On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 4:32 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Joshua Cude <joshua.c...@gmail.com> wrote a message that I happened to > notice: > > >> Cold fusion is a simple experiment, and anyone should be able to follow >> the recipe, even if not from scratch. If the material is tricky, get it >> from someone who claims to be able to make it reproducibly. >> > > This is one of the most incorrect statements I have ever seen in this > forum. > > Every electrochemist I know says this is one of the hardest experiment > they ever attempted. Richard Oriani said it was the hardest he did in his > 50-year career. He is one of the world's top electrochemists. > That's because they can't get it to work. You can't get much more difficult than impossible. But, just because it rarely, if ever, works, doesn't mean the experiment is difficult. What's difficult about it? Mixing up the electrolyte? Connecting them? Turning on the power? Measuring voltage, current or temperature. What is hard? Nothing. The only thing that could be difficult about it is preparing the material. But with all the claims of high reproducibility, the material could be obtained from the experts who make it. Simple. > Every book and every major paper about this subject says the experiment is > very difficult. > > Nonsense. Listen to P&F after their press conference. The repeated over and over how simple it was. That's the whole point of it. That it's simple. If Oriani is right and it is actually more difficult than plasma fusion, then we should abandon it and work on plasma fusion instead. Even if the material prep is difficult, surely until it becomes reproducible enough so that anyone can do it, it will remain a pseudo-science, because the experiment is easy. Anyone can do it, if they have the material. How could anyone contribute to this forum as much as he has, and not > notice that people are discussing the difficulties? > > > Oh, I agree actually producing cold fusion is difficult. It's probably impossible. But the experiment is simple. I have that on the authority of Pons and Fleischmann. That's what makes it so attractive: its simplicity.
