Talk:Cold fusion

The Cold fusion article was the subject of formal mediation from the Mediation Committee in 2008. Please visit its talk page before making significant changes.

Administrator's Noticeboard discussion over JzG's revert to 2004 version

I took this page off my watchlist since it looked like people were working constructively, but recently came back when I saw JzG's rant on AN. JzG appears to have blanked this page, cutting it from the 64k 2008 version to 24k 2004 version, with no consensus or discussion that I can see. He should read through the article carefully and attempt to zero in on things he finds questionable, not revert back 4 years. I suggested that the people working on this article look for recent reviews which have negative results. I'm surprised that there don't seem to be any; is that from a lack of research? Given my past knowledge of how these things work, I would not be surprised if it was. I also suggested moving things around: for example, in the reproducibility section, the DOE panel's conclusion should go before the researchers' claim. I think it might also be better to put the History section below the Evidence and Criticism sections. II | (t - c) 11:50, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

• For values of constructive whihc equates to all the pro-mainstream people having gone, yes. I noticed that too. The 2004 versionw as featured, this version is the subject of a self-congratulatory article by Pcarbonn saying how successful he has been in getting Wikipedia to lead the way in rehabilitating the reputation of this field. It is wrong on so many levels that if I even have to start explaining it to you, you will never understand. Guy (Help!) 13:46, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

You are mistaken: the July 2008 version is the result of many contributors and reviewers, not just me. Pcarbonn (talk) 13:52, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah, but you have declared that you were the one who won the battle for cold fusion!--Noren (talk) 01:26, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

No, he said "with the help of many others..." and his link was to the mediation process. what i think he meant to say is that not a lot of progress was being made on the article for a long time, and the article was pretty bad at that time and there were some obvious improvements that weren't getting made (but not for lack of trying). and ppl weren't accepting mediation for whatever reason so everything was just in a sorry state of affairs. then suddenly everyone accepted mediation and things got done a lot faster and more smoothly -- it's like the disagreement and chaos disappeared -- and mediation finished with a much-improved article -- one that we all agree is much improved. so the battle -- and it was very much a battle before mediation began -- to bring this article up to standard had been won. Pcarbonn played a large roll in this and i think he deserved credit.

In any case, I don't see what that has to do with the validity of the statement "the July 2008 version is the result of many contributors and reviewers, not just me." That truth of that statement pretty much goes without saying. JzG could have leveled the same criticism at me and I'd come back with the same rebuttle and it would be just as valid.

And more importantly: we should be talking about the content, not contributors. (Except when it comes to policy violations or outright obstructive behavior like edit warring, ofcourse.) Kevin Baas^talk 03:25, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

That single out-of context-statement is going to haunt poor Pcarbonn for the rest of his life, I see :P How about we stop trying to read his mind to see what he exactly meant? There's that AGF bussiness and all.... --Enric Naval (talk) 04:29, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry, that statement won't haunt me. I'll stand by it anytime. The recent episode by Guy is the perfect illustration of what I meant. And it's not the first time he did it. The last time he reverted to the FA version, it started a dispute that resulted in the opening of the mediation process. Pcarbonn (talk) 07:15, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

For the record, I have written a timeline of the cold fusion dispute here. Pcarbonn (talk) 07:22, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Interesting that you have nothing in there on my prior contributions... For the record you have not successfully defended cold fusion as non-psuedoscience. It clearly is, based on the cold fusioneers refusal to respond to the literature issues around calorimetry accuracy (not precision please) and He measurement accuracy. It meets several of Langmuir's criteiria for such as well. Kirk shanahan (talk) 15:55, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Lead

"two peer-reviewed literature reviews" is WP:UNDUE big time. On the one hand, paper sin Nature and one of the most heated scientific controversies in my lifetime. On the other, two literature reviews in low-impact journals by interested parties. This is a perfect example of the way this article has been biased by Pcarbonn to reflect the pro-LENR POV, as documented in his self-congratulatory article in New Energy Times. I tis time for all the NET POV-pushers, especially Pcarbonn, to be topic-banned. Guy (Help!) 13:45, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

The article in Nature was published almost 20 years ago. Since then, the researchers have progressed, as acknowledged by the 2004 DOE panel and the reviews published in peer reviewed journals. Please provide recent and reliable sources for your opinion on cold fusion's due weight. Pcarbonn (talk) 13:55, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

From WP:UNDUE : "Keep in mind that in determining proper weight we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors." For scientific topics, reliable sources are peer-reviewed scientific papers. Pcarbonn (talk) 14:00, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Finally, here is what the ArbComm unanimously said about significant alternative to scientific orthodoxies : "Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, a fundamental policy, requires fair representation of significant alternatives to scientific orthodoxy. Significant alternatives, in this case, refers to legitimate scientific disagreement, as opposed to pseudoscience." Pcarbonn (talk) 14:08, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Here is what Nature India said in 2008 : "Cold fusion hot again". And Katharine Sanderson, journalist at Nature, on her blog in 2007: "As Frank Gordon, one of the cold fusion scientists said to me, 'this actually looks like real science' - and he's right. " And you say that there is no scientific controversy ? I would think that you need a pretty good source for that. Pcarbonn (talk) 14:33, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

I agree with JzG that putting those articles in the lead is not appropriate. But the lead should convey that things have changed since Fleischmann and Pons. And the scientific community is paying some attention, as evidenced by the 2007 American Chemical Society (ACS) conference on the topic[1], a similar APS conference, and the ACS's upcoming (or already published?) book on the subject.[2] Here is a 2008 publication from Nature Publishing Group (India division). One of these more accessible articles would be better than mentioning two very low impact journals. We shouldn't imply that matters are settled, but we should note that attention has picked up just in the past few years. II | (t - c) 14:41, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

That would be fine with me. Pcarbonn (talk) 14:52, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Please note that I was not the one to introduce these reviews in the lead. [3] Pcarbonn (talk) 15:27, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Here is my proposal: In view of the accumulating evidence, several scientists have recently called the scientific community to take a second look. . Pcarbonn (talk) 05:43, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Um, advocates have been trying to get the scientific community to "take a second look" ever since the first look failed to pan out twenty years ago. Per WP:BALL, the article and the lead should not say well sure, but there are some really exciting results just around the corner now. - Eldereft (cont.) 07:16, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Have you read this section of the talk page, or the article, Eldereft? The undeniable fact that cold fusion has attracted attention in the past few years should be reflected in the lead, perhaps by noting the ACS of APS conferences devoted to it. I don't particularly like Pcarbonn's sentence because there hasn't been so much a call as much as, at this point, an actual second look at cold fusion. I'm not sure whether it is fair to say that there is accumalating evidence, either. The Osaka University's claimed working CF reactor is a remarkable as well. Perhaps the simplest thing to do is just say that "Cold fusion has attracted renewed attention in the past few years, as evidenced by ACS and APS conferences devoted to analyzing it." II | (t - c) 08:59, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The call for a second look has been made by Srinivasan, member and former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India, and is well sourced in a peer reviewed journal. I'm concerned with OR in ImperfectlyInformed's proposal. Here is another proposal: "Recent cold fusion results have been discussed at APS and ACS conferences, and echoed in scientific publication such as Nature and Science Daily.Pcarbonn (talk) 09:57, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

We should not add the obviously false claim that there existed "ACS and APS conferences devoted to analyzing" CF. There were SESSIONS at conferences, out of hundreds of other sessions, which each resulted because one organizer one of the subdivisions allowed them to use a room at the conference. This is not an endorsement or peer review, it's just letting them use a room. In the case of the ACS meeting, this was the environmental division (not physical or nuclear) and the day allowed them was the last day of the meeting- when most people have already left, and which session organizers hate because no one wants that time slot. Grandiose and false claims that these entire conferences were devoted to cold fusion results have no place in this article.--Noren (talk) 14:19, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

These sessions have a place in the lead of the article because they have gotten notability, as the source I gave show. In particular, the ACS got mentionned in : Nature, Science Daily, Chemical & Engineering News, Chemistry World, Intute and Forskning. Not bad for sessions that everybody is supposedly ignored. Pcarbonn (talk) 14:47, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, looking at all these sources, I can safely propose: "In 2007, the American Chemical Society (ACS) seemed to be warming to cold fusion. ", citing Nature:Cold fusion is back at the American Chemical Society as one of the source. Pcarbonn (talk) 18:21, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, I misinterpreted the conferences. The Osaka University reactor doesn't seem to be reported in a very reliable forum. There are still some interesting things happening post-2004, and I think they're worth mentioning, but I've just got my own opinion. If they're worth anything, they'll receive more attention in the future anyway. So we could just use the current lead, with the last couple sentences cut out, and it shouldn't be a big deal. II | (t - c) 19:45, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) We definitely have to mention something post-2004. Either the literature review articles, or something else. There is plenty of reliable sources showing that the reception is warming up. Something like: "As of 2007, the interest for cold fusion is warming up." Pcarbonn (talk) 20:01, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Please explain why presence of excess helium is not conclusive evidence of cold fusion

I just don't understand what the difficulty is in establishing that we have cold fusion. According to this article, people are saying that cold fusion has not been proved because the quantity of helium produced does not explain the amount of heat produced. What? That is crazy. The production of ANY helium is proof that cold fusion is taking place. It doesnt matter if we measure more heat than can be explained by that fusion, if so, then our heat measurement is wrong or there are other processes producing heat as well, and who cares what they are, there are lots of processes which produce heat. But there is only one process which produces helium from deuterium, and its called fusion. So the definitive factor is the production of helium. Full stop. If deuterium goes in, and helium comes out, then we have fusion. If we have helium coming out, the only way we DONT have fusion, is if the gas stream has been contaminated with helium from an external source, so, do some experiments, and rule out helium contamination, and then you've proved cold fusion. Calories are irrelevant.

This question is actually covered in Cold_fusion#Nuclear_products. Pcarbonn (talk) 12:45, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

On the other hand, there is also this discussion about nuclear transmutations. Changing proportions of isotopes etc. Although not such direct evidence as production of helium, transmutation of heavier elements is also is good evidence of fusion. There is no need to work out the details as to how or why some particular isotopes have been transmuted in such and such proportions. Surely we can just say, hmmm, we've started with a mix of isotopes, we've ended with a different mix of isotopes. Chemical reactions don't do that. And we don't normally see chemical apparatus made of normally stable isotopes spontaneously fissioning into lighter isotopes. There is nothing that is going to make them do that, except for high-energy particles... which must be being produced by fusion. There is nothing else that could do it! So, if you can prove some measurable transmutation is occurring, beyond what you would expect due to background radiation and normal decay, then, you've proved some fusion is occurring. There is no need for the details of what exact fusion reaction is going on, there is no need to calculate exactly how the fusion produces the proportions of transmutation that it does. We can work that out later. All you have to do is prove there is some excess transmutation going on. Thats all.

Finally, I have a gripe re the statement "The average distance is approximately 0.17 nanometers, a distance at which the attractive strong nuclear force cannot overcome the Coulomb repulsion. Deuterium atoms are closer together in D2 gas molecules, which do not exhibit fusion.[87]". Who cares about the AVERAGE distance between deuterium atoms in the lattice? Perhaps if the average distance between deuterium atoms in the lattice was less than in a D2 molecule, then we'd have a micro hydrogen bomb, which we don't want anyway. The question we should ask is, does the lattice somehow encourage the deuterium atoms to get closer together SOMETIMES. The average distance is irrelevant. If for example, some deuterium atoms can be concentrated in parts of the lattice, even by just random drift as they're pushed through the lattice, then, we might find that the increased density of deuterium in that area causes a small percentage of those deuterium atoms to be forced very very close to each other, by the lattice AND the other deuterium, or whatever. Perhaps the fusion of the first unlucky pair of deuterium atoms causes a little pressure wave or a little alpha particle that encourages the next couple to fuse, etc. The point is, deuterium nuclei are at a fixed distance in a D2 molecule. In the lattice, maybe, even if the average distance between deuterium atoms is high, maybe the lattice can encourage some to be forced closer.

Sorry if I'm coming across like a know-it-all who is actually ignorant of all the details. I know I'm ignorant of all the details in the research going into this. I am sure all the points I've raised here have been discussed, explained, etc, elsewhere. I only raise these issues here, because, as a general member of the interested (and reasonably well educated) public, who loves physics... well.. I want the wikipedia to answer these questions, because these are the questions which to me, remain unanswered after reading the article! And I don't have time to read all the research on cold fusion, I want wikipedia to answer my questions :)

I think they're good questions though! So, thanks very much to anyone who can squeeze in some explanations into this wikipedia article! IbleSnover (talk) 09:04, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

There's a flaw in your question, which is in the assumption that the evidence for the production of Helium is solid. As the 2004 DoE review put it, "Contamination of apparatus or samples by air containing ⁴He was cited as one possible cause for false positive results in some measurements." Secondly, the question of energy production is central to be the First Law of Thermodynamics- an experimental result that makes energy disappear would be regarded as even more implausible than a cold fusion claim. Contamination is a better explanation of the results than throwing out the principle of conservation of energy. --Noren (talk) 13:26, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

More precisely, there is a flaw in one of the questions -- and even more precisely, the answer to one of the question is ... Kevin Baas^talk 14:08, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

And in any case he wanted the explanations in the article. And I think that's a good idea. I think that kind of feedback is valuable - to have someoen new read it and when their done tell us where they perceive there to be gaps and what questions they have that remain unanswered. And I think we should do what we can to fill the gaps and answer the questions in the article, wherever it's possible to do so w/out introducing WP:OR. Kevin Baas^talk 14:12, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

They are good questions, and I can see how a reasonable casual reader could be confused. IbleSnover is puzzled by the fact that some scientists claim to observe cold fusion and yet other scientists don't believe them. Dank55 said something similar, which I will paraphrase as "Can't some established scientists visit a lab for a few weeks and settle the issue?" Unfortunately, the magnitudes and "cleanliness" (for lack of a better word) of the data presented are simply not good enough to convince mainstream scientists that cold fusion is really happening. Keep in mind that these measurements are difficult. In other words, mainstream scientists like me simply don't believe that there is any excess helium, especially since atmospheric helium is always an issue.

Since that is the case, what should the wikipedia article look like? It should describe the most impressive experiments and then describe the reaction of mainstream scientists. I say that the current article does a decent job of both. Unfortunately, there are some questions even wikipedia can't answer  :( 209.253.120.158 (talk) 14:28, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

So you're saying the reason "established scientists [can't] visit a lab for a few weeks and settle the issue" is that "mainstream scientists ... simply don't believe that there is any excess helium"? Kevin Baas^talk 15:50, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I've got some excess helium that is produced whenever I eat carbohydrates. I collect my exhaled breath and see that there is far more helium than in the control breath and certainly far above the background. See, there's cold fusion going on in my stomach and the helium escapes. Care to visit me for a few weeks and settle the issue? This is the tenor of most of these claims. What 209 is rightly saying is that people don't waste their time with incredulous pronouncements. Sorry, just because you are in love with cold fusion ideas doesn't mean the rest of humanity is as easily taken in. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:15, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

What SA means is that there are many explanations for those small amounts of hellium, like contaminants on the reaction, filtrations from outside, etc. Generally, scientifics are very scepetic and wary when experiments don't give clear results, the amounts are so near to the error margins, and the results are not replicated consistenly enough. That's because they know how easy it is to make small mistakes that invalidate completely the experiments, like it seems to be the case with most cold fusion experiments, which have this had habit of failing to get replicated reliabily (either the experiment fails, or it gives different amounts of elements than the replicated study). And that's what causes scientifics not to believe cold fusion.

Thanks for the translation.  :-) Kevin Baas^talk 01:30, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

We could get into discussion about controlled environments and closed and open cells and all that, but we've already discussed that at length and I agree (w/below) that it would be unproductive and tangential here. Kevin Baas^talk 01:37, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

You should all realize that the Clarke and Oliver papers in Fusion Sciene and Technology showed that one of the 'experts' in the CF field submitted 4 sample cells to them (for presumed confirmation of CF) that contained primarily air in the gas headspace. That means the CF 'expert' didn't know how to seal his apparati. In turn that means any report of He detection must prove that it is not coming from air inleakage (the conventional explanation offered up from Day 1 of the CF saga). This is done by testing first for nitrogen and then looking for neon as well, as Clarke and Oliver did. No extant CF-claimimg paper does that to date, ergo no He nuclear ash claim is reliable to date.Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:42, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

And now let's go back to suggesting improvements to the article. Anyone knows of a good source that discusses in deep the problems with replications, and how this has caused wariness on scientific acceptance of cold fusion? --Enric Naval (talk) 22:14, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The F-P issues are going to be very hard to live down. Rightly or wrongly, one wrong move in science tends to scare people off a subject for a generation. See John Lykoudis who did not live to see himself vindicated. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:28, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, someone has an idea or source of how to edit the article to explain how the wrong move by fleischmann and pons scared people in that way? --Enric Naval (talk) 22:35, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The book "Bad Science" by Gary Taubes is an excellent book that I recommend to everyone interested in cold fusion. It describes the less-than-admirable behavior of Pons and Fleischmann and their coworkers at the University of Utah, and many of the reproducibility issues. 209.253.120.158 (talk) 23:21, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

If possible, let's use scholar sources written by authors which are accepted as recognized experts on the field. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:57, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

In this case, I think Gary Taubes' book is a very good source for the point being discussed. We're not talking about the experiments, set-ups, evidence, or theories directly. We're talking about the reaction of scientists to a controversy. In this case, the book in question is an excellent secondary source. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:57, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I just saw Gary Taubes. He is an awarded science writer, so he probably qualifies as an expert. SA is right in that this is social stuff and not stuff about the science. One note: his book was published on 1993, so it was covering the span of time with the most negative publicity for cold fusion, from 1989 to 1993. We'll also need a source for how the effect persisted on time from 1994 to 2008. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:49, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone have good references on whether H absorption by Pd is exothermic or endothermic?

I recall being discussed in CF literature but I don't remember where. 209.253.120.158 (talk) 19:42, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I found this for electrolytic cells. (I suspect there are some sign errors in this paper: the reaction is spontaneous, so it must be exothermic, and the enthalpy of formation should be negative). Pcarbonn (talk) 05:59, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I haven't looked at the linked paper yet, but your logic doesn't follow at all. A Gibbs free energy difference is what would drive a reaction, which includes entropic as well as enthalpic terms. In some cases the entropic terms are more important than the enthalpic- a trivial example is the melting of ice, which is quite endothermic and yet occurs spontaneously. When phase changes are involved, as they are in this case, entropy differences can be particularly important. That being said, I would expect that the transition from a gas to a solid would cost entropic energy, so I'm fairly sure that this particular reaction is exothermic. Ignoring some of the types of energy in the system (including entropy) could lead to incorrect conclusions about the net energy balance. Back to the subject, why is a reference specific to enthalpy needed?--Noren (talk) 14:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

On second thought, it's more complicated than that, as some or all of the H₂ will go from an η²-H₂ to a discrete palladium hydride form, so the net entropy is more complicated and I don't think I can say one way or the other on the enthalpy question at the moment.--Noren (talk) 14:45, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

You have to be careful whether the numbers you are looking at refer to the absorption or desorption. Absorption is exothermic, desorption is endothermic. There was some talk as well that that may reverse at the highest loadings obtained in electrochemical Pd loading used in most CF experiments, but that is not a well-established fact.Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:47, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Bias on both sides

I would like to know who decided to call Hubler a "cold fusion proponent" when he was brought in to do the NRL review because he had zero experience with it. Also his 2007 review was moved from "recent developments" to "summary of evidence" even though it presents only one kind of summary evidence -- different palladium loading ratios achieved by diferent research teams -- which is not even mentioned in the article text.

And on the to-do list, I see that Pcarbonn has removed a request to describe net power stated in research results as a "request for original research" in his edit summary. The fact is that we are talking about tiny magnitudes which is the reason the field has a reputation for not producing results. A summary of published research is not original research.

I have attempted to address both problems as well as I can in the space of a few minutes. 75.61.107.45 (talk) 17:24, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

The abstract for that paper does not discuss fusion as a possible mechanism for the "excess heat." I have not read the paper, so I am curious, does he assert that it is plausible that cold fusion is causing the excess heat? Depending on how he phrases his support of the cold fusion model this paper might not belong in the cold fusion article. 209.253.120.158 (talk) 18:48, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I would say that it is relevant regardless because the matter of heat well in excess of what can be achieved by a chemical process in a pallidium cathode of a heavy water electrolysis cell is a very specific circumstance inequivocally and unambiguously associated with cold fusion. And that touches on a correction - we are not talking about tiny magnitudes. It follows that that can't be the reason the field has a reputation for not producing results. That is a matter of reproducability, not magnitude. When it works, it does so by a large margin. If it was a tiny magnitude i'm sure it would have been dismissed as measurement error long ago. Kevin Baas^talk 14:50, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

In fact, the large majority of excess heat claims are in the 'tiny' regime. The cold fusioneers attempt to hide this fact routinely by not discussing the impact of the calibration constant shift (CCS) problem, which has the capacity to explain the vast majority of excess heat claims from a 1-3% shift in calibration constant. 1-3% is tiny. The few remaining claims that exceed what one might expect from the CCS can usually be addressed by other errors specific to that study. Please note that I try to allow for the possibility of an exception to this position, but as of now I am not actually aware of one.Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:17, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I disagree that excess heat "unequivocally and unambiguously" indicates cold fusion. This article is called "cold fusion" and it currently describes the Hubler paper as saying that "cold fusion has been demonstrated." If the Hubler paper says that there are some unexplained heat effects and has little to say about cold fusion, we should change how it is portrayed in the article. Can anyone provide the relevant quotes to sort this out? 209.253.120.158 (talk) 17:18, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Also note that the CCS explanation causes any claim where its potential effect is not addressed to become invalid for conclusion-making. As far as I know, that includes all extant 'excess heat' claims to date. The fact that such as issue was brought to the cold fusioneers attention in 2000 and published in 2002, 2005, and 2006, and is still not addresed in any subsequent pro-CF publications is a clear indication we are dealing with psuedoscience.Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:17, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The statement that cold fusion has been demonstrated comes from the Biberian paper, not from the Hubler paper, so the lead paragraph should indeed be improved. Here is what Hubler says in http://www.newenergytimes.com/Library/2007HublerG-AnomalousEffects.pdf his conclusion]: "It was suggested that evidence for anomalous heat effects is now strong enough to warrant fundamental investigations of this system." and "A selected list of possible experiments was presented that if executed, may help to reveal the underlying mechanism(s) responsible for the excess heat data."

Nevertheless, it should be obvious that this paper is relevant for the article as it talks about nuclear activity in Palladium, and it has references to several paper on cold fusion. Pcarbonn 206.165.32.159 (talk) 22:59, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

'Cold fusion' has not been demonstrated. Uncontrolled apparent excess heat has been reported many times, and is probably real, but is most likely not really in excess. Nuclear ash products have been reported, but analytical methods used to detect those products have been challenged, and no response to those challenges has been made, making it impossible to use those results to claim a nuclear mechanism.Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:17, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

You say, regarding nuclear ash products, "...but analytical methods used to detect those products have been challenged, and no response to those challenges has been made, making it impossible to use those results to claim a nuclear mechanism." I am not aware of any challenges to the analytic methods used to detect nuclear ash products. From what i recall the "analytical methods" used were standard spectrometry (and in some cases more advanced spectrometry methods). And in any case no such challenges are mentioned anywhere in the article. If there are such challenges as you suggest I presume the reader would be as interested to learn about them as I am. Kevin Baas^talk 14:58, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, first to the He claims. As noted in the section "Please explain why...fusion" on this page, 4 samples that were to have 'proved' He was being produced in a cold fusion cell variant were submitted to the world experts Oliver and Clarke for analysis. In all 4 cases significant air inleakage was uncovered, which is where the He was coming from. The CFers who submitted the samples clearly don't know how to keep air out of those apparati, so why should any respectable scientist blindly assume that they can? That is the specific challenge, which is answered by a full disclosure of the full experimental protocol and mass spectral results. They haven't done this. (As noted in the other section, the per-reviewed, published papers can be found in Fusion Science and Technology.) Thus the issue is unresolved and the claims for He detection stand as just claims, not evidence.

Next to the heavy element transmutation claims. These come from two places: a) detection of new elements not found in the starting materials by the same technique, and b) isotopic distribution shifts. The first has been challenged in a couple of ways. First, Scott Little of EarthTech International attempted to replicate the transmutation results obtained from the RIFEX kits sold by James Patterson and George Miley (the kits were a simplified version of the Patterson Power Cell). He did detect anomalous elements, but he went a step further, he tried to track down their source. He took the chart of results produced by Miley showing numerous new elements and computed the probable concentration of those elements in the electrolyte which the cell was exposed to, and he determined that with the exception of a very few, all could have been present in the electrolyte at concentrations beneath the detection level. In other words, the cell was just extracting trace level contaminents from the electrolyte. For the remaining elements, he embarked on a detailed search for sources of contamination in the experimental apparatus, and he found most of them were present as contaminants. Again, the cell was just extracting and concentrating them. Little's report was not published in the literature (even though I tried to convince him to do so), it was just posted to his Web site ( http://www.earthtech.org/experiments/rifex/rifex.pdf ) (similarly, Little has participated in the CR-39 study and concludes most of the pits could easily arise from chemical contamination, see http://www.earthtech.org/experiments/PACA/report.htm ). These are clear challenges to CFers to make an equivalent effort when they see new elements in the experiments. None do so far.

As well, an interesting comment was made on Vortex (see http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg20731.html in "Section 3. Transmutations") about mistaking S for Mo (at least in this case the CFers themselves found it). Finally, one claim has been made by XPS that Pr is found on the experimental apparatus, but it was recognized at the conference where this was presented by at least one attendee that Cu and Pr are almost indistinguishable by XPS, and Cu is a known contaminant of some of the experimental materials (specifically CaO), as well as potentially being deposited by the experimental sample prep method. Unfortunately I can't find the Vortex ref to this comment right now, but the criticism that Cu is mis-identified as Pr still stands, I just wanted to credit the right folks (apologies to them).

With regards to isotope distribution changes, these claims always arise from Secondary Ion Mass Spectromentry (SIMS) results, since only by mass spec can you get isotope distributions. However, those results are being interpreted as far as we can see in a very amatuerish fashion. The researchers note changes in the primary ion distribution and claim shifts. However, what they do not consider (and what must be considered) is that in SIMS you get more than monoatomic ions. You also get di- and even tri-atomic ions. In the CF case, we are talking about M-H, M-D, and maybe M-DH, M-DD, M-HH species. The simple ion intensities at the isotopes of M mass values cannot just be considered as arising from just M. Thus depending on how much H is on the surface, how much M-H is sputtered off in the SIMS experiment, etc., the relative intensities get all messed up. One has to a) check for H and D in the full mass spectrum, and then b) run standards where such things are known (a very difficult thing to do). No CFer has done this to my knowledge (note that this means publishing it or at least posting a full analysis).

So, the point is that the CFers do not provide enough information in their publications to assure the interested and experienced reader that their analytical methodology is sufficient. This requires that any claims to have detected He and/or heavy metal transmutation products must be taken with a grain of salt. By the way, this lack of information is one of the biggest reasons why they have great difficulty in getting these reports published in independently reviewed journals. After you neglect He and heavy metal claims, and excess heat claims, there's not much left to look at. Ergo, my statement: "...but analytical methods used to detect those products have been challenged, and no response to those challenges has been made, making it impossible to use those results to claim a nuclear mechanism." Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:02, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

References

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