On Sat, Dec 3, 2011 at 1:42 PM, Mary Yugo <maryyu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Good idea, good article. I disagree. Terrible idea, terrible article. Estimates are that $200 M has been spent on cold fusion research in 22 years. If that's not enough to generate unequivocal evidence of *heat* from nuclear reactions in a small-scale, table-top experiment at ordinary conditions, then the public should not commit funds to the idea as a generic possibility. If researchers have focused ideas about metal hydrides, there are funding programs they can apply to. But to simply allocate a fixed amount of money to a field most scientists think has no merit would bring all the kooks out of the woodwork. It's pretty clear from the past 20 years that negative results will not dissuade believers, so another billion dollars, with another 20 years of the same results, would put us right where we are now. Then what? 10 billion? Evidence for cold fusion has simply not gotten better after 22 years, hundreds of man-years, and $200M, than it was when P&F came forward in 1989, after a few man-years, and a few tens of thousands of dollars. It's not time to redouble efforts; it's time to cut losses.
