Cold Fusion Gets a Boost From the US Navy

Tjeerd writes in to alert us to the publication in a highly respected, peer-reviewed journal of results indicative of table-top fusion. The US Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego, CA (called Spawar) has apparently been conducting research on "cold fusion" since the days of the discredited report of Pons and Fleischmann. They are reporting on the reproducible detection of highly energetic charged particles from a wire coated in palladium-deuterium and subjected to either an electric or a magnetic field. Their paper was published in February in the journal Naturwissenschaften (which has published work by Einstein, Heisenberg, and Lorenz). New Scientist also has a note about the fusion work but it is available only to subscribers.

Re:Far more exciting

[VoidCrow]

On the contrary, I'd suggest that the LENR work is far more exciting because we don't have a theoretical framework which describes it. New physics, anyone?

Re:Figures

[smittyoneeach]

xenophobic racism

xenophobia [reference.com]: an unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange.
racism [reference.com]: a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.

You might also consider
hyperbole [reference.com]: obvious and intentional exaggeration.

Re:Figures

[maxwell demon]

How else could the sentence "Why was it published in a German journal?" interpreted? He didn't ask "Why was it published in a low-impact journal?" or "Why wasn't it published in a journal with better reputation?".

Of course, otherwise the question is valid. If you had proof of cold fusion, the first place you'd submit it to would normally be Physical Review Letters. Not because it's American, but because it's simply the most reputed magazine in physics.

Re:Low Energy Nuclear Reactions

[evilviper]

"nuclear catalyst" - there's a phrase to put fear into the heart of anyone who knows what a catalyst is.

...but doesn't know what "nuclear" actually means.

Re:Why keep working on Cold Fusion?

[doktorjayd]

y'see!

its useless drivel like this that makes wikipedia look like a comedic joke. ( aside from the politicians pumping their own ( or opponents ) entries... thats just comedy )

when i want to find shit out, i like to search wikipedia. when it comes up with 'naquadah generators' it makes you think the thing is driven by a bunch of high school trekkies with far too much time on their hands.

sorry for the rant jimbo, but please keep this shit out of wikia or whatever the wikipedia #2 is called.

energy from a wire and magnetic field? Brilliant

[Locutus]

It's called Ampere's Law(http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/mag netic/magcur.html ).
Your tax dollars at work. ;-)

I didn't bother with the article due to the subject matter being of little interest other than to show how money and minds are being wasted. IMO.

LoB

Re:Low Energy Nuclear Reactions

[zippthorne]

No, it's still quite scary. though probably not for the reason the gp intended..

For instance, in addition to the sub-critical nuclear terrorism angle, nuclear catalysts could cause a bit of a stir in isotopic dating.

If such a catalyst exists, geology should give us some clues: We should look for minerals composed of reaction products, but in concentrations that shouldn't exist.

Re:Figures

[shaitand]

Lets stop tiptoeing around it. This is a credible journal but not the first choice because the most obvious choices refused to publish an article on cold fusion no matter how credible the source.

Re:Figures

[Anonymous Coward]

the first place you'd submit it to would normally be Physical Review Letters

This might be true under normal circumstances, but the way cold fusion was introduced to the world created an exceptional condition. It could be that the submitters of this paper feel that the world is still in the 'catch' pathway of the exception that P&F had 'thrown'. It seems pretty obvious that Naturwissenschaften was chosen partly because it creates an association between cold fusion and proven theories that have rocked the foundations of scientific communities.

We've seen a little bit published on why P&F took their findings to a media circus rather than a refereed journal. Something I've never seen discussed is that their press conference announcement of cold fusion assured that it would get so much instant wide publicity that neither government nor big business would be able to suppress it. So maybe this was a good way to break the news. But combined with the difficulties of repeatability in CF experiments and possibly several smear campaigns to discredit P&F, anyone attempting to publish legitimate work in CF now faces an abnormal publishing environment.

Next month it won't matter very much where the current work was published; what will be important is whether other laboratories have been able to reproduce the results as claimed. I'm guessing that sufficient reproducibility will be found to raise serious doubts about a wide range of postulates that we have been taking for granted:

If cold fusion is demonstrated, then

• supernovae might not be the only natural mechanism for producing heavy elements, which would introduce major doubt about some basic theories of cosmology
• there might be an explanation for galactic organization, etc, does not require esoteric dark energy or dark matter
• currently there are only 4 recognized sources of natural energy in the global ecosystem:
  1. solar
  2. fission
  3. residual heat from planetary formation
  4. tidal effects and other mechanical energy derived from lunar orbital degradation
  CF introduces a possible 5th source of energy, independent of the above. This could, for instance, be involved with the heat of the earth's interior. Current theories in geology and ecology might need to be modified.
• paleontology dating techniques based on isotope decay may need to account for isotopes produced by naturally occuring CF processes
• Since CF occurs within biological parameters, it might be a player in biology itself. I haven't had to work with Kreb's Cycle for much more than a decade, but AIR there are some unexplained details in the "magical" electron transfers, etc, where a little CF might get rid of some those black magic veils

Basically, demonstrating CF would have a much bigger impact on our culture than the rail guns, decentralized non-polluting power grids, or affordable flying cars that practical CF promises. All those technologies are implied by CF, but its greater impact will be on theories, not technologies.