Abd ul-Rahman Lomax found the Encyclopedia Britannica article on fusion:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/421667/nuclear-fusion/259125/Cold-fusion-and-bubble-fusion
This is part of a larger article about fusion, which is pretty good.
It is written by Robert W. Conn, who is apparently the Dean of
Engineering Emeritus U. California at San Diego. Steve Krivit would
probably be pleased to hear fusion defined as:
"Fusion reactions constitute the fundamental energy source of stars,
including the Sun. The evolution of stars can be viewed as a passage
through various stages as thermonuclear reactions and nucleosynthesis
cause compositional changes over long time spans."
Here is the section on cold fusion and bubble fusion, which not so good:
"Cold fusion and bubble fusion
Two disputed fusion experiments merit mention. In 1989 two chemists,
Martin Fleischmann of the University of Utah and Stanley Pons of the
University of Southampton in England, announced that they had
produced fusion reactions at essentially room temperature. Their
system consisted of electrolytic cells containing heavy
water(deuterium oxide, D2O) and palladium rods that absorbed the
deuterium from the heavy water. Efforts to give a theoretical
explanation of the results failed, as did worldwide efforts to
reproduce the claimed cold fusion.
In 2002 Rusi Taleyarkhan and colleagues at Purdue University in
Lafayette, Ind., claimed to have observed a statistically significant
increase in nuclear emissions of products of fusion reactions
(neutrons and tritium) during acoustic cavitation experiments with
chilled deuterated (bombarded with deuterium) acetone. Their
experimental setup was based on the known phenomenon of
sonoluminescence. In sonoluminescence a gas bubble is imploded with
high-pressure sound waves. At the end of the implosion process, and
for a short time afterward, conditions of high density and
temperature are achieved that lead to light emission. By starting
with larger, millimetre-sized cavitations (bubbles) that had been
deuterated in the acetone liquid, the researchers claimed to have
produced densities and temperatures sufficient to induce fusion
reactions just before the bubbles broke up. As with cold fusion, most
attempts to replicate their results have failed."
The last sentence contradicts the first paragraph. Kind of sloppy.
Also factually incorrect.
I guess I would have to say that despite its many faults, the
Wikipedia article is better.
I think what Wikipedia needs most is competition. If something like
Citizendium were to become as popular -- or nearly as popular -- as
Wikipedia, and if the governing philosophy of both remained
distinctly different, that would be good for both. There would be no
point in having two anonymous crowd-sourced reference books, both
governed by free-for-all rules. You want one to be more traditional.
Of course with regard to the search term "cold fusion" Wikipedia does
have competition: Cold Fusion Times, New Energy Times and (far down
the list, alas) LENR-CANR.org (by Google ranking and also Bing.com ranking).
People who look at Wikipedia only are not seriously interested in a subject.
- Jed
