At 03:38 AM 8/15/2012, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Jarold McWilliams <<mailto:oldja...@hotmail.com>oldja...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Will cold fusion finally go mainstream after this ICCF-17?
No.
Well, in some senses, cold fusion is already "mainstream." The
extreme, pseudoskeptical position is dead in the journals. Some
journals still automatically reject papers on the field, but that is
basically meaningless. The last nail was driven in this coffin when
Naturwissenschaften published the Storms review in 2010, the shift
had obviously begun years before. Read carefully, the 2004 U.S. DoE
review shows the bankruptcy of the position that cold fusion is
"pathological science" or "pseudoscience," even though that review
was badly flawed in certain ways.
However, there is, to be sure, a large well of strongly-held myth,
common among the ignorant. There is also such a large well about
other topics, such as evolution. So? We just saw, here, someone
continue to assert that Obama's long form birth certificate was
"obviously" bogus. There was indeed a well of criticism that spurted
strongly when that was released, based on arguments that have been
thoroughly discredited, most were simply blatant errors.
Yet a lot of people still believe in the various myths, such as the
totally preposterous "Professor Fleischmann's findings were never
replicated." You can even find that in some newspaper accounts. So?
All this shows is that some newspaper writers don't research the
topic before writing on it, beyond looking at their own old files,
errors reported years ago.
Celani has done independent testing, right?
Not sure what this means. Are you asking whether Celani has sent his
device to others to be tested? The answer is no, but I think he has
sent some samples of his material to others. I am not sure if they
have tested or report back yet.
There is a lot of confusion over the difference between experimental
work and "demonstrations." Demonstrations rarely prove anything. They
are just an opportunity for people to see the kind of work that is
being done, to meet involved people, etc.
With cold fusion, whenever there is some jiggling about possible
commercial energy production, demonstrations are not satisfying. What
is needed is fully independent replication, and that necessarily
takes time. Lots of time.
However, a truly killer demonstration might be different. Celani is
obviously not ready for that, nor would I encourage him to try to
create it. He's still working on the basic process. Sure. He could
put a lot of effort into making a device with 100 wires in it, and
maybe generate 1.5 kilowatts. And people would still grumble. He's
much better off running lots of individual wire experiments, until
he's found his optimal operating points.
As long as the size is adequate to produce clear measurements above
noise, smaller is actually better.
People who are asking "what is the COP" are not interested in the
science, they are interested in commercial power. Too bad. They may
have to wait. The big issue with CF has *always* been reliability,
and a couple of experiments don't establish reliability. What will
establish it is a series of independent replications, where the
results are *quantitatively* compatible. *Nobody* is there yet; that
is, if they are there, they aren't telling, not in any way that can
be confirmed with clarity.
I'm not very familiar with how science becomes accepted
mainstream, but I do not understand why it is taking so long.
Cold fusion is encountering unprecedented opposition. In the history
of science, no experiment has been so widely replicated yet still
rejected. This is an institutional failure. The scientific method
works. The experiments are definitive. But many scientists have
stopped acting like scientists. They are letting their emotions get
the better of them. This has often happened in the past, but never
to this extent, and never for this long.
Jed is right. There is a lot of history to this. I highly recommend,
as to something that is easily found and read, Beaudette, "Excess
Heat: Why Cold Fusion Research Prevailed." Something very strange
happened in 1989-1990, the basic protocols of science were abandoned.
Normally, an isolated unconfirmed report that implies something is
wrong with common assumptions might be ignored. Once it's replicated,
though, independently, the situation shifts. Even a single
replication can have that effect. Replication failure is *never* a
reason to reject a report, for sometimes replication failure is
simply that: a failure to replicate. It can mean any of many things,
from failure to reproduce the original report's conditions, to there
being a chaotic element in the experiment, to, yes, error or fraud in
the original report.
But the basic finding of Pons and Fleischmann was replicated many
times; Jed has a listing of 153 reports of anomalous heat, published
in peer-reviewed journals. Why was this not accepted?
Note that the number of reports is irrelevant to replication. I've
often seen it said that the Fleischmann-Pons experiment was "simple,"
and therefore replications should have succeeded. This was far, far
from a simple experiment, electrochemists who succeeded in
demonstrating the effect have said it was the most difficult work
they ever did. It *looks* simply to those who don't have real
experience with electrochemistry. And the early failed replications
were based in utterly inadequate knowledge of the original
experimental conditions, they thought it would be enough to just
stick some electrodes in a "jam jar" and connect them to a battery.
Why did the physics community, in general, not take up the implied
challenge? Here is an unexplained phenomenon, amply confirmed
anomalous heat from PdD, not close to noise. And, to boot, correlated
with helium production. (Which makes the "unreliability" irrelevant.)
If this was artifact, this was far more important than N-rays or
polywater. What's the artifact? Or, more to the point, and more
simple, *What the hell is causing this anomalous heat and apparent helium?*
The experiment is a chemistry experiment, but the explanation is
probably going to involve some very difficult quantum field theory.
What are you physicists anyway, a bunch of wimps? .... ahem.....
Read the history if you really want to know. It did happen. It was
not a conspiracy to suppress cold fusion, most of the people involved
who took actions with the effect of suppression -- and there were
such -- didn't believe cold fusion was real, that's part of the whole
issue. Sociologists and other observers have come up with various explanations.
A turf war between chemists and physicists.
A difference between chemists and physicists as to how experiments
are done and interpreted.
A dislike for the possibility that some "knowledge" might be wrong.
(Mostly illusory. To use cold fusion to test existing theory, one
must have a proposed mechanism. Exiting theory does rule out some
mechanisms, perhaps, but can't rule out "unknown nuclear reaction,"
which, it has been so easily forgotton, was what Pons and Fleischmann
actually claimed, not "cold fusion." The NY Times Fleischmann
obituary got this directly wrong. Pons and Fleischmann did not invent
the term "cold fusion" and did not claim that what they found -- the
major anomalous heat -- was the result of fusion. They asked the
question, that's all.)
Attachment, professional and institutional, to funding for hot fusion
research (which really did seem threatened in 1989, and that threat
might arise again if cold fusion is accepted).
Once the error of rejection of experimental evidence in favor of
theory was made, it became institutionalized.
I should add some additional possible causes for the confusion over
cold fusion, in the other direction from what I assert above.
Pons and Fleischmann allowed themselves to be pushed into prematurely
releasing their findings. It was a setup for replication failure.
P&F did not disclose that the experiment was difficult. That allowed
people to think it was simple.
P&F were allegedly secretive about certain aspects of the work. I'm
not so certain about this, apparently they did communicate with some
to help with replication.
P&F were not aware of how critical the exact material was, nor of how
the material apparently prepared itself, under some conditions,
through repeated loading. They did not announce the necessary loading
ratio (if they knew it).
P&F believed that the reaction was a bulk effect, taking place deep
in the lattice, so they believed that helium would be found trapped
in the lattice. When it wasn't, that damaged their credibility.
P&F did not vet their neutron findings with experts. In addition, in
their first paper, much space was devoted to examining the standard
fusion reactions that might produce some neutrons, and it was then
easily overlooked that they pointed out that the reaction producing
neutrons was obviously not the main reaction, that the main reaction
was, from the amount of heat generated, and the low number of
neutrons, an "unknown nuclear reaction."
Even using the word "nuclear" was an error there. "Unknown reaction,
not appearing to be of chemical origin," would have been much safer.
I still think that the finding of Pons and Fleischmann was
spectacular, and I'm glad that Fleischmann was able to see his
vindication in scientific journals, if not in popular opinion among
many physicists. It's been fascinating to me to see the entrenched
pseudoskepticism of so many physicists and others who should know better.
Jed's been dealing with this for many years. People, once they decide
to believe something, can become extraordinarily resistant to change.
Something about needing to have been right, perhaps. Maybe it's scary
to realize that one can make an error like that. Myself, I'm glad to
find I've made an error, because it allows me to move on. But I've
probably got my own bugs.... such as thinking I'm different....
