Is Cold Fusion Finally Being Accepted by Scientists?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/48615362

by andykaufman • 14 years ago

7 10 14 years ago

cnbc.com

tacoboye• 14 years ago

Adobe joke goes here.

Steuard• 14 years ago

No. (That was easy.)

I'll happily take that back if someone can point to mainstream peer-reviewed publications by at least two independent research groups claiming success with the same approach (or even just closely related approaches). But this article just claims there have been "recent LENR demonstrations at reputable institutions such as MIT, the University of Missouri, and the University of Bologna", without any details and without comment on how those supposed demonstrations were received.

What in this article merits any attention at all?

andreaja• 14 years ago

As per Betteridge's Law of Headlines[1], "No" is indeed the correct tl;dr for this article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridges_Law_of_Headlines

lutusp• 14 years ago

Who fact checks these articles?

A quote: "Back in 1989 two of the greatest electrochemists in the world, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, made a remarkable announcement". Pons and Fleischmann never had that reputation before the cold fusion brouhaha, and certainly not afterward, to some extent because of how they mishandled the issue (failing to publish their methods in detail and other problems).

" ... no reputable scientists were willing to risk their reputations by pursuing a science that many considered equal to alchemy." This isn't true -- many qualified people performed experiments sufficient to show that there was no there there. Cold Fusion is a dormant field for an excellent reason, and the tendentious tone of the article -- that it's all a conspiracy against a legitimate field -- contradicts the facts.

"However, following recent LENR [low energy nuclear reactions] demonstrations at reputable institutions such as MIT, the University of Missouri, and the University of Bologna, ..." Demonstrations? No. Heat generation? Yes. Measured neutron flux (an essential component of evidence for cold fusion)? Zero.

How did this article get out of the tinfoil-hat press and into the mainstream press (assuming CNBC has that reputation)?

simonster• 14 years ago

David Goodstein (physics professor at Caltech) wrote this fascinating article in 1994: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/fusion_art.html. I'm not sure the status of cold fusion research hasn't changed much since then.

The major problem of "cold fusion" seems not to be that it the findings aren't reproducible (at this point, they have been reported by several labs), but that they aren't consistently reproducible even with the same apparatus. Without knowing which factors determine whether or not excess heat or neutrons are observed in a cold fusion cell, it's impossible to know whether the observed positive results represent mistakes, methodological errors, or bonafide (albeit intermittent) nuclear fusion.

mchahn• 14 years ago

Every time a headline ends with a question mark, the answer is NO. (Sorry, I can't remember the sourcce for this quote).

googoobaby• 14 years ago

No - note the article isn't actually a CNBC story but is syndicated from some 5th rate website.

shousper• 14 years ago

Hmm, interesting that you guys are all about facts and convey that without a shred of optimism.

Regardless of the source or accuracy of the article, would it not be awesome if the answer was yes?

dandrews• 14 years ago

There was a lot of optimism, 20+ years ago. Read up some. If you have lots of time on your hands, peruse the early sci.physics.fusion archives.

jayfuerstenberg• 14 years ago

This is such a non-article.

The optimist in me would like to see cold fusion demonstrated but this article didn't even elaborate on the work MIT is doing and just cites investments as proof that there is some progress being made on this front.

Is Cold Fusion Finally Being Accepted by Scientists?

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