Cold Fusion Gets a Boost From the US Navy 168
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.
Figures (Score:3, Interesting)
More power to em (literally and figuratively).
Re:Figures (Score:5, Informative)
Cold fusion (Score:2, Funny)
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Key: Output Energy Exceeds Input Energy (Score:2)
Does anyone know how the output energy compares to the input energy for this military experiment?
Re:Key: Output Energy Exceeds Input Energy (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Figures (Score:5, Interesting)
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Considering the fact that traditional naval guns have relied on chemical energy to propel projectiles, the amount of power generation capacity needed on a warship to fire old-school guns is/was likely much lower than that required to fire rail guns.
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Incidentally, guns on ships as an offensive weapon have been pretty much obsolete since Pearl Harbour, the occasional shore bombardment mission notwithstanding. The primary naval offensive platform is the aircraft carrier, seconded by the ballistic missile carrying submarine and the guided missile armed cruiser. The old battleship is a distant fourth, if in service at all, and even the use of guns as fleet defense is being phased out in favour of destroyers and frigates armed with guided missiles.
Mart
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Thus, a new weapons platform that can do many jobs that would currently require a missile, but the cost would be much less. And you can have a whole cargo hold full of warheads; missiles take up more room. And the kinetic punch of the warhead does the damage, so there isn't any explosive payload on the warhead;
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Which they already have. Really, really big ones; it takes a crapload of energy to push a ship through the water quickly, too, and in order to do it, the Navy (and its contractors) have gotten good at extracting a lot of energy from either nuclear reactions or petrochemicals in short order.
A current-generation Aegis frigate has two GE LM2500 gas turbines, each producing 33,600 shaft HP, wh
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Still interesting to power my laptop battery but maybe not enough for my jetpack.
That Depends (Score:5, Informative)
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Hot fusion now with no installation cost: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
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Not so. The first occurence (the discovery itself) was caused by a fire in the lab where the experiment was housed; the starting point of the fire was the closet that contained the cooler with the heavy water.
Several years later, probably the first replication of the effect was marked by a fire in the Palo Alto Lab containing the experiment. (To this day, both Stanford and the City of Palo Alto deny there was such a fire, but the local ne
Re:Figures (Score:5, Interesting)
Read the post. That journal is one of the best journals in the World - look at the previous contributors mentioned in the post and tell me it's not a decent journal. Just because it's German, it doesn't mean it's "sub-par". Your post should be modded down for trolling, but unfortunately I expect it'll bubble up as "Informative".
Also, most US/British journals would refuse to publish not because they doubted the ability of the scientists to produce good quality data, but because they have a knee-jerk reaction that cold fusion is junk science.
Well done to this journal for actually taking it on.
Re:Figures (Score:5, Informative)
Also, note that the list of previous famous contributors to the journal does not cite any *current* researcher. Maybe this used to be a great journal, but it's clearly no longer the case.
Re:Figures (Score:4, Interesting)
qrad
Ph.D. Student in Nuclear Science and Engineering
MIT
Re:Figures (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
I agree with gp, in that the journal can have a brilliant reputation, but it's probably been a while since Einstein and Heisenberg wrote articles for it.
The contents page of the issues of 2007 seems to deal more in zoology, biochemistry, ecology and palaeontology than materials science or quantum chemistry. Why was this article not published in "US military journal of applied physics" (surely there must be something like this)?
Also, I didn't read gp as being derogatory of a journal because it's in German; that would just be silly.
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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.
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Re:Figures (Score:5, Insightful)
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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
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That seems pretty obvious. Cold Fusion is considered junk science in the US and even credible labs releasing credible and reproducible results can't get anything related to Cold Fusion published in a US journal.
Just look at this thread, this is obviously a credible scientific journal and people are already looking for excuses to disregard it.
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I corrected you post the way you should have written it.
Read the post. That journal MIGHT HAVE BEEN one of the best journals in the World - looking at the previous contributors mentioned in the post I CAN tell you that it MIGHT HAVE BEEN one of the best journals. Just because it's German and the ONLY THING IT HAS TO SHOW IS THAT EINSTEIN published in it 80 years ago, it DOES mean it is "sub-par". Your post should be modded down for trolling, but unfortunately I expect it'
Re:Figures (Score:5, Interesting)
Boiling water (Score:2)
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Polywell operates by creating a converging potential well of tens of thousands of volts and dropping ions into it. At roughly 11,000 degrees kelvin per electron volt that's one HELL of a hot spot.
Tens of kilovolts, on the other hand, are easy to handle - in a near vacuum. The trick is to achieve sufficient DENSITY in that near vacuum and keep the particles at that temperature and pressure for enough TIME to end up with more fusion energy harvested than you put in to set uop the system.
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Re:Figures (Score:4, Interesting)
--bold added
Re:Figures (Score:5, Informative)
As an editor or a reviewer, I might well choose to publish a paper -- especially a short paper -- that documented some experimental results, even if the mechanism behind those results was unclear. Maybe there's a future paper forthcoming that either contradicts the results, or offers an explanation, nuclear or not. It makes sense to me to document the alleged evidence in the archival literature.
I want to repeat that the conclusions of the paper are very weak. The outrageous claims have been added later by the popular press. And the argument that "Einstein published there 100 years ago, so it must be true" is unworthy of repetition or rebuttal.
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Science Journalism (Score:2)
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As I have no access to the paper it is hard to judge the results, but from this and other comments it appears that their work substantially contradicts P&F's observations, which could not possibly have been due to any fusion reaction that produced energetic charged particles, because there is no way at all for a sufficiently high-energy charged particle to move through a palladium la
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Not wanting to spend the money, I have to content myself with the (presumably non-restricted) abstract:
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Here's a freely available article [newenergytimes.com] that apparently explains the theory. It is cited in an erratum to the original paper. [doi.org]
curious (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder why they chose that over ASP
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Computer geek vs. science geek battle alert!
I will take the science side any time! Web technology fads come and go, science will stay.
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Re:curious (Score:5, Funny)
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Far more exciting (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Far more exciting (Score:5, Insightful)
Theory exists (Score:2)
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Hot fusion now! http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user s -selling-solar.html [blogspot.com]
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Bussard estimates that he could complete one by 2011, ITER is slated to finish in 2013. I'd imagine that a lo
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where has the polywell fusor been "universally deemed to be the proven method of fusion". If you want to learn more about people who currently are doing IEC research and are in fact funded by the DOE to do so (the Navy doesn't fund ITER to my knowledge things like that go through the DOE), then check out the website from at University of Madison:
http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/iec/ftisite1.htm [wisc.edu]
It should give at least a brief introductio
Per Bussard's video given at google campus... (Score:2)
for 'steady state' operation. Doing the work without steady operation is tedious and
possibly missing some key elements of the process.
The Hirsch-Farnsworth device held the record for its energy levels for a long while,
Bussard's exceeded this by quite a bit and shows great promise.
The video is long, and he can be a bit monotone at times, but his brilliance
is undeniable and verifiable thru the video and elsewhere.
DARPA fund
LERN (Score:5, Funny)
LENR-CANR (Score:3, Informative)
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Get fusion now: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html [blogspot.com]
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I hope this means ... (Score:2, Funny)
Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (Score:5, Interesting)
The "Cold Fusion" field has seen many more experimental successes: detection of neutrons, tritium, helium, transmutations of heavier elements, non-natural-abundance isotope ratios, detection of ionizing radiation. The best place to visit for an overview of the field is http://www.lenr-canr.org/ [lenr-canr.org].
Though the experiments are remarkable, no concensus on the theory has emerged yet. Nuclear reactions are clearly happening, but it is doubtful that it is conventional fusion, that is, nuclei moving fast enough to surmount their mutual Coulombic repulsion. Something seems to be screening or catalysing the reactions.
Re:Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (Score:5, Interesting)
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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.
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Yes, that could be an issue... But that's absolutely, positively, NOT SCARY, in any way, shape, or form.
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Heck, it is hard to see how this could happen at all. The deuteron having integer spin seems like the only thread to pull on....
Video (Score:3, Informative)
I won't believe it for real until... (Score:5, Funny)
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The sailor died (Score:2)
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Also, to address the sibling poster, this guy [wikipedia.org] played the sailor, this guy [wikipedia.org] played the construction worker, and neither of them appear to be dead.
Sorry for letting facts get in the way of an otherwise good joke though.
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Call me ignorant (but considerate) (Score:2, Interesting)
I feel like I've been reading about cold fusion for as long as I've been old enough to read about science. I can't shake the feeling that cold fusion research is the modern equivalent of alchemy. That is to say that it's kind of a dead end in itself, but the amount of work being done to that end is yielding all kinds of results that will be beneficial to other scientists at some
Cold Fusion (Score:3, Funny)
Method (Score:3, Interesting)
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Obligitory... (Score:3, Funny)
Article excerpts (Score:5, Informative)
Article Erratum (Score:3, Informative)
As with Fission... (Score:2)
For my fellow nukes out there, remember cross-sections [wikipedia.org]? [Note to self: Wikipedia is like the duct tape of encyclopedias; there's nothing it can't do, but do use with caution]. If the experimenters can improve the probability of the reaction's occurrence, then sure, fusion can result. I mean, who would have thought that less than 100 years ago, setting up a pile of graphite bricks with bits of U metal at Stagg Field [wikipedia.org] would have spawned an entire industry for energy and
energy from a wire and magnetic field? Brilliant (Score:3, Insightful)
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
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As stated, I didn't bother to read the article and so I'm only commenting on the /. summary. I also thought that electron flow was the movement of electrons and electrons were part of an atom( sub-atomic maybe ) and had a charge. THAT lead me to the comment regarding Ampere's Law of electron flow in a wire induced by a changi
Doubtful (Score:4, Interesting)
The most amusing comment was that they were able to recreate Fleischman and Pons 'excess energy' - but pointed out that the palladium electrodes became more resistive when absorbing hydrogen and that they were using constant current power supplies (hint: Fleischman and Pons weren't monitoring the power supply voltage).
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Tritium is found in most sources of water. Just about any process used for enriching deuterium will also likely be equally as good for enriching tritium.
Theory (Score:4, Informative)
in case you were wondering the Navy's connection.. (Score:2)
We were brainiacs and went to nuclear power for many of our more important subs, which run very *hot*, even if they are silent. They can be seen easily due to their thermal footprint.
Cold fusion, therefore, would be
Re:in case you were wondering the Navy's connectio (Score:4, Interesting)
signed - a cold war sub sailor
Not unexpected. (Score:2, Interesting)
Saying "They must be on to something, because they're still doing
Budget (Score:4, Informative)
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It MUST be true, they have a PICTURE... (Score:2)
No, wait, it's only a piece of CR-39 plastic like the one that detected the atomic particles. Never mind.
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Get with the times. ZPM [wikipedia.org] is the energy source of choice now. Naquadah is backup.
Either way its the Air Force that has them... (Score:2)
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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.
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Oh, stop. Like it or not, Stargate is part of our culture, now. If "naquadah generators" don't belong on WikiPedia, neither do things like kryptonite or "the silver bullet", and I'm pretty sure most people will argue that with you.
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In this particular field, it is in fact important to clarify such a thing. It could be that you only saw signs that you stumbled upon, not quite understanding them, but they looked like fusion took place. Others might still want to look at your lab
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