Talk:Huemul Project

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[edit] Antidemocratic Behavior

It is clear that Richter's supporters are not democratic people. They do not understand Wikipedia philosophy and have closed minds. Now they erase also our discussions! This only demonstrate that Richter's "success" exists only within their minds and that they want, by pressure and force, to convince others. I have copied the last version before the erasing.

Good! Now erase this page and do your last antidemocratic act.

[edit] A self-evaluating system

Actions such as

  • (a) anonymously deleting rather than accepting the posted comments, and
  • (b) refusing the opportunity for an open dialog offered in this talk page

will naturally reflect on the public evaluation of Richter's ideas and achievements and on the methods used to record them in the history of science.

[edit] Neutrality violated

I concur that this page is ridculously unclear and biased. Someone qualified should address the inadequacies... February 5th, 2006


This article is full of opinionated and critical phrasing. I am not familiar enough with the subject to edit it myself. --DV8 2XL 16:15, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


I fully agree that the article took a non-neutral and biased point of view. I'm upset of that. More than that, is losing a logical chronology and became confusing. I would suggest that the article should be rewritten from scratch trying to tell just facts related to the Huemul project only and giving an extensive list of links and references.

[edit] Atucha II

I think that the sentence relative to the Atucha II Nuclear plant should be erased. It has nothing to be with the article. It affects the credibility of the whole text. I also don't understand why the text about the work of the comissions was removed. It showed that some mechanism of scientific reviewing were used by Peron's Government.

[edit] Commission

Please, include that material again. Jclerman 01:44, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Non Objective article

I think this article is not Objective and MUST be deleted ASAP.

[edit] Richter's work

The kind of non-neutral POV I found in this article is unacceptable. Say what you will, but you simply cannot rant in favour of Richter and against everybody else without proof, and certainly not in that tone regardless of evidence. Two independent commisions declared his work wrong. That should be enough. Oh, and for the record, Wikipedia is not a democracy. You need to present credible evidence from reputable sources, maintain an encyclopedic tone, and gather consensus from other editors. I've commented out the questionable text just for the sake of discussion, although it clearly should be deleted completely if it stays in its current form. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 18:41, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, 200.45.6.15 (talk • contribs). If you don't want to discuss, fine, but you won't get biased and irrelevant content into the article. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 19:22, 6 February 2006 (UTC)


Pablo, just a clarification note: I used the word Democracy in the sense of your sentence "gather consensus from other editors". Guigue 21:05 UTC, 6 Feb 2006.

[edit] Fixes

I didn't want to unblock the article to copy edit it, so I created Huemul Project/Work. Plase, revise it, so we can move it to the article ASAP. Mariano(t/c) 14:35, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recent additions

I work in the Instituto Balseiro and therefore I am personally interested in the contents of this article. I have recently added some information, and hopefully made it more accurate. Further comments are welcome.

Luzu 22:21, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please read this before editing the article

Recent vandalism in this article has been unstoppable, please discuss changes here before editing the article. All edits with no consensus will be considered vandalism and removed without any advise. Thanks. --OneEuropeanHeart 22:17, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I have protected the page in response to a request and after viewing the recent activity. The editors of the page need to find a long term solution to the problem as semi-protection is only a temporary fix. Discuss and seek some compromise or other solution such as rfc. Vsmith 00:10, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

There was no "vandalism" involved at all. This seems to be an edit war between two POVs. The semi-protection policy explicitly states:

*Is not to be used to dispel edit warring or revert wars. See the protection policy for how to deal with this.

I will remove the semiprotection. Please deal with this in other ways. Zocky | picture popups 06:37, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

One of the POVs is clearly based on attacking an institution, and the responsible is one editor under several IP addresses who ignores warning messages. I think the page should be fully protected, but I'd like Zocky and all other outside parties (i. e. people not involved in the recent wave of edits and reverts) to understand the problem. See also the history of Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica and other related articles. I won't protect the page by myself right now since I feel I'm involved in this, so I request Zocky or any other watching admin to consider that measure. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 18:46, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Personal attacks indeed

I have removed the latest additions of 200.82.18.43 (talk • contribs) to this page. I will remind everyone that accusing others of violating Wikipedia policies without proof is in itself a personal attack. Insulting someone while hiding behind an anonymous IP is a grave offence, so nobody should accuse another user of doing it without proof. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 22:03, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Reverted attacks by vandal using IP 200.45.6.172. Also blocked that IP for blatant personal attacks. Yes, he'll just switch to another and be back - ah well ... Vsmith 03:05, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Irrelevant material about CNEA etc.

I have commented out (not removed) the material related to the history of the CNEA and its offshoots, nuclear plants in Argentina, costs of nuclear energy, etc. They are irrelevant in this article and interrupt its flow. Someone should integrate the good parts of it into other articles (I don't have enough background to do that). --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 20:20, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reverted back to more informative version

It's all about the generation of energy from nuclear reactions in Argentina. CNEA stuff is very relevant. 200.82.18.124 14:31, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reverted back to more informative version by 200.82.18.124 again

CNEA's stuff is very relevant. And it is a NPOV, of course. 200.43.201.251 14:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reverted back to more informative version by Vsmith

200.45.6.252 20:16, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page protection

I have protected this page again, in order to stop vandalism from IPs in the ranges 200.45.6.*, 200.82.18.* and 200.43.201.*. If you're an admin seeing this and you're thinking this is not a valid protection, please carefully check the history of this article and see how one person using multiple IPs consistently adds controversial content, gets reverted, refuses to discuss the changes, and then goes back at it unrepentantly. Established editors of this page are tired of constantly reverting this vandalism. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 13:34, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

The person vandalizing this article employs IPs in some of the ranges indicated by the following query: <http://lacnic.net/cgi-bin/lacnic/whois?lg=SP&query=AR-MIDA2-LACNIC>. Edits from any of those IP blocks following the vandalic pattern evidenced in Huemul Project and others (Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica, Instituto Balseiro, Ronald Richter, etc.) should be considered the work of only one person. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 02:10, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Just for the record

The three sections titled "reverted back" etc. are authored by the same person using different IPs. This is the same person that has been vandalizing this article and others related to it, inserting irrelevant comments, as well as attacks on certain people and institutions, repeatedly and without regard for Wikipedia policies or even common courtesy in discussion. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 14:18, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

That's is just your POV that is also highly biased in favor of CNEA. The proof: you erased relevant material even in the discussion page and broke every rule you stated. 200.45.6.243 14:27, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
History of the CNEA doesn't belong in this article. I erased the discussion from here by mistake (I must've gotten confused while rolling back a bunch of your other instances of vandalism) but it was restored and I left it at that. I have no bias for or against CNEA, but I do recognize a bias when I see it. You are a vandal who hides under dozens of dynamic IPs and refuses to discuss civilly or coherently. You simply have no moral authority to claim that rules have been broken (which they haven't). Several pages have had to be protected due to your constant vandalism. Please, either grow up or shut up. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 15:27, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with Pablo-flores. He degraded article's content. He uses administrative privileges to block pages because he can't contribute to them (see page's history). He says that history of CNEA doesn't belong to this article, but the real history is that CNEA was created due to the Huemul Project (Richter was a member) with the aim to generate nuclear energy. Meaningful and verifiable information and very reliable references were erased (not reorganized). He accept to have made mistakes but still he believes to be the ultimate authority to state who is a vandal and who is not. Another mistake? 200.43.201.152 16:17, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you should contemplate the possibility of you being wrong. Pablo is one of our finest contributors, and I'm sure he has no connection with the CNEA, nor is he trying to bias the information in favour of that institution. You have repetitively included controversial information that could not be verified, and hide behind an anonymous connection. Please, understand that information about the CNEA is not directly related to this article, and therefore might be removed if it doesn't serve an explanatory purpose. What's more, the blocks you mention are precisely aimed against such anonymous users, and not to former registrated users. I can understand that you think it's imperative to include a certain piece of information, but unluckily we cannot have every anonymous and unconfirmed piece of information in the Wikipedia.I hope you can understand. Mariano(t/c) 17:38, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with 200.43.201.152. 200.45.6.72 00:58, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't like sock puppets. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 02:13, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

The reader should note that Pablo-flores keep insulting contributors because he lacks solid arguments for the discussion. He says that some pages were vandalized even after that others warned him that this is not the case (See Wikipedia article about vandalism). He degraded systematically the quality of this article erasing relevant and trustable information that is part of the same story (the generation of nuclear energy in Argentina and how much Argentina spent after it), and erased qualified specialized published references authored by experts in the field. 200.45.150.180 14:31, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

  1. Calling someone a sock puppet is not an insult, or even inappropriate, when the evidence is so clear. You and all the other IPs are clearly one person; your history of POV additions and reverts show it. Now, impersonating as a different user to support one's own position in a discussion is not allowed and could lead to a permanent ban (see the relevant policy at WP:SOCK).
  2. If my edits have degraded the article, how come none of the other editors have argued against them? There are quite a few watching over this article, including at least one other admin, thanks in part to the attention attracted by the constant vandalism.
  3. This article is about the Huemul Project, not the whole history of nuclear energy in Argentina, and not about the faults of Balseiro or CNEA. Those articles are in turn semi-protected; they can be edited by established, registered editors at any time.
  4. Anyone who desires to contribute to this article can request unprotection of the page. In any case, this talk page is not protected and can be used for discussion of any changes by all editors.

If something has to be changed and it is agreed by consensus here, I will lift the protection. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 15:51, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Calling someone stupid is not an insult, or even inappropriate, when the evidence is so clear. Certainly you are. 200.45.150.180 16:17, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I will let that stand, just in case. It's probably useless but, for the record again, it's a personal attack and can get you blocked. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 19:59, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

go ahead. 200.43.201.184 16:10, 8 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Manfred von Ardenne

On the other hand, according to Mariscotti's account, Richter worked during the war as a collaborator of Manfred von Ardenne's laboratory, in a separate private lab of his own, and his work on fusion was never published in the peer reviewed literature.--200.43.201.109 18:15, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Remark on edit about Balseiro's calculations

An anonymous user keeps inserting this phrase:

( note that Balseiro's calculations can be used against ITER too, given that both methods try to exploit the same nuclear reaction)

into this article. This statement is wrong. Both methods may refer to the same nuclear reaction, but what Balseiro's calculation shows is that at the low temperatures achived by Richter the reaction will not work. In ITER, on the other hand, much higher temperatures can be produced, so the reaction does take place. It appears the phrase is based on a misunderstanding of the physics involved, so please stop insisting on it. Luzu 18:35, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Read Thermonuclear. Perhaps the vandal may want to change that too. --200.45.150.83 20:54, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Richter's behaviour, ITER and Balseiro's calculations

An anonymous user keeps deleting a paragraph about Richter's erratic behaviour (which prompted the establishment of the scientific review panels of his work). This is well documented in Mariscotti's account, and relevant to the history of the project, so please let it be.

The wrong statement about ITER and the value of Balseiro's calculations has again been reintroduced, in spite of the comment in the above section, which explains why it is wrong. The reintroduction was done with no discussion or justification provided.

Maybe protection should be re-established in view of these and other actions of this anonymous user. Luzu 14:36, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] recent edits

In the first paragraph, I have introduced a mention of the ranges in temperature used in ITER and Richter's work, in the hope of relying on facts and not subjective assesments like flawed or pioneering.

I have once more removed some incorrect remarks explained earlier in the discussion.

I again call on the anonymous user who introduces these changes to please refrain. Thanks

Luzu 21:18, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I have taken the liberty to simplify the text, especially the intro paragraph, in order not to confuse the reader with too many figures or comparisons. I moved the text about the Lawson criterion after the results of the commissions' assessment, since it felt logical to explain the reason for the failure there. I'm trying to keep myself cool enough to make sensible edits, but I want to make clear that I consider our "resident anonymous" a vandal, and will treat him as such until he decides to discuss issues civilly, and preferrably under a registered username, rather than hiding under multiple IPs and accusing me of POV edits and vandalism. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 11:21, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lawson criterion

Now the issue of plasma temperatures is a bit clear. --200.45.150.179 01:42, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lawson criterion and quantum tunnelling

Just a short note to clarify that the anonymous user modifyng this text has again introduced wrong physics argumments. Quantum tunnelling is not relevant here, because it is already considered in the calcuilations. And the fact that ITER uses the same reaction that Balseiro considered is not relevant either. The whole point is the temperature reached. This is what the Lawson criterion is about. That part seems OK to me, maybe it could be expanded, somebody may give it a try in the future. However an anonymous user that cannot understand the difference should refrain from insisting always on the same points. He apparently has erased repeatedly all allusions of the other members of the first review panel (Bancora), the second review panel (Gans and Rodriguez), etc. These facts can be checked in Mariscotti's account and other sources. I vote for this anonymous user to be blocked, since he is hindering a more balanced view of the article. Luzu 13:31, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

It's useless to block him because he employs a dynamic IP address. He's fully aware of this, and I suspect that's why he doesn't want to register with a username. He's even tried to pass for several different people before. I intend to revert any non-trivial change to the article that he makes, unless discussed and backed up by good references; in doing this, I'm exposing myself to the possibility of being accused of edit warring or of abusing my administrative privileges. Nevertheless, I will block an offending IP on sight if its edits are excessively disruptive. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 14:03, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
PS: See User:Pablo-flores/Vandal notice. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 15:29, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Balseiro's report says that the minimum temperature needed to fuse a fraction of 1% of the nuclei is about 40 million Kelvin degrees. He uses 20keV as the minimum threshold kinetic energy in reactants nuclei. The calculation is quite elementary indeed and does not have into account quantum tunneling. The fact that Balseiro do not uses quantum tunneling in his calculations (although he does mention the possibility in a clear attempt to justify the rather arbitrary 20keV figure) can be assessed by comparing his calculations with the data in the article thermonuclear. Referring to the graph in that article the temperature needed to produce 1% of the maximum fusion rate (in a tritium deuterium reaction) is about 4keV, about one fifth the value conjectured by Balseiro.--200.45.6.12 16:05, 20 March 2006 (UTC)


The fact thet Balseiro considered quantum tunnelling in his argument stands. The argument our anonymous contributor tries to make, is itself misleading. A factor of five would not change things too much. The temperatures reached in a setup like the one Richter used are orders of magnitude too low. The setup is part of the problem. The 'singing arc' used by Richter, which is described in Bancora's report (mention of this report is sistematically erased by the anon. user) is incapable of reachin more than 300000 K (30 eV average energy even considering the tail of the Maxwell Boltzmann distribution is not enough).Luzu 18:31, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

It is true that Balseiro do not uses quantum tunneling in his calculations. This a fact not a misleading argument. The stated difference may be attributed to other mechanism too, like Coulomb screening a real phenomena that he does not even mention. Stronger criticism could be made against Balseiro's report, like using equilibrium laws for a transport problem or not to have used in his calculations some accepted model for the strong nuclear force. --200.45.150.61 14:05, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Please use Balseiro's report estimates against Richter to predict the optimum non controversial Muon-catalyzed fusion temperature as described in Rafelski, et.al. "Cold Nuclear Fusion". Scientific American, 257, 1987, p. 84. Those authors reported an experimentally measured optimum reaction temperature of 900ºC.--200.43.201.253 13:04, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Review panels of Richter's work

Following Mariscotti's well researched account(see refs.) I have tried to give some factual information regarding the evaluation of Richter's work. Have also moved and clarified a sentence about Argentina's economy in 1948 to the section where costs are discussed.

[edit] Bancora's report

An anonymous contributor keeps erasing all references to the report by Bancora on the first review panel on Richter. No reason is given for this. Given that Bancora's conclusions were important, and his scientific criticism adressed the experimental setup, complementing Balseiro's work, it is important to keep the reference. Please give your reasons for this deletion or stop deleting. You are hindering the development of this article by uselesly erasing the work of others. Luzu 13:59, 23 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Testing Balseiro's calculations

Please use Balseiro's report estimates against Richter to predict the optimum non controversial Muon-catalyzed fusion temperature as described in Rafelski, et.al. "Cold Nuclear Fusion". Scientific American, 257, 1987, p. 84. Those authors reported an experimentally measured optimum reaction temperature near 900ºC.--200.43.201.253 13:04, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I am sorry but this is getting way beyond the point. Muon-catalyzed fusion is a different matter altogether, the muon makes the whole difference, (hence the name muon-catalyzed) and neither Richter nor Balseiro nor anyone else at the time knew about this possibility. In any case, the reaction is not capable of producing energy, a fact which was recognized very soon by its discoverer LW Alvarez in 1957. He said that for a short time, they believed they had solved all the worlds energy needs when they first discovered the phenomenon. However they soon realized that the process used more energy than they generated.

This is the difference between a real scientists and Richter, They have the ability, the humility and the common sense of checking their results, and being critical about them, before calling a press conference. Luzu 13:43, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

It is not beyond the point. It's a practical way to test Balseiro's arguments in a well known case of thermonuclear reactions to see if his calculations are capable to describe well measured results. If those calculations are not capable to reasonably describe the measurements, then surely you'll have the ability, the humility and the common sense to accept that Balseiro's calculations are inadequate. --200.43.201.253 14:02, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Things are getting confused here. Please clarify your arguments. In the muon-catalized fusion, the reaction takes place at a lower energy threshold and therefore lower temperature. Thus a calculation of the temperature needed to reach this threshold will give a lower temperature. Why is this an argument against Balseiro? He was calculating the temperature of known fusion reactions at the time. Or are you implying that Richter knew of a low temperature reaction that he would not reveal? Thanks for an interesting discussion. Luzu 18:45, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Such questions are indeed beyond the point. We cannot include that kind of speculation, even if it sounds interesting and sensible to do so, because that would be original research. By stating that the temperatures were too low for Richter's device to maintain a fusion reason, it's understood that the article refers to the method employed by Richter, not to muon-catalyzed fusion or any other method. However, if you think it's important to clarify that, it would be better to state it in full, as a footnote. The word "believed" makes the whole sentence unnecessarily vague. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 19:27, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Richter's device was intended to work like a muon-catalyzed reaction with electrons in place of muons (muons are much like short lived heavy electrons). The point is that Balseiro does not take into account the electrons present in Richter's experiment. --200.45.6.67 00:02, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
You are making a serious mistake in physics. The electron and the muon are indeed similar, but there is a big difference in mass. The muon is more than 200 times heavier and this makes the whole difference in lowering the electrostatic barrier. In a molecule of hydrogen (or deuterium or tritium) bound by a muon instead of an electron, the nuclei are much closer than for the same molecule formed by an electron. This is due to the difference in mass, and it makes the coulomb barrier lower and easier to tunnel through, therefore making fusion more probable ("catalyzing" it).Luzu 12:02, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Only in Argentina. --200.45.6.36 20:03, 17 April 2006 (UTC)--200.43.201.247 02:07, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] When not to use semi-protection

Semi-protection should not be used:

  • As a pre-emptive measure against vandalism before any vandalism has occurred;
  • As a response to regular content disputes, since it may restrict some editors and not others (see the protection policy for how to deal with this);
  • In the case of a static IP vandal hitting a page (blocking is preferable to semi-protection);
  • To prevent vandalism on the day's Featured Article. Semi-protection for a very brief period is acceptable to remove excessive vandalism from the page, or to combat a high number of dynamic IP edits. For a rationale of this, see Wikipedia:Don't protect Main Page featured articles. Other pages linked from the Main Page may be protected if under attack, though more leeway should be given with these than with most articles.
  • To prohibit anonymous editing in general.

200.45.150.227 15:17, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Two copyedits

The article makes reference to "delay's" where "delays" would be correct[1] ("After the announcement, and because of delay's in Richter's work[...]"). Also, I have no desire to take a side in the edit war of October 2006 which apparently led to the current semi-protection, but I'd like to comment that the contested clause, "based in a reading ouput [sic] of a faulty spectrometer", isn't correct English. Correct English for that would be "based on the reading of a faulty spectrometer". Things are normally based "on" other things, not "in" them; it's "the" reading because we're talking about a particular one (namely, the one from the faulty spectrometer); and "output" doesn't seem to carry any useful meaning here. 67.158.72.8 04:55, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

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