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The cold fusion horizon

aeon.co

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Re: The cold fusion horizon

#141

Post by ZenoArrow »

emmelaich wrote: post #113
ZenoArrow wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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

That's one possible outcome, but we can't be sure until more research is done. A growing body of evidence of new phenomena should be examined scientifically, even if it turns out there's nothing new at all.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#142

Post by skrebbel »

marshray wrote: post #53
ChuckMcM wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A reasonable guess, the only counter factual is that a number of people who are not fools seem to have convinced themselves that there is something there but they don't know what. And as the article points out there are a number of labs around the world that have independently seen results that were anomalous with respect to the current understanding of how things should work chemically. So if nothing else there is a…

It's very common for people who are totally not fools to get sucked into free energy scams. This is one of the better ones being demonstrated at the technical univeristy of Delft I believe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHW6b1aFPfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKCEceWs-Gc

nice. how did it play out? has it been debunked?

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#143

Post by igravious »

pdonis wrote: post #123
XorNot wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cold fusion IS theoretically impossible, that's the point. Nuclear theory very much says that cold fusion doesn't work. Which means the experiments have to work because no one has a workable theory which predicts cold fusion.

> Cold fusion IS theoretically impossible I think that's a bit strong. Nuclear theory does not say the energy isn't there (as the subject article of this comment thread points out). It also does not say it is impossible for the potential barrier between the nuclei (which is what makes it necessary to have high temperatures for conventional fusion to work) to be lowered somehow; someone upthread posted a reference to…

It's not a bit strong.

You refute your own refutation. You use the words 'somehow', 'if', and 'currently'. That's kind of the whole point. _Currently_ there is no theory that explains how to do fusion without massive amounts of heat, ergo cold fusion IS (currently) theoretically impossible.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#144

Post by ZenoArrow »

igravious wrote: post #143
pdonis wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cold fusion IS theoretically impossible I think that's a bit strong. Nuclear theory does not say the energy isn't there (as the subject article of this comment thread points out). It also does not say it is impossible for the potential barrier between the nuclei (which is what makes it necessary to have high temperatures for conventional fusion to work) to be lowered somehow; someone upthread posted a reference to…

It's not a bit strong. You refute your own refutation. You use the words 'somehow', 'if', and 'currently'. That's kind of the whole point. _Currently_ there is no theory that explains how to do fusion without massive amounts of heat, ergo cold fusion IS (currently) theoretically impossible.

> "_Currently_ there is no theory that explains how to do fusion without massive amounts of heat, ergo cold fusion IS (currently) theoretically impossible."

http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2011/11/25/cold-fusi...

"Unfortunately, their results were hugely flawed, and their experiments were not reproducible, and cold fusion is now synonymous with ideas like perpetual motion machines: very appealing promises of virtually limitless energy, but that are unfortunately physically impossible."

"Now, that’s not necessarily fair. While perpetual motion machines would violate known physical phenomena — like the conservation of energy — cold fusion is, in principle possible. If we go back to the Sun, where nuclear fusion definitely occurs, it isn’t like the temperatures there are sufficient to cause the individual nuclei to overcome their mutual electric repulsion and fuse together. Instead, something else remarkable happens to the two nuclei that are about to fuse."

"Remember that instead of being solid particles, these nuclei are quantum mechanical objects, meaning they act both as particles and waves. The quantum mechanical wavefunctions of these nuclei — in the Sun, at any rate — wind up overlapping, so that there’s a small but finite (and important) probability that two of them will find themselves in a more energetically favorable state! When that happens, they can tunnel into that energetically favorable state, and fusion can occur!"

"Now, this has never been observed at cold temperatures, but from a theoretical physics standpoint, it may be possible."

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#145

Post by simonh »

snowwrestler wrote: post #20
simonh wrote: post #14

He says that failing to recreate Fleischmann and Pons' findings isn't enough reason to doubt their claims because recreating results is tricky, and implies that therefore we have no actual reason to doubt that they achieved cold fusion. But we do. Not only did their apparatus, according to their own measurements, not produce any of the radiation that would be an unavoidable byproduct of fusion, but the core also didn…

I don't think the point of this piece is to claim Fleischmann and Pons actually succeeded. I think the point is that there is a difference between the failure of a particular experiment, and proving that all experiments in cold fusion will fail. Fleischmann and Pons was certainly not the only science experiment to produce a false positive in 1989, but it was a huge, public failure, in a research area that is filled w…

I don't think many people are saying it's impossible. I'm not. But given the history I think its reasonable, before treating any claims in this area as credible, to either want a clear theoretical basis for a given experiment or unambiguous details on how to repeat a compelling result. In the absence of either or preferably both of those, all we are dealing with is uncorroborated and unverifiable claims which we have no reason to take seriously.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#146

Post by qubex »

vinceguidry wrote: post #54
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.…

> It also doesn't help that Rossi has been convicted of fraud for purportedly inventing dubious devices in the past. In particular, he "created" a system for turning toxic waste into oil, but this turned out to be just dumping the waste into the environment. I feel like if someone has done this once, anyone taking them seriously again, deserves to lose their shirt. What, he suddenly reformed and is now doing real sci…

As an Italian, I have to say that being convicted or found innocent of anything in the local legal system doesn't really indicate much.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#147

Post by qubex »

XorNot wrote: post #107
ZenoArrow wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "becoming a bit of a laughing stock when it turned out to be rubbish" The important thing here is to separate the idea from the implementation. Is cold fusion theoretically impossible? I'm no expert, but there seems to be at least some scientists indicating it's not impossible. If that's the case, why does the failure of the first experiment matter? It's sad that the scientific community is partly based on reputati…

Cold fusion IS theoretically impossible, that's the point. Nuclear theory very much says that cold fusion doesn't work. Which means the experiments have to work because no one has a workable theory which predicts cold fusion.

I don't think “nuclear theory” explicitly “rules it out”. There's certainly no result that leaps off the page and states that it most certainly is or is not possible. But there's a very clear threshold of Coulomb repulsion that would need to be overcome in order for this to work, and absolutely no trace of any phenomenon so-far calculated or measured that might allow it to be overcome at room temperature. So it is... shall we say “inherently incompatible with theory and what we know impinges upon those theories”?

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#148

Post by PepeGomez »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #34
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.…

And that is, what I think is Rossi's biggest problem. Very showy, very secretive. The explanation I've heard is that he has something which works (for some definition of works) but doesn't know how it works or why. And because of that he is walking around afraid that if too many details get out about how it works then someone smarter then him will jump in and patent/publish the why and then be forever known as the pe…

>But elephant in the room is that if you can produce a MW of usable energy out of this thing then why not run it 24/7 and generate your quarter million a year in revenue

I guess the fundamental problem could be that while it does produce excess heat, it doesn't produce more than a heat pump would, so you can't actually use it for anything useful.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#149

Post by murbard2 »

aetherson wrote: post #122
murbard2 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Sure. It's a heuristic, not a logical proof. And, I mean, we can't get energy just by digging in the ground. We didn't just poof, start flying over the ocean. We don't produce fertilizer just poof out of the air. Also: we knew before the Wright brothers that heavier-than-air flight was possible (birds). We didn't go from nothing to oil-fired modern powerplants in one step. If someone had claimed to generate electrici…

We know from biology that nanoscale factories are feasible, we know from human intelligence that AI is feasible, we know from Newtonian mechanics that space elevators are feasible, we know from stars that fusion is feasible.

Re: The cold fusion horizon

#150

Post by murbard2 »

yongjik wrote: post #124
murbard2 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

To take one example, nitrogen was discovered in 1772. Haber process (which converts nitrogen gas to ammonia) was discovered in 1909, and was successfully industrialized in 1913.[1] In other words, when Haber process was discovered, the question was NOT "wouldn't it be great if we could produce fertilizer out of air?". The question was, "We know the air is full of substance that makes fertilizer. How can we make that…

>Honestly, I can't think of any important scientific discovery that was accompanied by "This is great! Think what it could do for civilization!"

Radioactivity.

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