The cold fusion horizon • Hacker News Board

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#111

Post by anupshinde » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 3:47 AM UTC

LENR, if possible, will have a much bigger impact on global economy - may even transform the way economies works. Its not just clean energy, but think about the impacts of artificial transmutation.

Also if LENR is possible, it also means that some or all of the biological life possesses this capacity and it could be an undiscovered fundamental natural occurrence.

BUT - all of this sounds too good to be true :( Fundamental discoveries have pretty much slowed down and it is very natural to be skeptical about these.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#112

Post by mrb » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 3:50 AM UTC

I really wish people would stop discarding the idea of nickel-hydrogen cold fusion just because Rossi has a bad reputation. So I am happy when I see cautiously positive articles like this one.

Firstly, those who research this domain are fully aware that cold fusion is impossible according to theoretical physics. But experiments trump theory. And as I have written about it 4 years ago (http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=61) the fact is there are experiments conducted by multiple other groups of researchers that demonstrate anomalous heat being produced by nickel-hydrogen cells. Not only this anomalous heat cannot be explained by current physics but there are clues that nuclear fusion is taking place (some nickel atoms being transformed into copper atoms). Unfortunately the controversy about this entire area of research is amplified by the fact that many of these experiments are very hard to reproduce.

Research has made some progress over the last 4 years, and my opinion has not changed: whatever mechanism is taking place, it seems to be able to unleash fantastic amounts of energy from very little material. We just need more researchers to look at into it and understand it.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#113

Post by emmelaich » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 4:21 AM UTC

ZenoArrow wrote: post #99

paganel wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know almost nothing about cold fusion and theoretical physics in general, but as a guy who has read some Popper and Hume I'll chime in with an obviously subjective opinion, and say that after reading all the HN comments and parts of the article the first thought that came to my mind was this: "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Interestingly enough that exact quote is present in TFA, but in a man…

> "Whatever this guy writes about and whatever he believes in, it is not about science." You say that, but you're ignoring the thrust of his argument. Let's say, for argument's sake, that the results from Rossi's experiment seem somewhat dubious. Easy to dismiss a single flawed experiment, right? However, there have been at least four separate reproductions of the experiment results since then (article mentions repor…

There were many confirmations of N-rays too. "120 other scientists in 300 published articles"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_ray

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#114

Post by justonepost » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 4:23 AM UTC

mizzao wrote: post #4

I understand the argument about the sociological reputation trap, but a little more reading about Rossi's research turns up some very fishy evidence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Catalyzer In particular, the copper supposedly generated by the fusion of hydrogen and nickel has an isotopic composition very similar to that of natural copper, rather than what one would expect from byproducts of nuclear reactions.…

A huge problem is that people think cold fusion is just about the eCat. There's also this thing called Muon catalyzed fusion which was the first type of fusion to be labeled "Cold Fusion". It's a proven phenomenon the DOE provides grants for research into this.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#115

Post by grogers » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 4:32 AM UTC

ZenoArrow wrote: post #81

rdtsc wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yap. This is almost certainly a scam. As long as there are rich people, there will be scam artists selling them "cold fusion", "infinite energy machines", it is fascinating to watch these happen. This also creates an interesting market, just like scam artists look for marks that other scammers have deceived, there is probably someone taking notes which investors are buying into the story. Those people would be good t…

> ""cold fusion", "infinite energy machines"" I don't think it's fair to lump those two together. I think we all accept the energy potential in fusion is there, and it also seems possible that the most efficient way to tap that energy is one we have yet to fully understand. The most efficient method could be found under the 'cold fusion' umbrella, and even if these methods turn out to be a different process than fusi…

Sonofusion was also fraudulent: http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091123/full/news.2009.1103.h...

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#116

Post by aetherson » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 4:42 AM UTC

I don't disbelieve in cold fusion, the EM drive, superluminal anything, solve-all-problems nanotech, or the singularity because of the reputation of scientists.

I disbelieve them because pessimism. They're just such... "wouldn't it be great if" results. Wouldn't it be great if we had cheap, limitless, clean energy? Wouldn't it be great if we were not subject to the tyranny of the rocket equation? Wouldn't it be great if the stars really were in reach? Wouldn't it be great if all material needs were going to be met in the next generation? Wouldn't it be great if we were going to achieve godhead?

It would be great. It's so great that I just don't see it happening. It sounds like a myth people tell themselves.

This is admittedly not a logically coherent dismissal. But you can't derive anything from base principles, and if you have to have a heuristic, I think it's a more useful heuristic than a reputation-based one.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#117

Post by powera » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 4:44 AM UTC

mrb wrote: post #112

I really wish people would stop discarding the idea of nickel-hydrogen cold fusion just because Rossi has a bad reputation. So I am happy when I see cautiously positive articles like this one. Firstly, those who research this domain are fully aware that cold fusion is impossible according to theoretical physics. But experiments trump theory. And as I have written about it 4 years ago ( http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=61 )…

On the other hand, there aren't billions of dollars to be made in a cottage industry from cranks claiming that fusion-like setups cause things to actually get cooler or that some form of reverse-fusion occurs. So if you have enough people looking hard enough and only publishing the best results, you'll definitely get "experiments" which show "anomalous heat". And they will definitely be "hard to reproduce" since they're just noise.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#118

Post by rdtsc » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 4:54 AM UTC

ZenoArrow wrote: post #81

rdtsc wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yap. This is almost certainly a scam. As long as there are rich people, there will be scam artists selling them "cold fusion", "infinite energy machines", it is fascinating to watch these happen. This also creates an interesting market, just like scam artists look for marks that other scammers have deceived, there is probably someone taking notes which investors are buying into the story. Those people would be good t…

> ""cold fusion", "infinite energy machines"" I don't think it's fair to lump those two together. I think we all accept the energy potential in fusion is there, and it also seems possible that the most efficient way to tap that energy is one we have yet to fully understand. The most efficient method could be found under the 'cold fusion' umbrella, and even if these methods turn out to be a different process than fusi…

I lumped them together because those are common area where scammers concentrate on. It is sort of a sweet spot of "sounds sciency" not too hard to grasp. Because the fusion is "cold" don't have to build a Tokamak so just a few millins for some hoses and voltmeters, and other such things sounds plausable.

In general I was talking about scammers in such instances. I think in this particular case this guy is a scammer.

Yes fusion and energy research is a very worthwhile thing to study, but it is very doubtful this is happening with this guy.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#119

Post by murbard2 » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 4:57 AM UTC

aetherson wrote: post #116

I don't disbelieve in cold fusion, the EM drive, superluminal anything, solve-all-problems nanotech, or the singularity because of the reputation of scientists. I disbelieve them because pessimism. They're just such... "wouldn't it be great if" results. Wouldn't it be great if we had cheap, limitless, clean energy? Wouldn't it be great if we were not subject to the tyranny of the rocket equation? Wouldn't it be great…

Wouldn't it be great if we could produce fertilizer out of air? Wouldn't it be great if we could get energy by just digging in the ground? Wouldn't it be great if we could just prevent polio with a simple injection? Wouldn't it be great if we could travel by just flying over the ocean?

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#120

Post by rdtsc » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 5:00 AM UTC

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #109

rdtsc wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yap. This is almost certainly a scam. As long as there are rich people, there will be scam artists selling them "cold fusion", "infinite energy machines", it is fascinating to watch these happen. This also creates an interesting market, just like scam artists look for marks that other scammers have deceived, there is probably someone taking notes which investors are buying into the story. Those people would be good t…

I think it's a bit hasty to classify anything related to "cold fusion" as necessarily a scan and to be avoided at all costs. The science of it is not as outlandish as "infinite energy," there may be something there. But yes it any research needs to be in a credible, serious, peer reviewed manner.

In general it is an interesting subject and worthwhile investigating, but in this particular case it is a scam.

I was just saying that some topics somehow attract scammers more than others. It is easier to sell "we have cold fusion", "or we have batteries with super long life" to a lottery winner than say some nano technology or genetic breakthrough. Everyone thinks they understand energy and batteries.

Now the article talks about the feedback effect of this and that is if anyone tries to do legitimate research in these areas, they will have an upstream battle to fight to be accepted in the mainstream science community, specifically because of all these other charlatans.