is very sensitive to experimental error,' he says.
'It is natural to hope that Fleischman and Pons
are not completely wrong,' says Morrison. 'But
the more careful the experiment, the smaller the
effect which has been found. And the really
careful experiments find absolutely nothing.'
WILLIAM BOWN
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Fax 02-05-1993
Letters to the Editor - New Scientist
0602-254303
127 Wollaton Vale
Nottingham NG8 2PE
2 May 1993
Dear Sir,
You express your concern (comment, 1 May) that
science matters should be accurately reported.
Turning to page 6 of the same issue, I saw with
interest your article on the latest cold fusion
paper from Profs Fleischmann and Pons, which I
was able to compare with the actual paper
(Physics Letters A, Vol 176, 1-12, 3 May
1993), This comparison showed a level of
distortion and innacuracy which astonished me.
Your article refers to excess energy of up to
2W/cm^2. The paper refers to excess energy which
"remains relatively constant at about 20W/cm^2
for the bulk of the experiment, followed by a
rapid rise to about 4kw/cm^2 as the cell boils
dry." Further, even after the cell has boiled
dry, it remains at a temperature of about 100ºC for some hours.
The article shows a diagram based on a graph from
the paper. This shows an aspect of the
calorimetry during the first few hours of the
experiment. The calorimetry of the boiling phase
which occurs some days later is shown in the
paper in an adjoining graph, which you omit. This
graph shows the sudden increase in excess energy
per unit volume which accompanies the start of
the boiling phase. The comments from Dr Williams
on 'small discrepancies in the measured
temperature and, "It is very sensitive to
experimental error," seem to me quite ludicrous in this context.
Having seen his quoted remarks in the French
newspaper LExpress, I am driven to doubt whether
Professor Vigier would consider your report of
his actions or comments to be fair or in context.
As to the question of whether the excess energy
has a nuclear origin, it should be noted that the
paper -- as its title clearly states -- is
concerned solely with the calorimetric aspects of
the work. However, a simple calculation based on
the information in the paper shows that in the
boiling phase alone the excess energy is several
hundred eV/atom of Pd, which is two orders of
magnitude greater than any possible chemical reaction.
These comments are far from exhaustive. Should
you not decide to follow this remarkable travesty
of science reporting with a full and accurate
article on the subject then it will at least be a
matter of record that you are happy to let it stand.
Yours faithfully,
Christopher P Tinsley
