At 01:16 PM 12/29/2012, James Bowery wrote:
From the preamble to the DoE's 1989 cold fusion review.
"Ordinarily, new scientific discoveries are claimed to be consistent
and reproducible; as a result, if the experiments are not
complicated, the discovery can usually be confirmed or disproved in
a few months. The claims of cold fusion, however, are unusual in
that even the strongest proponents of cold fusion assert that the
experiments, for unknown reasons, are not consistent and
reproducible at the present time. However, even a single short but
valid cold fusion period would be revolutionary."
The theory tested was the standard interpretation of physics which
states that it should be impossible for nuclear reactions to occur
in systems such as those created by P&F. This interpretation is
testable. It was tested. It was falsified.
Dr. Norman Ramsey was co-chair of the DoE's cold fusion review
panel. He was was the only person on the the 1989 Department of
Energy cold fusion review panel to voice a dissenting opinion. He
was also the only Nobel laureate.
Ramsey insisted on the inclusion of this preamble to the DoE panel's
report as an alternative to his resignation from the panel.
As Jed points out, the ERAB Panel was likely convened as a "cold
fusion killer." When Pons and Fleischmann announced, all hell broke
loose. Huge sums were being invested, routinely, in hot fusion
research (and buckets of cash are still being poured down that
rathole). The administration wanted the issue resolved, and they
wanted it resolved *fast*. So they formed the panel, and gave it an
*impossible* task, to review the claims and judge them, before normal
scientific process had a chance to catch up.
Pons and Fleischmann had been working for five years in secrecy. And
they still had a process that often failed to show anything. To come
up with a judgment of the entire field within a short time was
utterly impossible.
The "unknown reasons" mentioned became known within a few years, the
conditions associated with heat were *largely* identified, such that
it can confidently be stated, now, exactly why the famous early
replications failed. They were doomed to failure, and that was
largely due to haste. The DoE had shifted discretionary funding into
a crash confirmation program, not well-planned and inadequately executed.
But if Jed is right and the purpose was to kill cold fusion, it
worked quite well. They could say, "We tried, but nobody could
replicate it." In fact, before they finished their report,
replications started to come in, but ... Jed is right, those were
ignored. Miles had reported negative results at first, and they cited
Miles. Then Miles started seeing positive results, and phoned the
Panel. They did not return his phone call.
This is all history, and there are a number of excellent books about
it. Beaudette, "Excess Heat, Why Cold Fusion Prevailed," is probably
the best, but there is also Simon, "Undead Science." Simon is a
sociologist of science who studied the history of cold fusion.
In fact, as of a few years ago, there were 153 reports of excess heat
in these experiments, published in peer-reviewed journals. While in
1989-1990, negative reports outnumbered positive ones, the balance
shifted, as I recall, positive reports -- as judged by the skeptical
electrochemist, Dieter Britz, outnumbered negative ones. The extreme
skeptical position disappeared from the journals sometime around the
2004 DoE report -- that almost tipped toward cold fusion. Storms'
paper, "Status of cold fusion (2010)" (Naturwissenschaften)
represents a milestone. NW is Springer-Verlag's "flagship
multidisciplinary journal." It's been publishing for about a century.
Einstein was published in it. And the article wasn't titled "Status
of LENR." Storms came right out and called it "Cold fusion."
Because it's fusion, get over it
Practical? That is *entirely* a different question. Maybe. Probably,
even, but do not hold your breath.
