Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Cold fusion/History

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Proposal

Early work
Cold fusion revolves around the idea that palladium or titanium might catalyze fusion stemmed from the special ability of these metals to absorb large quantities of hydrogen, including its deuterium isotope, the hope being that the deuterium atoms would be close enough together to induce fusion at ordinary temperatures.[1] The special ability of palladium to absorb hydrogen was recognized as early as the nineteenth century by Thomas Graham.[2][3] In the late nineteen-twenties, two German scientists, F. Paneth and K. Peters, reported the transformation of hydrogen into helium by spontaneous nuclear catalysis when hydrogen was adsorbed by finely divided palladium at room temperature.[4] These authors later acknowledged that the helium they measured was due to background from the air.[citation needed]

In 1927, Swedish scientist J. Tandberg stated that he had fused hydrogen into helium in an electrolytic cell with palladium electrodes.[5] On the basis of his work he applied for a Swedish patent for "a method to produce helium and useful reaction energy." After deuterium was discovered in 1932, Tandberg continued his experiments with heavy water. Due to Paneth and Peters' retraction, Tandberg's patent application was eventually denied.[5]

The term "cold fusion" was coined by Dr Paul Palmer of Brigham Young University in 1986 in an investigation of "geo-fusion," or the possible existence of fusion in a planetary core.[6]

Pre-announcement and announcement
In the 1960s, Fleischmann and his research team began investigating the possibility that chemical means could influence nuclear processes. Simple quantum mechanical calculations indicate that such effects should be negligibly small [7], but Fleischmann started to explore whether collective effects, that would require quantum electrodynamics to calculate, might be significant. [8] By 1983, Fleischmann had experimental evidence leading him to believe that condensed phase systems developed coherent structures up to 10-7m in size.[9]

In 1988, Fleischmann and Pons applied to the United States Department of Energy for funding towards a larger series of experiments. Up to this point they had been funding their experiments using a small device built with $100,000 out-of-pocket.[1]

The grant proposal was turned over for peer review, including Steven E. Jones of Brigham Young University.[1] Jones had worked on muon-catalyzed fusion for some time, and had written an article on the topic entitled Cold Nuclear Fusion that had been published in Scientific American in July 1987. Similar to Fleischmann and Pons, Jones claimed that he detected fusion but with a more modest claim, but it was discredited because the rates were far too low to be commercially practical.[1]

Both Fleischmann and Pons`, and Jones research teams met on occasion in Utah to discuss sharing research and techniques. During this time, Fleischmann and Pons described their experiments as generating considerable "excess energy", in the sense that it could not be explained by chemical reactions alone.[citation needed] This could bear significant commercial value and would be protected by patent protection. Jones, however, was measuring neutron flux, which was not of commercial interest.[1] In order to avoid problems in the future, the teams apparently agreed to simultaneously publish their results, although their accounts of their March 6 meeting differ.[citation needed]

In mid-March, both research teams were ready to publish their findings, and Fleischmann and Jones had agreed to meet at an airport on March 24 to send their papers to Nature via FedEx.[citation needed] Fleischmann and Pons, however, broke their apparent agreement, submitting their paper to the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry on March 11, and disclosing their work via a press conference on March 23.[1]

Jones, upset, faxed in his paper to Nature after the press announcement was made.[10]

Post-announcement
The press initially reported on the experiments widely, and due to the surmised beneficial commercial applications of the Utah experiments, led scientists around the world to attempt to repeat the experiments within hours of the announcement.[11]

On April 10, 1989, Fleischmann and Pons, who later suggested pressure from patent attorneys, published a rushed "preliminary note" in the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry[12] This paper notably contained a gamma peak without its corresponding Compton edge, a discrepancy that triggered accusations of fraud[13]. Their earlier paper was followed up a year later in July 1990, when a much longer paper, going into details of calorimetry but abandoning mention of any nuclear measurements, was published in the same journal.

Also occurring on April 10, a team at Texas A&M University published their results of excess heat, followed up by a team at the Georgia Institute of Technology in regards to neutron production.[citation needed] Both results were widely reported on in the press, although both Texas A&M and Georgia Institute of Technology withdrew their results for lack of evidence.[citation needed] For the next six weeks, additional competing claims, counterclaims and suggested explanations kept the topic of Cold Fusion paramount, and led some journalists refer to the situation as "fusion confusion."[14]

On April 12, Pons received a standing ovation from about 7,000 chemists at the semi-annual meeting of the American Chemical Society. The University of Utah asked Congress to provide $25 million to pursue the research, and Pons was scheduled to meet with representatives of President Bush early May.[15]

One month later, on May 1, the American Physical Society held a session on cold fusion, reported a string of failed experiments. A second session began the next day with other negative reports, and eight of the nine leading speakers stated that they ruled the initial Utah claim as dead.[citation needed] Dr. Steven E. Koonin of Caltech called the Utah report a result of "the incompetence and delusion of Pons and Fleischmann."[citation needed] Dr. Douglas R. O. Morrison, a physicist representing CERN, called the entire episode an example of pathological science.[16][17]

By the end of May, much of the media attention had faded due to not only to the competing results and counterclaims, but also to the limited attention span of modern media.[citation needed] While the research efforts cooled significantly, similar cold fusion projects continued around the world.[citation needed]

In July, the first successful replication of the excess heat was completed by Richard Oriani, a professor of physical chemistry at the University of Minnesota.[12] The results were published in his paper, "Calorimetric Measurements of Excess Power Output During the Cathodic Charging of Deuterium Into Palladium," in Fusion Technology.[18][12]

Nature published papers critical of cold fusion in July and November.[19][20]

In November, a special panel formed by the Energy Research Advisory Board, under a charge of the United States Department of Energy, reported the result of their investigation into cold fusion. The scientists in the panel found the evidence for cold fusion to be unconvincing. Nevertheless, the panel was "sympathetic toward modest support for carefully focused and cooperative experiments within the present funding system."[21] As 1989 wore on, cold fusion was considered by mainstream scientists to be self-deception, experimental error and even fraud, and was held out as a prime example of pseudoscience.[citation needed] The United States Patent and Trademark Office has rejected most patent applications related to cold fusion since then.[citation needed]

In 1991, Dr. Eugene Mallove stated that the negative report issued by MIT's Plasma Fusion Center in 1989, which was highly influential in the controversy, was fraudulent because data was shifted without explanation, and as a consequence, this action obscured a possible positive excess heat result at MIT.[22] In protest of MIT's failure to discuss and acknowledge the significance of this data shift, Mallove resigned from his post of chief science author at the MIT news office on June 7, 1991. He maintained that the data shift was biased to support the conventional belief in the non-existence of the cold fusion effect as well as to protect the financial interests of the plasma fusion center's research in hot fusion.[23]

Nobel Laureate Julian Schwinger also stated in 1991 that he had experienced "the pressure for conformity in editor's rejection of submitted papers, based on venomous criticism of anonymous reviewers," and that "the replacement of impartial reviewing by censorship will be the death of science."[24] He resigned as Member and Fellow of the American Physical Society, in protest of its peer review practice on cold fusion.

In 1992, General Electric challenged the Fleischmann-Pons 1990 report in the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, stating that the claims of excess heat had been overstated.[25][12] The challenge concluded that the Fleischmann and Pons cell generated 40% excess heat, more than ten times larger than the initial error estimate. Despite the apparent confirmation, Fleischmann and Pons replied to General Electric and published a rebuttal in the same journal,[26] which has never been refuted in scientific literature.[27]

Moving beyond the initial controversy

Charles Bennett examines three "cold fusion" test cells at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA
Charles Bennett examines three "cold fusion" test cells at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA
In the 1990s, there was little cold fusion research in the United States, and much of the research during this time occurred in Europe and Asia.[citation needed] Fleischmann and Pons relocated their laboratory to France under a grant from the Toyota Motor Corporation, and later sued La Repubblica, an Italian newspaper and a journalist for their suggestion that cold fusion was a scientific fraud. They lost the libel case in an Italian court.[citation needed] In 1996, they announced in Nature that they would appeal the court's decision, but never did.[citation needed]



By 1991, 92 groups of researchers from 10 different countries had reported excess heat, tritium, neutrons or other nuclear effects.[28] Over 3,000 cold fusion papers have been published including about 1,000 in peer-reviewed journals.[29] In March 1995, Dr. Edmund Storms compiled a list of 21 published papers reporting excess heat. [12] Articles have been published in peer reviewed journals such as Naturwissenschaften, European Physical Journal A, European Physical Journal C, Journal of Solid State Phenomena, Physical Review A, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, and Journal of Fusion Energy.[30]

The generation of excess heat has been reported by (among others):



The most common experimental set-ups are the electrolytic (electrolysis) cell and the gas (glow) discharge cell, but many other set-ups have been used. Electrolysis is popular because it was the original experiment and more commonly known way of conducting the cold fusion experiment; gas discharge is often used because it is believed to be the set-up that provides an experimenter a better chance at replication of the excess heat results. The excess heat experimental results reported by T. Ohmori and T. Mizuno (see Mizuno experiment) have come under particular interest by amateur researchers in recent years.

Researchers share their results at the International Conference on Cold Fusion, recently renamed International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science. The conference is held every 12 to 18 months in various countries around the world, and is hosted by The International Society for Condensed Matter Nuclear Science, a scientific organization that was founded as a professional society to support research efforts and to communicate experimental results. A few periodicals emerged in the 1990s that covered developments in cold fusion and related new energy sciences. Researchers have contributed hundreds of papers to an on-line cold fusion library.

A cold fusion calorimeter of the open type, used at the New Hydrogen Energy Institute in Japan. Source: SPAWAR/US Navy TR1862
A cold fusion calorimeter of the open type, used at the New Hydrogen Energy Institute in Japan. Source: SPAWAR/US Navy TR1862
Between 1992 and 1997, Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry sponsored a "New Hydrogen Energy Program" of $20 million to research cold fusion. Announcing the end of the program, Dr. Hideo Ikegami stated in 1997 "We couldn't achieve what was first claimed in terms of cold fusion." He added, "We can't find any reason to propose more money for the coming year or for the future."[31]



In 1994, Dr. David Goodstein described the field as follows:[32]

"Cold Fusion is a pariah field, cast out by the scientific establishment. Between Cold Fusion and respectable science there is virtually no communication at all. Cold fusion papers are almost never published in refereed scientific journals, with the result that those works don't receive the normal critical scrutiny that science requires. On the other hand, because the Cold-Fusioners see themselves as a community under siege, there is little internal criticism. Experiments and theories tend to be accepted at face value, for fear of providing even more fuel for external critics, if anyone outside the group was bothering to listen. In these circumstances, crackpots flourish, making matters worse for those who believe that there is serious science going on here."




Cold fusion researchers said that cold fusion is suppressed, and that skeptics suffer from pathological disbelief.[33] They said that there is virtually no possibility for funding in cold fusion in the United States, and no possibility of getting published.[34] They said that people in universities refuse to work on it because they would be ridiculed by their colleagues.[35]

In February 2002, a laboratory within the United States Navy released a report that came to the conclusion that the cold fusion phenomenon was in fact real and deserved an official funding source for research. Navy researchers have published more than 40 papers on cold fusion.[36]

In 2004, the United States Department of Energy (USDOE) decided to take another look at cold fusion to determine if their policies towards cold fusion should be altered due to new experimental evidence. They set up a panel on cold fusion. The nearly unanimous opinion of the reviewers was that funding agencies should entertain individual, well-designed proposals for experiments that address specific scientific issues relevant to the question of whether or not there is anomalous energy production in D/Pd systems, or whether or not D-D fusion reactions occur at energies on the order of a few eV. These proposals should meet accepted scientific standards, and undergo the rigors of peer review. No reviewer recommended a focused federally funded program for low energy nuclear reactions.[37]


[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Robert; N. P. Samios. "Cold Fusion confusion - Prons and Fletschmann may have fallen victim to the experimental scientist's worst nightmare - self-deception", Los Angeles Daily News, 24 September 1989, p. V1. Retrieved on 2008-02-18. 
  2. ^ THOMAS GRAHAM.
  3. ^ 1989 DOE panel page 7
  4. ^ 1989 DOE panel page 7
  5. ^ a b Bashkin, S.. "Bad Science", Physics Today, March 1994, p. 95. 
  6. ^ Jones’s manuscript on history of cold fusion at BYU
  7. ^ Evans, Robley. The Atomic Nucleus. 
  8. ^ Fleischmann, Martin (2003). "Background to cold fusion: the genesis of a concept". 10th International conference on cold fusion. 
  9. ^ Fleischmann, Martin (2003). "Background to cold fusion: the genesis of a concept". 10th International conference on cold fusion. 
  10. ^ Kowalski, Ludwik (5 March 2004). Jones’s manuscript on history of cold fusion at BYU.
  11. ^ Browne, M.. ""Physicists Debunk Claim Of a New Kind of Fusion"", New York Times, May 3, 1989. "Since March, scores of laboratories in the United States and abroad have sought to repeat the cold fusion experiment" 
  12. ^ a b c d Krivit, Steven (2005). The Seminal Papers of Cold Fusion. New Energy Times.
  13. ^ Krivit, Steven. "MIT Attack on Fleischmann and Pons". 
  14. ^ "Science: Nuclear Fusion", CBS Evening News, 10 April 1989. 
  15. ^ Browne, M. "Physicists Debunk Claim Of a New Kind of Fusion", New York Times, May 3, 1989. 
  16. ^ APS Special Session on Cold Fusion (1 May and 2 May 1989).
  17. ^ Browne, M. "Physicists Debunk Claim Of a New Kind of Fusion", New York Times, May 3, 1989. 
  18. ^ Oriani, R. A., J C. Nelson, S. Lee, and J. H. Broadhurst, Calorimetric Measurements of Excess Power Output During the Cathodic Charging of Deuterium into Palladium, Fusion Technol. 18 (1990) 652
  19. ^ Upper limits on neutron and ray emission from cold fusion. Nature (journal) (6 July 1989).
  20. ^ Upper bounds on 'cold fusion' in electrolytic cells. Nature (journal) (23 November 1989).
  21. ^ Cold Fusion Research. A Report of the Energy Research Advisory Board to the United States Department of Energy (November 1989).
  22. ^ Krivit, Steven. Controversial MIT. Cold Fusion Graphs.
  23. ^ Mallove, E. (1999). MIT and cold fusion: a special report.
  24. ^ Schwinger, J., "Cold fusion: Does it have a future?", Evol. Trends Phys. Sci., Proc. Yoshio Nishina Centen. Symp., Tokyo 1990, 1991. 57: p. 171.[1]
  25. ^ Wilson, R.H. (1992). "Analysis of experiments on the calorimetry of LiOD-D2O electrochemical cells" (332). J. Electroanal. Chem.. 
  26. ^ Beaudette, Charles G.. "Excess Heat & Why Cold Fusion Research Prevailed". 
  27. ^ Krivit, Steven. The Seminal Papers of Cold Fusion. New Energy Times.
  28. ^ Mallove E, "Fire from ice", 1991, NY: John Wiley, pp. 246-248 [2]
  29. ^ LENR-CANR.org [3] [4]
  30. ^ Krivit, Steven, "Selected Papers - Low Energy Nuclear Reactions," [5]
  31. ^ Pollack, A. "Japan, Long a Holdout, Is Ending Its Quest for Cold Fusion", New York Times, August 26, 1997 pg. C.4
  32. ^ Goodstein, D. "Whatever happened to cold fusion?", 'The American Scholar' 63(4), Fall 1994, 527-541[6]
  33. ^ Josephson, B. D., "Pathological disbelief", 2004 [7]
  34. ^ "DOE Warms to Cold Fusion", Physics Today, April 2004, pp 27 [8]
  35. ^ "In from the cold", The Guardian, March 24, 2005 [9]
  36. ^ LENR-CANR.org, Special collections, U.S. Navy Cold Fusion Research [10]
  37. ^ U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, "Report of the Review of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions", 2004 [11]

[edit] Comments

I'd like to note that the above is not the entire section -- so that one is not entirely overwhelmed. I'll make my contributions and comments later tonight or tomorrow, but I felt that we can safely move on from the lead. Please note that this section is not for in-depth discussions which were covered in the Arguments above, but should be wholly related to the above passages. Feel free to edit, improve upon, and comment about the above passages, but please keep it civil. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 22:09, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

As preliminary work, I have rewritten several sections for grammatical styling, added citations, added citation-needed tags, and have done some general cleanup. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 04:02, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Under History, in regard to the early history with Tandberg, a citation from Physics Today was used. Although it was strongly discouraged in earlier discussions, this was to validate prior, non-controversial text. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 05:20, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
The stuff about P&F "corrected their previous errors" shows an extremely pro-CF slant. P&F's later paper makes no mention at all of nuclear phenomena. To try to spin that as a "correction" is nonsense. JohnAspinall (talk) 06:28, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Also, the wording "a clear error with regard to the gamma spectra" is a direct cut-and-paste from copyright material at New Energy Times. I pointed this out on the talk page several months ago. JohnAspinall (talk) 06:32, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
In fact large chunks of this text have been copied verbatim from here: [13]. JohnAspinall (talk) 06:48, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. If it has been cut-and-paste from a source, then it should either be rewritten or removed from inclusion. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 14:26, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
I've taken care of two copyright vios. (I think). Feel free to further edit and hack away. I need to leave for now, but if there any more, then you are more than welcome to rewrite. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 15:26, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
I believe I have removed the remainder of the copyright vios. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 02:37, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Added the discovery of the mistaken assumption about Faraday efficiency. --Rabbiz (talk) 22:36, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Somebody vandalized this addition. I am not going to get dragged into an edit war. --Rabbiz (talk) 02:43, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fleischmann and QM

I have edited the paragraph about Fleischmann and quantum mechanics. The whole thing is still very problematic, but I have moved it in a more reasonable direction. In particular, QED is a variety of QM, so the phrasing that set them up in opposition to each other had to go. I've got Feynman's book, QED, open right beside me here. The distinction is about what you do or don't quantize, but in the usual vocabulary, if you're quantizing something then it's quantum mechanics. I have used "simple" to mean "without quantizing the EM field"; too much verbiage is a burden on the reader.

There are still multiple problems:

  • We need a general cite for "without quantizing the EM field, the effects of electron processes (chemistry) on nuclear processes are calculated to be negligible". That should be easy, being a mainstream opinion.
  • We very much need a cite for these collective effects that Fleischmann is claimed to claim. The only reference is to Fleischmann's "memoir" paper, and that doesn't give any hints. This is a gaping hole from the theoretical point of view. If Fleischmann had a QED-based calculation that indicated nuclear effects from collective electronic structure, and stood up to peer review, then it would be reference number 1 in every cold fusion theory paper. If pro-CF folks who know their literature can cite it, that would be a big help. Otherwise I think we must reduce this to "Fleischmann claims... but did not publish" wording.
  • I don't know of any other reference to F&P's train of thoughts leading them to do their experiments, than the one provided in the article. I do not believe that they had a "QED-based calculation that indicated nuclear effects from collective electronic structure". Remember that they are not QED theoreticians, but electrochemists. Instead, I believe that they said "what if", and decided to experiment it. A proper way to present it, IMHO, is something like "Fleischmann imagined... but did not publish". "Claim" would be too strong a word. Pcarbonn (talk) 10:00, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
  • The following sentence currently reads "By 1983, Fleischmann had experimental evidence leading him to believe that condensed phase systems developed coherent structures..." The combination of theoretical suggestion (collective effects, needs QED), followed by experimental results (evidence ... coherent structures) can only be read one way: they had a theoretical hunch and they were following up with experimental confirmation. Evidence of coherent structures doesn't come from calorimeters. It comes from some serious instrumentation. Yet six years later, this research team couldn't measure gamma rays to save their scientific reputation. It just doesn't add up. JohnAspinall (talk) 19:59, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
  • We need a cite or an explanation for Bridgman's "cold explosion", or we need to remove it. What is it? Why is it significant? It isn't mentioned on the Bridgman page.

JohnAspinall (talk) 03:20, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Agreed. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to search sources for the history section. You may want to look on New Energy Times here, or in Beaudette's book on excess heat, among others. Some may ask about the reliability of these sources though. Pcarbonn (talk) 10:00, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think Fleischmann's "memoir" paper is a suitable reference for "evidence of collective effects". I'm fine on it being the cite for what Fleischmann says he believed, but I see no experimental evidence offered in it. JohnAspinall (talk) 14:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The proposed statement says "Fleischmann had experimental evidence leading him to believe..." : that is well sourced by his memoir, I would think. We don't imply that these evidence would convince someone else. Here is the full quote from his memoir: "One conclusion which followed from these investigations of (i)-(iv) was that condensed phase systems developed structures having dimensions lying between ~100-1000 Å, structures that played a crucial rôle in the behaviour of the systems.". Here, "(i)-(iv)" refers to 4 different experimental investigations, one of which, (iv), is based on surface X-ray diffraction, and is described in some details in his memoir. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:09, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
The weird sociology of the Cold Fusion proponents is well illustrated by the "memoir" paper; the science, not so much. It's got chemistry versus physics; it's got (what Fleischmann calls) QM versus QED. Throughout the paper, Fleischmann wields QED like a magic wand; it will solve all the problems. But there isn't a single tangible example anywhere in the paper of using QED to predict anything. You could replace every instance of "QED", with "benevolent aliens from Planet Floob" and there would be no change in the content. Collective effects don't require QED; they don't even require any kind of quantization. You can predict an X-ray diffraction pattern from classical electromagnetics. I continue to like your earlier "Fleischmann imagined... but did not publish" proposal. JohnAspinall (talk) 18:42, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Another name for what you describe is Thinking outside the box. Pcarbonn (talk) 19:35, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Not a chance. Another name for what I describe is Deus_ex_machina. JohnAspinall (talk) 17:25, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fusion in the 1930's?

Does anyone have any idea what the first paragraph is talking about? Fusion in the 1930's? The discovery of uranium fission in the 1930's, plus the use of the phrase "nuclear fuel" suggests that we might have a fission/fusion confusion here. (Yes, in fusion, hydrogen is the "nuclear fuel". But no-one says that. "Nuclear fuel" is always fission fuel, in common parlance.) For verification, I looked up Shafranov's history of fusion paper; he starts things in 1951, although there is one reference to a British paper from 1946. Certainly there would have been classified stuff on the hydrogen bomb before then, but equally certainly it doesn't go back to the 30's.

So what's this paragraph about? Searching for clean energy? Searching for peaceful nuclear applications? Searching for a way to get the section started? Let's just get rid of it. JohnAspinall (talk) 20:38, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The very first section of "History [...]"? I can't find any reliable sources doing a journal query on my university account. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 21:58, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Clarification, please. Do you mean you couldn't find any reliable sources for fusion in the 30's? Or do you mean you couldn't find any reliable sources for history of fusion? I agree with you on the first. If the second, I think the referenced paper is pretty good. It was published by the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Shafranov is a major figure in hot fusion. Careers have been made out of solving the Grad-Shafranov_equation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JohnAspinall (talk • contribs) 16:39, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I meant regarding Cold Fusion in the 1930s. seicer | talk | contribs 14:41, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Over-emphasis on page counts is a hallmark of crackpot science writing

The current version of this section talks about P&F's later paper as having 58 pages; a previous version of this section also made sure to mention that their "preliminary note" had 8 pages. This reads like an art critic talking about "Leonardo's 1.46 square meter Mona Lisa". Or like a music columnist mentioning Perlman's 73 decibel performance of the Mozart violin concerto. The value of the object is not measured in those units.

Simply calling P&F's later paper "detailed", while defensible, doesn't tell the whole story. The subject of their later paper is calorimetry. Lots and lots of calorimetry. While that certainly qualifies as detailed on the electrochemistry front, it is equally notable that they backed away from all mention of nuclear observations.

I've made some changes along these lines. JohnAspinall (talk) 14:39, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Good catch. I emphasized this in my original review of CF, in that quantitative counts do not generally surpass that of quality. seicer | talk | contribs 14:46, 5 March 2008 (UTC)