Talk:Cold fusion/Archive 12

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Contents

Survey (request for comment)

Should those unhappy with the current state of the Cold fusion article work incrementally from the present-day version which they believe is too long and has other unspecified problems, or should they revert to and work from a two-year-old version which was once a Featured Article, deleting over 70 peer-reviewed references and the work of dozens of editors?

Work incrementally from the recent version (0737,1 October 2006 by 75.35.76.29)
  1. Essentially every other article on Wikipedia is edited this way. GKK 00:58, 2 October 2006 (UTC)User has a total of 0 article edits . (Talk and community edits excluded)
    • comment. I assume that very few articles have faced a choice between the 'updated' and the 'good'. Could you point some out? –MT 03:37, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  2. Am I the only one who remembers that when Edmund Storms and Jed Rothwell proposed a full re-write, they were requested to write a separate new Wiki page rather than perform massive BOLD changes? (Which they agreed to.) My guess is that being BOLD (and reckless) does not apply when you are dealing with a highly controversial subject, someone please correct me if I am wrong. The statement by M, "The debate over cold fusion isn't somewhere in the middle, with many believing that it happened and many disbelieving - it's at one end, and the debate is over," does not support his/her claim of being neutral. Good luck people. STemplar 21:13, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
    WP:BOLD always applies. Sometimes it is community consensus to request editors start a proposal page. Sometimes it is community consensus to work directly on the article. In the past, the former was requested of some contributors, today the latter is being done. --ScienceApologist 22:32, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  3. When a premier and mainstream science publisher feels a book by the experiementers is warrented, you might want to give the experimenters their due. Perdita 16:46, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
    This discussion is not about giving them their due, it's about reverting a delisted GA revision to a FA revision, and then working to include both sides. –MT 10:32, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
  4. If the information is not complete and comprehensive we are not informing people at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gathall (talk • contribs) This user has 1 contribution.
  5. I'd rather listen to Galileo than selfappointed custodians of scientific consencus representing the church. I suspect the controversy is more about politics than about science, free-energy is a politically sensitive topic. Include a section about harassment, the murder of Mallove and a reference to cointelpro as well.Yeslove User has a total of 2 article edits. (Talk and community edits excluded)
  6. A revert would throw away too much. The current version has problems (primarily readability and structure) but is far more informative. The old version has the same structure problems, so going back to it is not an improvement. I favor a section-by-section rewrite from scratch as outlined in User:ObsidianOrder/Cold_fusion_redux. Until then, keep this version. ObsidianOrder 19:13, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
  7. the article fairly represented the 2004 DOE review, so keep this version (see discussion below) Pcarbonn 17:01, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
  8. A large amount of information was deleted in the alteration. This is a clear case of POV-vandalism committed by a known wikiclique. I should also note that ScienceApologist also drastically vandalized the article Static universe. GoodCop 03:48, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Work incrementally from the featured article version

These are votes for censorship not science--Ron Marshall 17:30, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

  1. Less work to be done. Consensus informs us that the old article is better than this new one, despite all of the sources that have been added. My opinion is that the old article is clear and readily improvable. The current article is biased (as I describe above), its citations are often duplicated and are used improperly (such as to respond against the point, rather than to support it), nearly all citations are from cold fusion proponents, and nearly three fourths of the article consists of what appears to be arguments for and against things like "excess heat = cold fusion". That argument belongs, if anywhere, in an article titled 'Controversy over current cold fusion research'. –MT 03:37, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  2. I agree with M. Having a good article to use as a base will imo lead to a better overall article. I was reading the version supported by the other side and its clear that many of those 70 references that keep being thrown around do not appear to be particularily valuable, especially considering that many of them are books published by cold fusion advocates. In science, books by anyone other than large academic publishing houses (ie not Infinite Energy Press) are not considered reliable sources, because they have not necessarily been through a peer review. Obviously however knowledge in cf has progressed in the last 2 years and that should be edited in, including the DOE report. --AmitDeshwar 05:07, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  3. Start from FA-version and take it slowly from there.O. Prytz 05:12, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  4. Let's start from the FA-version. References from non reputable sources have been used as propaganda in the non-FA version. That's simply wrong. I suggest that before starting to edit the FA version of the article, we have discussions here about what reputable sources are, what counts as evidence and what not etc. Count Iblis 12:48, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  5. The FA-version may be out-of-date, but at least it was recognized by reviewers as being good enough to feature rather than terrible enough to be removed from a good article listing. --ScienceApologist 14:29, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  6. The above commenters make good points, in particular Count Iblis and ScienceApologist. I find myself in agreement — revert to the last version known decent. Also, I would like to lodge my disapproval of how this survey question was phrased. As the comments here plainly indicate, people do not agree that the "over 70 peer-reviewed references" were used in proper or legitimate ways. The question is blatantly slanted, not that the people commenting so far seem very influenced by it. Anville 16:09, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  7. We are not doing science here. And incidentically, the work to done in an encyclopedia can be positively described as censorship, as a an encyclopedia has to report established knowledge. There are other Wikis for questioning the establishment. --Pjacobi 17:59, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
    • I disagree, this is an article about science and if it is inaccurate we are doing the readers and science a disservice here. If Wikpedia cannot produce a fair and accurate article on a controversial subject then it should not produce an article.--Ron Marshall 19:09, 2 October 2006 (UTC) [Ron Marshall had added this comment as a vote, I changed it to a comment–MT]
  8. Joke 20:46, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  9. I also support working from the FA version. --Noren 05:02, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Going Forward

We are going to forward from the 9/27/06 or equivalent version in an incremental way. This is an article about science and experiment is the reality check of science. This article is and should be about the pro and con of experiments. The article presents the skeptics and the experimenters point of view and will continue to do so. --Ron Marshall 17:20, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

background

I'm gonna hand-wave a little here, bear with me. This (or at least a lot of it) is not stuff I would necessarily want to include in the article, but it is important for understanding what P&F were thinking when they did their experiments, and also why some theorists don't think CF is impossible. Some of the motivation stuff can be sourced, from talks given by Fleischmann (P.S. excellent source right here [1]), some published letters, and in Beaudette's book, and we may want to include it briefly.

There are two key observations about Pd (or Pt, Ni, Ti, ...) and H (or D):

  • if you put the two together (e.g run H2 gas over bulk or powedered metal), the H2 is spontaneously absorbed, a process which is both energetically favorable (exothermic) and has fast kinetics. in the process the H2 molecules are dissociated (maybe). the metal absorbs a huge amount of H2 gas, up to nearly 1:1 Pd:H atomic ratio or 1:900 by volume in the case of Pd. this is considered as a commercial way to store H2 for hydrogen-powered vehicles, for example. at high H loadings the metal often cracks or crumbles into a powder as a result of this (since the distance between Pd atoms changes). see also interstitial hydrides and palladium hydride.
  • looking at the PdH (or similar hydrides/deuterides), you find that the hydrogen in there is very mobile, both through spontaneous diffusion and under the action of electrical fields. particularly, you find that Pd with absorbed H is more conductive than regular Pd, with some of the conductivity being due to movement of H+ or H2+ and some due to the extra electrons that came from H+, and this can be used to measure the concentration of H in the metal.

Now, those two observations (which are completely mainstream and not disputed, and have been known since the 1920's) are completely contrary to each other. If PdH is so energetically favorable, that would imply that the PdH bond is very strong, in which case the mobility or rate of diffusion of H in Pd will be very low, and vice versa. This is a huge anomaly which has no explanation. The hypothesis (not even theory yet) was that this is possible because the H ions move not independently of each other, but in a correlated way. So, when one ion is about to hop into a neighboring position in the crystal lattice, the ion already there hops into its next neighbor at the same time and so forth, all simultaneously (up to the next vacant position). Thus two ions are never in the same position in the lattice (which would be a rather high-energy state and would make the overall movements very slow since ions would only rarely have that much energy). Now, the interesting question is what happens quantum-mechanically during that transition. This is what P&F were interested in looking at. They expected basically something weird to happen, without narrowing it down beyond that. Electrolysis was just a convenient way to quickly load up Pd metal with atomic H or D produced in situ, and to make the H/D move around inside the metal (both due to concentration gradients and electric field gradients). Other methods of accomplishing this work just as well or better, but since F was a (top-flight) electrochemist, electrolysis was a natural choice to try. As it turns out, it is not very easy to reproduce for someone who is not a really good electrochemist ;) Although Bockris and Oriani (also top electrochemists) did succeed in reproducing it, both have remarked on how technically difficult it was.

Pretty much all of the current theories of CF rely on some kind of cooperative effect(s) to explain both how the nuclei can fuse (i.e.: they don't "come close" against electrostatic force, their wave functions just "overlap" during a multi-atom transition between sites in the lattice) and also why some products are not seen (for example, the recoil energy may be quickly distributed to a large number of neighboring nuclei by a mechanism other than thermal collisions). ObsidianOrder 23:47, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Good work. I find this very interesting.Pcarbonn 12:04, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I think that this should be mentionned in the history section. Pcarbonn 08:32, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
A source is here (see p. 3)Pcarbonn 21:15, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
The following is a bit more technical than I'd usually use here but I think it's required to address the points above. First, the two observations above do not conflict or require extraordinary explanation. It is quite possible for very strong chemical bonds to form in reactions with low energy transition states. One example is homogeneous ethylene polymerization, where new carbon-carbon bonds (with about twice the energy of Pd-H bonds) can form rapidly at room temperature in the presence of a suitable catalyst (often a transition metal complex). Simply put, the energy of the transition state in a chemical reaction is not solely determined by the strengths of the bonds formed (or broken).
Second, referring to it as H+ or H2+ seems strange to me, considering that the two elements have virtually the same Pauling electronegativity. As you would expect from those numbers, bonding between the two is quite covalent. Transition metals are typically less electronegative than hydrogen- conventions for electron counting and nomenclature refer to it as H-. That's where the palladium hydride name comes from.
Palladium is unique among transition metals in having no valence s electrons in the ground state ([Kr] 4d10). Formation of covalent Pd-H bonds requires use of the valence 5s shell- and possibly either unpairing of an electron or formation of a formal Pd-Pd bond. The discussion above lacks even a mention of this unique electronic property of palladium metal, one which I would expect to be germane (if not central) to the topic of electron mobility in it. --Noren 22:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
"very strong chemical bonds to form in reactions with low energy transition states" - the issue is not the energy of the transition state in the formation of PdH, but of the transitions between H at different sites in the Pd. there is every reason to believe that such a transition state would have very high energy once most sites in the lattice are occupied, since it would require two H+ to occupy the same site. thus even if a small amount of H increases conductivity, you would expect it to drop back down when loading approaches maximum, but it doesn't.
"H+ or H2+" - we talked about that earlier. please read about interstitial hydrides first. PdH is not at all covalent. it is most like a metal alloy, the electrons of both Pd and H are delocalized. H+ certainly exists in there as a distinct species that moves in response to an electrical field, and H2+ may exist also. A covalent hydride would be a gas like PH3 or SbH3.
"having no valence s electrons in the ground state" - interesting, but it does not seem to be much of a factor; NiH and TiH display very similar properties, including enhanced conductivity and cold fusion. ObsidianOrder 03:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
The transition state to which I referred was the one for the movement of H between Pd. The H do not have a +1 charge as you allege- you're quite mistaken about the bonding of Pd and H. Please read about electronegativity, and possibly run some electronic structure calculations first. --Noren 05:33, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Ok, you seem to think the PdH bond is similar to either that in phosphine (which is a covalent hydride with an element with essentialy equal electronegativity to hydrogen, and is a gas) or perhaps something like the various boranes (which have three-center bonds and are gas/liquid/crystalline solids). Please do explain why PdHx (x=0.7-1.1) is metallic? Also, please explain why the hydrogen migrates in response to an electircal field if it is not charged? ObsidianOrder 07:24, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
P.S. This may be of interest: "The transport of ionic H in Pd has been quite puzzling. Drift experiments suggest that H drifts in Pd in the form of a positive ion with a fractional charge number ranging from +0.4 to +0.7. These observations strongly support the notion of a proton model in which the hydrogen is viewed as donating its electron to the unfilled Pd d-shell." The paper also has a whole bunch of electronic structure calculations, naturally the actual picture is rather more complicated (in fact the H may be negatively charged part of the time) but there is certainly not much covalent character there, as you can see from the electron density surfaces which do not show any directionality. Please provide a reference to the contrary. ObsidianOrder 13:20, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Ah, yes, the shift in burden of proof. You, of course, were the one making claims. I would recommend that you read your own reference, as it belies your own claim- "The calculation in general confirms the notion of a negatively charged H ion in Pd, as obtained from previous studies." Your attempts at summation of this document are inaccurate. I'm also puzzled by your quote, as palladium has no unfilled d shell in the ground state ([Kr] 4d10). There's probably a reason why this paper went to a cold fusion conference submission rather than to peer review. --Noren 14:10, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Noren, both your quote and the one from OO reflect the quoted article. One quote refers to experiments, the other to calculations: indeed they disagree, but that's the point that OO is making. Or did I miss something ? Pcarbonn 15:55, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
The claim he made was that "some of the conductivity being due to movement of H+ or H2+ and some due to the extra electrons that came from H+, and this can be used to measure the concentration of H in the metal." was "completely mainstream and not disputed, and have been known since the 1920's". I assure you that electronic structure calculations were not performed in the 1920s. His claim that this is not disputed is in direct contradiction to what his own citation states. --Noren 23:10, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Here's a paper from 1937 [2] that says "examples where hydrogen dissolves without forming covalent links ... are the metallic hydrides of transitional elements such as palladium ... that the hydrogen dissolves as atoms, and that at least a portion of these atoms is ionized to give electorns and protons" . This has always been the mainstream treatment. The paper I cited is a more modern view which says in essence that the normal state of hydrogen at center of an octahedral cell has a slight negative charge, but the intermediate during a transition from one cell to another has a positive charge, hence transitions tend to be biassed in the direction of the external field. In neither case are there any covalent bonds. These papers are perfectly consistent with each other and with everything I've said. Still waiting for a cite that says the bonds are covalent. I've given you about five very relevant references, I think I'm done arguing with you until you come up with at least one reference that supports your claims. ObsidianOrder 23:48, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Okay. [[3]] For hydrogen bound to palladium, "The site preference has its origin in a maximum gain of covalent bonding energy resulting from the overlap of the hydrogen s and the metal dx2-y2 orbitals and from a minimal Pauli repulsion." Also, for a historical note, here's a paper from 1957 [4] on Pd2H that observes that "The shape of the heat capacity curve indicates the probability of covalently bound hydrogen at low temperatures with a dissociation process occurring as the temperature is varied". You appear not to understand the distinction between the bonding between the Pd and H atoms being covalent and ALL the bonding being covalent. If you model an isolated PdH2 unit as a gas, the bonding between Pd and H is covalent. There is no contradiction involved in having a bulk metallic network of palladium with some of the palladium also covalently bound to H. You still haven't addressed where this alleged unfilled d-shell is in palladium. --Noren 01:15, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
The first paper talks about hydrogen on a palladium surface. That is indeed covalent, but it is completely different from hydrogen below the surface. The second paper, well, I can't tell at what temperature the dissociation they talk about happens, but they did look all the way down to 16K. I would not be surprised if at 16K most of the bonds are covalent, but not at room temperature. d-shell - you'd have to ask the authors what they meant. ObsidianOrder 19:12, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Noren, please read the "The Pd/nH system" section in [5], pg 13-14. I don't have much to add to that. Pd/H is anomalous; it should be covalent but it is not. It is not exactly ionic either; that's why it is anomalous. I have now given you several references that explicitly describe the state of hydrogen in Pd/H as a mobile, charged species. Normally such a thing would be called an ion, but perhaps you have a better term. It is not unreasonable to ask you to provide at least one reference that says the bonds are covalent. ObsidianOrder 20:52, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Still disputed ?

Is this article still totally disputed ? If yes, what needs to be done to fix it ? Pcarbonn 08:57, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

November 10,2006

To be published on Nov 10 on New Energy Time: "Scientists at the U.S. Navy’s San Diego SPAWAR Systems Center have produced something unique in the 17-year history of the scientific drama historically known as cold fusion: simple, portable, highly repeatable, unambiguous, and permanent physical evidence of nuclear events using detectors that have a long track record of reliability and acceptance among nuclear physicists. " Pcarbonn 22:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The article has been posted and it describes the use of CD-39 plastic detectors that seem to indicate the presence of nuclear reactions. There are also claims of new procedures that reduce the time for a reaction to form and improve the likelihood of a reaction. The detector stuff seems most interesting and this material hasn't been put on the page yet - is it worth being covered? Ronnotel 14:15, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I have seen this, and found it very convincing. Congratulations to the researchers and the journalists. It is mentionned in the news section, and I've added a line to mention it in the overview section this morning. Feel free to describe it more in the "nuclear products" section. We should state however that it has not yet been published in a peer reviewed journal, nor replicated. Pcarbonn 14:59, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Recent partial reversion

Pcarbonn has been partially reverting to the old version for which there was a consensus against. I reverted the more recent set of reversions- in here there were numerous problems, from the POV intro "Excess heat production is an important characteristic of the effect that has created much criticism." which asserts as fact the controversial claim of excess heat. There is also needless repetition introduced here, such as the sentence "When asked whether the evidence for power that cannot be attribued to ordinary chemical or solid-state source is compelling or inexistent, the 2004 DoE panel was evenly split." ("2004 DoE" was added, but the spelling and grammatical errors were preserved from the other instance of the sentence.) One of the major troubles with the old article was revisiting the same material repeatedly, I hope we can avoid repeating that. --Noren 05:22, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I have tried to address the concerns you express. Let's discuss. Here are some arguments for the changes I propose:
  • I have now trimmed the DOE paragraph on the history section. This way, none of the sentences are repeated, as far as I can tell.
  • "A majority of scientists consider current cold fusion research to be of questionable validity" is unsourced, and POV in view of the 2004 DOE report, when the panel was evenly split on evidence of excess heat. Why not say the contrary: "A majority of scientists consider current cold fusion research valid." ?
  • I dropped the sentence that asserts the fact of excess heat, as you requested ("Excess heat production is an important characteristic of the effect that has created much criticism")
  • Because the DOE report was evenly split on the experimental evidence of excess heat, I find it necessary to present and discuss these evidences. An article without it would not be informative. All statements are sourced, so I don't see a problem, but let's discuss. Wikipedia NPOV policy states that both sides of the arguments must be presented.
Pcarbonn 08:32, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Let me add that the proposed wording reflects a lengthy discussion with MT (see archive 11, Was our summary of 2004 DOE review biased ?). I'm pretty sure MT would agree with the proposed wording. Pcarbonn 09:22, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I do not agree with "Excess heat production is an important characteristic of the effect that has created much criticism.", though I agree with "When asked whether the evidence for power that cannot be attribued to ordinary chemical or solid-state source is compelling or inexistent, the 2004 DoE panel was evenly split.", but I also agree that it should not be repeated. (The T in my signature stands for talk.) –MT 23:04, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

What is this article about, exactly?

I've read it and I was wondering: should not this article concentrate on cold fusion as a concept and hypothesis rather than being a discussion of a single (seemingly quite important) experiment? I'm not sure, but I believe that the experiment and the controversy surrounding it were once part of an article which got deleted. Is this really all there is on the subject: a proposition and a contested experiment? Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 16:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your point, so please clarify. Cold fusion is a field of research. Concept, hypothesis, experiments, controversy are all part of it, I would say. (There are many more than one experiment by the way). What do you propose to change to the article ? Pcarbonn 16:20, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Why a separate section on mechanism ?

I checked the 2-year old version of the article, and there was no "mechanism" section. The more recent version did not have one either. Instead, the lack of theory was discussed as an argument in the controversy, in the "Arguments in the controversy" section. I believe that this is the best way to present it, and would therefore like to change the order of presentation. Would it be OK? Let's discuss. Pcarbonn 09:22, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I am fully against having a section to entertain a debate between both "sides". Any problems with theory can be tactfully discussed in that section, and same for the section on experiment. I see no reason to have a "the debate" section. –MT 23:07, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Uh. The 2-year-old version did have such a section. Why did you bother reverting to it then ? Wasn't it easier to start from the current version ? I miss something here. Also, please explain why you are against a "debate section". Aren't you ignoring the fact that the DOE identified subject of research to "resolve some of the controversies in the field". Surely, there is still a controversy in the field, don't you think ? Pcarbonn 23:32, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't like part of the featured revision. That doesn't mean that I think that that whole version is bad. We're not going to resolve any controversies, and we're not going to try. This is an encyclopedia, not a forum for debate. I would rather mention the disputed points in the relevant sections: that experiments should be more rigorous, or that X mechanism, which is required for cf to occur, is against current understanding. There's no need to put all these disputed points into one section. Doing so puts too much emphasis on it. Would you like to give an entire process, or history of experiment without bringing up these issues there and then? I don't approve. –MT 02:43, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
I like your idea to deemphasize the controversy. It's about time that we move away from a time of passion to a time of reason: I hope that the scientific truth will eventually emerge (I do not consider DOE as the end of the story, but as the best we have today). Would it make sense to have the following structure, then ?
  • F&P experiment
  • History, with the same subsections as today
  • experimental results, with 3 subsections on excess heat, nuclear products, and repeatabilty, in line with the DOE findings
  • mechanism, explaining the incompatibility with current understanding of physics
It would seem to me that the experimental results should come before a discussion of mechanism (otherwise, the reader would ask "mechanism of what ?"). Pcarbonn 22:59, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The FP experiment is more or less the history. The mechanism should come before experiment, because it would be the explanation of what cf is supposed to be and how it's supposed to work. From there, readers will readily understand what the experiments are supposed to be about. The general layout should be "FP experiment was a fiasco back in 1989 [nothing technical here]. The way it's supposed to work is[...]. Experiments have been [...]." To give a bit more focus, how about this: someone could write a short description of how cold fusion is supposed to work, excluding all criticism. We'll revise it if needed, and then add the relevant contradicting points. Right now the writing seems to want to prove a point, or argue. We need something that informs. –MT 23:37, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I still disagree that mechanism should come before experiments. If you look at the structure of the DOE review, it first discusses excess heat evidence, then nuclear origin. This is also the normal approach according to the scientific method. Starting with "the way it's supposed to work" reminds me of the Galilee controversy. Pcarbonn 08:05, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
This isn't a scientific article. This'll be easier to resolve if we can get the mechanism part done. –MT 09:30, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Let me add that, as the 2004 DOE report says, "cold fusion" is the unofficial term for "low energy nuclear reactions". The 2004 DOE title is about "low energy nuclear reactions". This is potentially larger than "fusion as we know it". So what do you mean by "what cf is supposed to be and how it's supposed to work". Which source will you provide to say how "low energy nuclear reactions" are supposed to work ? As far as I could see, the DOE does not say what it is supposed to be. Instead, it is assessing the theoretical framework proposed by cf researchers, and rejects it. Pcarbonn 16:26, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Also, I checked other articles in wikipedia, such as superconductivity and sonoluminescence, and "properties from experiments" come before "mechanism" in them. Pcarbonn 16:59, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
We need to describe how cf - low temperature nuclear reactions - works , or is supposed to work, but without huge paragraphs outlining all of the exceptions. Those articles you linked don't quite have an experiment section, apart from history. Superconductivity has a very nice overview, that's what I'd like this article to have. –MT 20:45, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
You said: "This'll be easier to resolve if we can get the mechanism part done.". So, here is what I propose. I'll wait for your proposed write-up for the mechanism section; in the mean-time, I'll move the current, unsatisfactory "mechanism" section after the experiment one. Let me know if you disagree, and why. Pcarbonn 21:10, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

What I requested was an explanation of how cf is supposed to work from a non-critical perspective; I'm asking you for what you would consider a simple and informative overview of cold fusion. Perhaps Cold_fusion/wip#Process? –MT 21:58, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Let me give it a try. The superconductivity overview describes what we observe vs what we expect to observe. It does not explain how superconductivity actually works. I would write an equivalent section for cold fusion like this (quick write-up to get a feeling. More work needed to fine tune and remove POV):
When water is electrolyzed in a closed cell surrounded by a calorimeter, we can account for all energy tranfers using the theories of electricity, thermodynamics and chemistry: the electrical input power, the heat accumulated in the cell, the chemical storage of energy and the heat leaving the cell balance out. When the cathode is made of palladium, and heavy water is used instead of light water, we expect to observe the same conservation of energy.
What F&P said they observed, to their own astonishment, was that, in some cases, the heat measured by the calorimeter exceeded the expectations. When they calculated the power density based on the volume of the cathode, they reached a value too high to be explained by known chemical reactions. As a consequence, they concluded that the effect must be nuclear, although their lacked evidence for it.
Others have tried to replicate the excess heat observations. Many failed, but some succeded and reported high power densities in peer reviewed journals. Some researchers feel that the experimental evidences are enough to establish the scientific validity of the effect, but others reject those evidences, and the 2004 DOE review left the panel evenly split on the issue.
The search of the products of nuclear fusion has resulted in conflicting evidences, leading most reviewers to exclude the possibility of nuclear reactions in these experiments. One additional reason for many to exclude a nuclear origin for the effect is that current physics theory cannot explain how fusion could occur in these experiments, and how the energy generated could be converted into heat (as opposed to radiation or other nuclear products).
Our current knowledge of the effect, if it exists, is insufficient to expect commercial applications anytime soon. The 2004 DOE panel identified several areas that could be further studied using appropriate scientific methods.
Pcarbonn 20:21, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

On papers in the lead section

Following a recent edit by ScienceApologist, I updated the intro as discussed in a past discussion. Pcarbonn 09:47, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

2004 DOE did not conclude on the potential as a source of energy

I agreed some time ago to the sentence "In 1989, a panel organized by the U.S. Department of Energy concluded there was no convincing evidence that useful sources of energy would result from the phenomena attributed to cold fusion, and another DoE panel reached similar conclusions in 2004", but I now think it was a mistake.

How could the 2004 DOE review reach such a conclusion when the question was not asked to the reviewers, and none expressed comments in their review [] ? The report itself never mentions "source of energy". In addition, the "similar conclusions" in the 2004 DOE conclusion does not mean that they are identical. So what are the sources to justify the statement we made ?

One could argue instead that both reviews reached the similar conclusion to not fund a major federally-funded program. One could argue that they reached that conclusion because they did not believe that it has the potential to become a source of energy, but until we find a source, this would be considered original research. Better to say what the report said. I updated the lead section accordingly. Pcarbonn 08:51, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Biased article

This article appears to be heavily biased in favour of cold fusion being a proven phenomenon, which, as I understand it, does not represent the consensus of scientifc opinion.

Heavily biased in favour of cold fusion ? Please clarify where this is the case, so that we can correct. The article tries to represent the view of the 2004 DOE review and other knowledgeable sources, and was heavily debated on wikipedia in the recent past. The current version is thus the result of a consensus of editors, based on available sources, but let us know if we missed something. Pcarbonn 21:24, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Description of the Japanese government's research efforts

This description was removed twice, with edit summaries stating that the reason for its removal was to not 'embarass' or avoid 'ridiculing' the Japanese. I assure these editors that this is not the intent. The important point, given the assumption that the motives of those editors are to protect the sensibilities of the Japanese (as they state), is that Wikipedia is not censored. Wikipedia does and should include factual topics that will 'embarass' some; the article on the Nanking Massacre may 'embarass' the Japanese much more than this description of a failed government research program. Omission of factual data on the basis that it may 'embarass' is not a valid rationale there or here. --Noren 16:55, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that "ridicule" is not a valid argument, but you are wrong to say that this is the only argument that was put forward. The lead section should not give undue wait to a topic that is 10 year-old. The lead section already has a sentence with the same argument, saying that "the (1989) U.S. Department of Energy concluded there was no convincing evidence that useful sources of energy would result from the phenomena attributed to cold fusion". This is enough for the lead section. The Japanese attempts are clearly described in the history section, where it is more appropriate. So, I would still recommend to remove the section. Pcarbonn 21:32, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I did not parse the sentence "The referenced article is 10 years old." as an argument. Is it your contention that no information over 10 years old deserves an appearance in a lead? If not, kindly point out the argument that you claim was present in either of the two edit summaries (neither your edit nor STemplar's were discussed on this talk page) or retract your claim that I was wrong about the stated reasons. As to the Japanese government's research effort, it was the largest and best funded to date on the subject, lasting 5 years and spending at least $20 million. If the largest and best funded program to date on a scientific subject is not notable in the lead in an article about that topic, by what NPOV criteria would you propose that anything else would be? --Noren 02:28, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Here is what the edit of Stemplar on Nov 11 said: "rv Again, no need to embarass our friends from Japan. The referenced article is 10 years old. Some current Japanese researchers: Arata, Takahashi, Kozima (new book by Elsevier), Iwamura)". Still, there are 10-year old references in the lead section, so I believe the 10-year-old argument needs to be made more clearly.
The 1989 DOE report says: "any good experiment that fails to find cold fusion can be discounted as merely not working for unknown reasons". In other words, failed experiments do not prove anything on a scientific subject (see also reproducibility). We already have a sentence in the lead saying that "Numerous research efforts at the time attempted and were unable to replicate these results": saying more would be unnecessary. Especially when the 2004 DOE report says that significant progress has been made since then, and that proof of cold fusion is more compelling now. It would be wrong to spend space in the lead presenting old results that prove nothing. The lead section must stick to the main points to keep it short (see WP:LEAD). Again, the Japanese results are presented later in the article, so this is not an issue of censorship or POV, but of relevance. Pcarbonn 11:55, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
First, you appear to misunderstand the purpose of this article. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia, not a place to post a scientific argument for or against something- that would be original research. Your argument that negative findings don't prove things is the wrong sort of mindset, the article should not be written as a proof one way or the other. What the article should do is describe the phenomenon in all respects, including the social, political, economic, as well as any scientific aspects. The largest research effort to date is entirely relevant in describing this phenomenon- in fact it is central and should be mentioned in the lead. I would also mention that making invalid claims that other posters' edits constitute 'ridicule' is not civil.
Your second point severely misrepresents the 2004 DoE report. The "significant progress" you mention out of context comes from the first paragraph of the conclusions, "While significant progress has been made in the sophistication of calorimeters since the review of this subject in 1989, the conclusions reached by the reviewers today are similar to those found in the 1989 review." So, in spite of the use of more sophisticated calorimeters, there was no progress in the proof of the existence of a nuclear reaction. After all, the report also states that "The preponderance of the reviewers’ evaluations indicated that Charge Element 2, the occurrence of low energy nuclear reactions, is not conclusively demonstrated by the evidence presented." --Noren 17:23, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Promote CR-39 image?

Given the apparent significance of the CR-39 evidence, I'd like to propose that it's picture be moved from the nuclear products section to the top of the article, replacing the picture of the cold fusion cell. Ronnotel 15:34, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

What apparent significance? As far as I can tell, it's appeared in a talk and in an article in New Energy Times (not exactly a mainstream media outlet). By this measure, it's not particularly notable in either the press or the scientific community. --Noren 23:35, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Um, what part of cold fusion is notable in the press or scientific community? Ronnotel 01:34, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
While I personally find the CR-39 evidences very convincing, I would recommend to wait till they are published in a peer-reviewed journal. Pcarbonn 21:27, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, claims of cold fusion are rarely notable in the press or scientific community, and this article should reflect that. --Noren 02:11, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Notability depends on where in the world one is, and whom one talks to. In the light of a 15-year ban on the publishing of anything by the name of Cold Fusion by all but two recognised scientific journals, and the US Patent Office not even considering anything by that name, it turns out to be a Catch 22 situation for US researchers. But the papers about the phenomena associated with what was first described as "Cold Fusion" are being published at a steadily increasing stream, with some aspects quite far removed from those first steps. With the exception of the few US Navy researchers, it seems that the USA is trailing quite far behind Italy and Japan, with China catching up rapidly from behind. I am awaiting the progress reports from the Galileo project with great interest. The use of CR-39 or TASTRAK sensors is central to that protocol. Success in that endeavor could mean great opportunities for young researchers. Therefore the use of images of clean and used detectors is symbolic of the new knowledge being gained. I agree with the suggestion of a CR-39 detector picture at the top of the page, with a more informative caption than the one presently used. I do not see that any peer review can change the fact that these particle tracks occur - explaining them is another matter. -- Seejyb 00:56, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
What would be the gain of promoting a report that has not gone through peer review and independent replication ? What good would it do ? Cold fusion has suffered already a lot from "science by press conference" and the bypass of the scientific process, wouldn't you think ? Promoting the CR-39 image to the lead would be falling in the old trap again. Why not wait a couple of weeks / months, just to show that this is a scientific endeavour ? Now, that would be a strong signal. Pcarbonn 22:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, looking at the matter from your perspective, I agree that it would do no harm to wait a while. -- Seejyb 19:56, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Psuedoscience classification

Given the relative lack of references that are skeptical of Cold Fusion, does the pseudoscience tag still apply? Either more evidence of official skepticism should be cited or the tag should be removed. Ronnotel 19:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Semi-protected

I requested that this talk page be protected from anonymous edits due to on-going link-spam vandalism. Hopefully we can unprotect in a few weeks and see if the vandalism reoccurs. Ronnotel 19:33, 9 December 2006 (UTC)