The guys on physics.stackexchange.org are pretty confident in their understanding of things; in this regard they typify the hubris you see among some physicists. Ron Maimon is practically the only highly-rated account holder there to keep an open mind about cold fusion, and although he's brilliant, he's something of a pariah there. His high rating, I suspect some there would say, is due to his appeal to the unwashed and uninformed.
That site is good if you have a question about basic physics (but not *too* basic!). It is not good if you are looking for information about cold fusion. But if my own personal experience is anything to go by, a typical investigation will look something like this -- you check out what is on Wikipedia and immediately see that the page is a battlefield (this is apparent whenever an article takes on multiple personalities, pro and con, all over the place). Then you go to sites like physics.stackexchange.organd see the haughty attitude of some of the respondents. Rather than being effective at persuading one that there is nothing to cold fusion, it only makes one more curious. Eric On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 5:25 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote: Google Alerts alerted me to this: > > > http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/43060/what-are-the-challenges-to-achieving-cold-fusion > > I decided to post a response. This turned out to be a waste of time. This > is yet another site run by anonymous trolls, like Wikipedia and the > Scientific American. The trolls delete anything they disagree with. I wish > these places would self-identify. A message at the top would be handy: > "ANYTHING WE DISAGREE WITH WILL BE ERASED -- THE MANAGEMENT."
