Comments on: Cold Fusion Is Hot Again

60 Minutes: Once Considered Junk Science, Cold Fusion Gets A Second Look By Researchers

[penny_gruber]

ceetee9, your list of individuals includes established kooks and crooks. On the kooky side you've got luminaries like Jeane Manning and Stephen Greer. Jeane doesn't seem to mean harm, but when asked for references to back some of her conspiracy theory claims such as that John Keely's "work" has been suppressed, she falls silent. Stephen Greer is promoting alien encounter claims straight from the aluminum deflector beanie set. At last count he was giving money to Pete Sumurack for his magic power technology. Pete's magic consists of turning down the acceleration ramp control on a motor control. Naturally, Pete claims he is a victim of suppression by the black ops.

On the crook side, you've got Tom Bearden who makes a living fleecing gullible fools with his nonsense scalar wave and magnetic asymmetry claims. Those are claims he never evidences. Ask Tom Bearden to demonstrate a working version of his MEG. Even EarthTech reluctantly debunked the MEG.

[Brian_Josephson]

In answer to Larsen's blind reliance on the dictionary definition of nuclear fusion: "Nuclear fusion. 1. A type of nuclear reaction in which atomic nuclei of low atomic number fuse to form a heavier nucleus with the release of large amounts of energy." I could simply have quoted

http://www.answers.com/topic/transuranium-element

where it says

"Super-heavy atoms have all been created during the latter half of the 20th century and are continually being created during the 21st century as technology advances. They are created through the bombardment of elements in a particle accelerator, for example the nuclear fusion of californium-249 and carbon-12 creates rutherfordium."

Hardly 'low atomic numbers' there (californium has atomic number 98). Definitions move with the times; new technology, new definition.

[JedRothwell]

penny_gruber

"Repeatable, verifiable experiment can trump existing theory. After 20 years no CF / LENR experiment that I know of is consistently repeatable."

I know many experiments that fit this description, such as the ones reported by McKubre, Mengoli, Arata or Iwamura. If you do not "know of" these experiments it is because you have not bothered to read the literature. The fact that you do not know about these experiments does not prove that they do not exist; it proves only that you know nothing about cold fusion, and you have no business pontificating about it.

I suggest you read some papers in a university library or at LENR-CANR.org.

[ceetee9]

Ms. Gruber, I don?t know where you get there is no evidence for these technologies. I have just given you dozens of credible scientists who not only believe there is evidence, strong evidence?including some working prototypes?and there are many, many more if you would take the time to look. Have either you or Mr. Black done any serious investigations into their research? I seriously doubt it.

And as I have provided in the examples I gave, history has proven time and again that just because mainstream science doesn?t believe or accept radical new ideas of their time doesn?t make them not so (and these people were very confident in their arguments and opinions as well). In your own statement you acknowledge that the experiments in CF/LENR are inconsistent. Government and mainstream science have poured billions of dollars into hot fusion over the last few decades with no solution to harnessing it as an energy source. And you have the audacity to say putting money into these other technologies is idiocy and complete folly. How disingenuous!

No, the idiocy and folly is in ignoring any potential solution that may provide unlimited, renewable, non-polluting energy sources while we grow ever closer to sure destruction?up to and including extinction?through pollution, global warming, or world war as our current resources run out.

[penny_gruber]

ceetee9 Samuel Black's comments reflect the confidence that opinions based on hard evidence should. Just because someone believes something is possible doesn't make it so. There are thousands of people who think they can rearrange magnets to get free energy. None of them ever do. There is no basis in our knowledge that supports the idea. I am sure they would like funding. I am sure that any number think that with enough funding they will get past the infamous sticky spot. Absent credible evidence that none of them have, putting resources towards such idiocy is complete folly. What makes them so different from the CF / LENR crowd?

Repeatable, verifiable experiment can trump existing theory. After 20 years no CF / LENR experiment that I know of is consistently repeatable. When you can do that, you have a reasonably good chance that you have isolated effects of the thing you are interested in studying. As long as experiments are inconsistent it is anybody's guess what the experiments mean. CF/LENR interpretations of existing, but inconsistent experiments are just one interpretation of many possible interpretations.

Despite the fact that CF / LENR research over the past 20 years hasn't delivered squat in terms of a reproducible experiment, money still goes towards it. The McKubres of this world don't have lavish budgets or staffs, but they still draw a check and get to toil away at their dream.

Mr. Black has very patiently and very eloquently explained his objections to claims coming from the CF / LENR community. He doesn't propose witch hunts against CF / LENR advocates. He asks simply as any reasonable person would: Show him reliable evidence that makes the claim obvious to a disinterested lay observer. Boil his tea consistently. Surely if CF / LENR is going to boil enough steam to run a power plant, it can be made to consistently boil a cup of tea.

[ceetee9]

Mr. Black your definitive and self-assured comments speak volumes. Some of your comments are reminiscent of one who will cling so tenaciously to a belief that no amount of evidence or facts will convince them otherwise. You are comforted by being part of the majority and cannot conceive of the majority being wrong. Consequently, anyone who proposes anything contrary to the consensus thinking of the time is crazy, a charlatan or just plain wrong in your mind. No matter?

History is rife with examples of just how closed minded mainstream scientists, journalists and people in general can be and how long it can take to open their minds to new ideas?and the more radical the idea the longer it takes to be accepted. Here are just a few examples that refute your position of how willing scientists (and others) are to accept new ideas. The Wright Brothers were flying for a year before they could get a reporter or anyone in authority to come out to one of their demonstrations, Scientific American wrote an article titled ?The Lying Brothers,? and the US Patent office rejected their design in 1903. C.J. Doppler?s Doppler Effect was opposed for two decades because it did not fit with the physics of the time. B. McClintlock was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1984 for his mobile genetic elements transposons, 32 years after being ridiculed and ignored by his peers. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was viciously attacked by colleagues for 50 years before being awarded a Nobel Prize in physics for his Black Hole theory. The first signs of Quantum Mechanics date back to the middle 1800s (Farady and Kirchhoff) yet it took the work of dozens of physicists over 80 years before ?mainstream? science began to accept it?and even now only a handful of physicists understand it. Do these examples portend scientists who ?fall over themselves? to get involved?

And just like J.P. Morgan who pulled Nikola Tesla?s funding when he learned that Tesla wanted to give away his free energy technology to the world, the current energy cartel not only has no interest in these ?free energy? systems, they are willing to go to great lengths to keep this technology suppressed.

Again I say, if there is nothing to this technology then what are mainstream science, the energy cartel, and our government afraid of?particularly if these technologies can rescue us from our highly polluting and rapidly depleting fossil fuels and give us non-polluting, unlimited free energy? You certainly can?t say it?s the money. We?ve all heard about the absurd government funded studies like studying the mating habits of the titsy fly, $1.2M to study the breeding preferences of a woodchuck, $1M why people don?t like to ride their bikes to work, etc.

Only a fool would argue that research into those types of studies are fine, but research into energy technologies that could give us unlimited, renewable non-polluting energy?that could quite literally save this planet?are foolish and a waste of time.

But my goal in writing my comments aren?t to convince you or anyone else that these technologies are real and hold great promise for our future. My goal is to get more people to suspend their disbelief and preconceived notions long enough to seriously examine the evidence and decide for their self. I gave a list of just a few well respected scientists and inventors of the thousands who are working in these fields and believe the technology is real and can be developed for commercial use very quickly if they can just get adequate funding.

[Brian_Josephson]

In response to Lewis Larsen: yes, precise use of language is important in science -- in its place. If it were the general practice to use the word fusion to make the distinction Larsen refers to (overcoming the Coulomb barrier being the key factor), it would indeed be an error to use it in a way that ignores that distinction. But as far as I know it is only 2 or 3 people who do insist on the distinction, and I think the lexical opinions of that small minority, which I shall critique in a moment can reasonably be disregarded by the rest.

The Oxford Dictionary of Physics (not the same Oxford Dictionary that places a consciousness conference Ramachandran and I organised in Oxford, I trust, just because the proceedings were pubished by a publisher based in Oxford)? Nice point, but note that the fundamental role of dictionaries is to list the ways in which words are actually used. The editors, logically, should have made reference to cold fusion but may have excluded it on the grounds that it was an error and it was not part of their purpose to include errors in their scholarly work. In other words, it would have been a policy decision not to include cold fusion in their listing of uses of the word fusion. Had it been an accepted phenomenon at the time, I'm sure it would have been included.

Definitions are not meant to be set in stone, but change as science advances. This applies even with fundamental units, whose definitions are changed from time to time since definitions are tied to experimental techniques and sticking to particular definitions may limit the accuracy obtainable while the constant defined differently and it may be better to change it, for example changing which atomic transition is used to define the unit of time.

Point made, I trust, but I'd like to make some other points as well:

1) The term CF has largely been abandoned by the active community in favour of LENR (low energy nuclear reactions). That is not ideal either since there are other LENRs, e.g. reactions involving slow neutrons. Other suggested alternatives have not become popular. The ideal, in my opinion, would have been 'catalysed nuclear reactions', making the point that the reactions go faster than normal but without any commitment to mechanism.

2) Saying 'this is not fusion' is liable to be misinterpreted as casting doubt on the evidence for something anomalous happening, which I think is not your intention. If you were precede the remarks you feel compelled to make with something like 'strictly speaking' the problem would be avoided.

3) The fact that your lexical point is nearly always accompanied by reference to your own theory gives the unfortunate impression that your real aim is publicity for your work, rather than clarifying definitions.

Brian J.

[samuelblack]

"It's truly sad and disheartening that so many, otherwise intelligent scientists, journalists, and government "leaders," would fight so hard to suppress, deny, and fallaciously debunk any potential energy solutions ..."

It would indeed be sad if it were true, but you should keep in mind Asimov?s admonition that to be a persecuted genius, it is not enough to be persecuted; you also need to be right.

"Do you think it's because, like Copernicus' and Galileo's colleagues who "knew" the Sun revolved around the Earth, contemporary theories are right; all others wrong (i.e., there is nothing new to learn), or because it's far safer and more important to be a "team player" and espouse the party line so as to keep one's position, credentials, power and authority, or because academe skeptics have a vested interest in pursuing more traditional (classical) physics solutions and/or are afraid of losing government funding if they don't do as the government (current energy cartel) tells them, or, could it be because the powers-that-be are so self-absorbed and arrogant -- that they truly believe they know better than anyone else what we and the planet can (or will) tolerate -- that they are willing to go to any lengths to maintain power and control and suck every last dollar they can out of existing technologies [...] I think it's a mix of all of the above, but all of them are unconscionable and counter productive. "

No. It is most certainly none of the above. CF and its close relatives are being ignored because scientists actually believe there is nothing potential in them for sound scientific reasons.

Your premise that in the modern scientific era, new ideas are suppressed to preserve status quo is (with a few notable exceptions) sadly wrong. It is especially wrong when one considers bench-top physics experiments that anyone can perform for relatively low cost. Notice that you went back to Galileo to find an example of suppression, and that suppression came from the church, not other scientists. The same is true of Darwin's revolutionary theory.

The last century has seen unprecedented revolution in scientific theories, and for the most part, these have not only been rapidly accepted, but physicists practically fell over themselves to get involved; which is why so many of the physicists from the decades surrounding the emergence of modern physics have become household names.

CF is a bench-top physics experiment, similar to measuring blackbody radiation from a cavity or current from the photoelectric effect. And evidence from these experiments ushered in the revolutionary theory of quantum mechanics. It took some 30 years to develop a formal theory, but the notion that electromagnetic waves are quantized was accepted rather quickly, even though Planck himself, who first suggested it, thought the idea was an artifact of a reality yet to be discovered.

Planck and Einstein received Nobel prizes for suggesting light quanta, and it took less time than CF has been around. That doesn?t sound like "trying to be a team player and espouse the party line".

Or consider de Broglie, who, as a graduate student, proposed the revolutionary idea that electrons have a wavelength. Although some were skeptical, others were immediately supportive, and de Broglie was awarded the Nobel prize 5 years later (after the idea was confirmed by electron diffraction). That doesn't sound like "academe skeptics [with] a vested interest in pursuing more traditional (classical) physics solutions [who are] are afraid of losing government funding if they don't do as the government ... tells them", now does it?

Or consider relativity. The special theory (1905), which rejects the dearly-held notion of absolute time was largely accepted within about 5 years. After the general theory (1915) was verified by the bending of light in 1919, Einstein became an instant celebrity. That is hardly a description of "powers-that-be [that] are so self-absorbed and arrogant -- that they truly believe they know better than anyone else [and are] willing to go to any lengths to maintain power and control and suck every last dollar they can out of existing technologies".

Physicists are only too well aware of the danger of decrying new ideas, which is why the biggest rebuttal to your feeble conspiracy theory is CF itself. For a brief time Pons and Fleischmann were celebrated, and every major laboratory in the world was doing CF experiments, in spite of their implausibility. The atmosphere in science was electric. The ACS and APS meetings that followed were dominated by the topic, and some tentative theories were proposed to explain it. Nearly everyone wanted it to be true. CF got more than a reasonable chance. The wheels fell off, not because of scientific inertia or dogma, but simply because people couldn?t make it work as advertised. And sadly, they still can?t.

[with apologies for using large parts of my previous posts in this forum]

[ceetee9]

I am cautiously optimistic that, perhaps, a crack has been opened in the multi-decade?s long closed door toward advanced energy research. Whether the powers-that-be are finally getting it or this piece is just a token gesture to appease the thousands who have been pushing for some serious and honest investigations into the claims made by creative and courageous visionary scientists, inventors, and engineers is the question.

It?s truly sad and disheartening that so many, otherwise intelligent scientists, journalists, and government ?leaders,? would fight so hard to suppress, deny, and fallaciously debunk any potential energy solutions that could replace our current, highly polluting energy technologies and rapidly depleting energy resources?particularly when they portend unlimited resource and zero (or near zero) pollution.

Do you think it?s because, like Copernicus? and Galileo?s colleagues who ?knew? the Sun revolved around the Earth, contemporary theories are right; all others wrong (i.e., there is nothing new to learn), or because it?s far safer and more important to be a ?team player? and espouse the party line so as to keep one?s position, credentials, power and authority, or because academe skeptics have a vested interest in pursuing more traditional (classical) physics solutions and/or are afraid of losing government funding if they don?t do as the government (current energy cartel) tells them, or, could it be because the powers-that-be are so self-absorbed and arrogant?that they truly believe they know better than anyone else what we and the planet can (or will) tolerate?that they are willing to go to any lengths to maintain power and control and suck every last dollar they can out of existing technologies and us?maybe even to the point of driving us to extinction? I think it?s a mix of all of the above, but all of them are unconscionable and counter productive.

As John Dalberg-Acton said, ?Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.?
I sincerely hope that all of those who have had a hand in suppressing advanced energy technologies, for whatever reason, do some serious soul searching and consider their own family?s future generations even if they are not willing to consider others.

And I applaud and encourage those courageous individuals whose principals and unyielding drive to seek knowledge and truth supersedes their instinct to play it safe and maintain the status quo. If it wasn?t for people like you we would, no doubt, still be living in caves.

Whether anyone reading this believes low energy nuclear reaction (aka cold fusion), zero point, electrogravitics, acoustic cavitation, hydrogen gas cells, or any other of the promising advanced energy technologies exist or not is not important. But what is important is that we all demand that our government, academe, and the media do serious and unbiased investigations into all of these technologies. If it?s all bunk then what are they afraid of? If we have no problem spending hundreds of billions of dollars on ?hot fusion? research over the last couple decades?that has failed to yield any significant results?then surely we can afford to spend a few hundred million to research technologies that promise zero pollution and unlimited resources when sufficiently developed.

I highly encourage everyone to do your own research and investigation into advanced energy technologies. There is a wealth of information in books, journals, videos, CDs, and on the web. The following are just a few good resources and topics you can start with by searching the web or visiting your local library or book store:
Brian O?Leary, Ph.D.
Paul LaViolette Ph.D.
Ervin Laszlo, Ph.D.
Eugene Mallove, Ph.D.
Thomas Townsend Brown
Paul Biefeld, Ph.D.
Nikola Tesla
Tom Bearden
Guy Obolensky, Ph.D.
Eugene Podkletnov, Ph.D.
Stanley Pons, Ph.D.
Martin Fleischmann, Ph.D.
Michael McKubre, Ph.D.
Jeane Manning
Herman Branover, Ph.D.
Bruce DePalma, Ph.D.
Bernard Haisch, Ph.D.
Steven Greer, M.D.
Randell Mills, Ph.D.
Zero Point Energy (ZPE)
LENR (Low Energy Nuclear Reaction; aka Cold Fusion)
Electrogravitics
Subquantum Kinetics
Acoustic Cavitation

And I challenge 60 Minutes and any other mainstream media news shows to do more ?unbiased? pieces on advanced energy technologies. If you aren?t part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

[penny_gruber]

Alistair, Bessler's overbalanced wheel does not work. It doesn't work today. It didn't work last week. It didn't work last year. In the over 1200 years that we know about these proposals they have never worked. Visit the Museum of Unworkable Devices for a nice history on these things.

Wrecking balls like any other pendulum store energy accumulated over many cycles. They adhere to conservation of energy. They conform to Newton's Laws of motion. They do not violate any of the laws of thermodynamics.

Idiocy is denial of proven fact.

[samuelblack]

Larsen:

In spite of your measured tone, all your words did little to change my skepticism, or to persuade me to take time to read those articles or conference presentations. In fact, I had trouble reading through the post itself, which got a little dull, and probably for that reason, I find myself considerably less motivated to respond, but here I am anyway.

I was prepared to look at a few of Rothwell's papers to see if there really were claims of indefinite energy production (there weren't), since I have some notion of energy from freshman physics. But I'm seriously underqualified to evaluate the measurements, microscopic or otherwise, of radioactive signatures, and far less to understand your quantum mechanical equations. Perhaps I am therefore not in a position to be skeptical, but I am anyway, for basically the same reasons I have given before.

1.
The search for excess energy has been essentially an empirical search through parameter space of hydrated metals using electrolysis and calorimetry (mostly), and so the theoretical description doesn't really matter, except that it needs to be nuclear for there to be a potential source of practical energy. Energy from nuclear reactions has a potentially staggering magnitude, but in this context is theoretically expected to be infinitesimal, so it seems implausible to me that on the one hand, it would manifest itself in hundreds of labs and for thousands of scientists, but on the other hand, at a magnitude where its very existence could remain controversial for 20 years, and where no practical demonstration of energy from water has yet been made. It is as if nature is teasing us. (This leaves aside the implausibility of nuclear reactions being observed as excess heat before they are observed from the associated radioactivity; nuclear reactions were first discovered from their radiation at a time when radiation, let alone its detection, was scarcely understood.)

2.
The results to date have not succeeded in capturing the interest or credibility of the scientific community. Presumably, the reasons are the failure to reproduce or to scale up the energy output, the failure to provide convincing evidence of associated radioactivity, and the violation of theoretical predictions.

The recent (microscopic) evidence for radioactivity is perhaps improved, although, to me it still seems implausible that along with limiting the magnitude of the excess energy just so, nature would also somehow mask the radioactivity (normally a dead easy thing to measure) to the extent that SEMs are needed. But as I said, I can't evaluate those results with any authority, and I gather the excuse from LENR advocates is that established science is ignoring them because of CF's sad past, and fear of being marginalized. It is true that evaluating experimental results on paper requires some trust, and setting up to repeat them requires considerable effort, commitment, and risk, which people are understandably reluctant to take. Still, if the results were compelling, I find it difficult to believe, based on the history of physics in the last century, and the phenomenal implications of successful demonstrations, that scientists wouldn't be falling over themselves to get their names attached to it.

This argument applies far more strongly to the theoretical predictions. The argument against low temperature fusion, with the large Coulomb barrier, is one most of us can understand with freshman physics, and you seem to have side-stepped that objection with your idea of electron capture. Nevertheless, google university says that the neutron spontaneously ejects electrons releasing 1.3 MeV, so for the reverse reaction, electrons need energy close to a million times higher than they normally have in hydrogen. It boggles the mind that it could get this energy from the chemical environment, and moreso from some externally applied fields. But if your theory demonstrates that it can, and involves no new physics, then (i) why were these reactions not predicted from the many detailed analyses of hydrated metals by standard QM, and (ii) why are physicists not eager to jump on board? A theory to describe such a new phenomenon, with such important implications would present a lot of low-hanging fruit for theorists to pick in their quest for a Nobel. Here the argument about marginalization is much less compelling. Evaluation of the theory requires no trust, and very little commitment or risk. If it is found to be correct, surely no one is so naive to think it would not become famous in due course. And yet, according to the web of science, in ~4 years, your papers have scarcely been cited at all, let alone extended and augmented. Compare that to Einstein's 1905 relativity paper. In spite of its rejection of the cherished absolute time, luminaries like Planck were referring to it within the year; by 1907 Minkowski had devised an entire 4d space to help formalize the theory.

[Alastair Carnegie]

Addendum.

Thanks to the recent research of Dr. Peter Lindermann Ph. D. into the workings of the notorious Bessler Wheel, that was supported by both Gottfried Liebniz and Sir Isaac Newton as well as a host of early 18th century scientific luminaries, we now believe we have a good idea of how his wheel worked. Sir Isaac Newton suggested that the Royal Society pay the high asking price for the rights to the wheel.

Here is a good comment on the blithering idiot , one ' Hermann Helmholtz', who drafted the 1st Law? of Thermodynamics.

http://www.besslerwheel.com/firstlaw.html

What About the First Law of Thermodynamics?
The impossibility of energy for free is enshrined in one of the most fundamental and important laws of physics: the First Law of Thermodynamics or the Law of Conservation of Energy, which states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but can only change its form.
In 1847, a 26-year-old German medical doctor, Hermann Helmholtz, gave a presentation to the Physical Society of Berlin that would change the course of history. He presented the original formulation of what is now known as the First Law of Thermodynamics, beginning with the axiomatic statement that a Perpetual Motion Machine is impossible.

Axiom - A statement or proposition that is accepted as true without proof.

No one had ever succeeded, he wrote, in building a Perpetual Motion Machine that worked. Therefore, such machines must be impossible. If they are impossible it must be because of some natural law preventing their construction. This law, he said, could only be the Conservation of Energy.

But a profound reversal of reasoning has occurred in the last century. Helmholtz originally said "Because a Perpetual Motion Machine is impossible, therefore the First Law of Thermodynamics;" while in any physics text book today one will find the statement that "Because of the First Law of Thermodynamics, a Perpetual Motion Machine is impossible."

Skeptics are quick to cite the Laws of Thermodynamics to disprove Bessler's claims. In fact, the argument is circular. The Laws of Thermodynamics do not prove that Bessler's machine is impossible. On the contrary, they are deduced from the "leap of faith" of first presuming it is impossible.

[Alastair Carnegie]

With reference to Wikipedia:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology

"Physics
It has been claimed that within the framework of thermodynamics, the irreversibility of macroscopic processes is explained in a teleological way..."

Experiment verified by duplication with similar results, always trumps 'theory' that is based on philosophical reasoning. Nearly every error of science, had a foundation in teleologically inspired scholasticism. CAVEAT!

The motto of the Royal Society, "Nullius in Verba" (Latin: "On the words of no one", or "take nobody's word for it"; the full quote from Horace?Nullius addictus judicare in verba magistri?expands into the gold standard of objectivity: "Not compelled to swear to any master's words."

Any damn fool can make a claim that is as odds with percieved wisdom, if the claim is backed up by empiric evidence, then that can be tested. If the tests support the claim, then the damn fool, is the person who rejects the evidence in favour of the establishment dogma! If folk believe the so-called 'Laws' of Thermodynamics are valid? experiment will reveal they are in fact utter bunk! and complete balderdash!... Take a demolition 'wrecker ball' usually weighing from 4.5 to 5 tons, suspended from a crane weighing upwards of 30 tons. with practically no effort at all, the wrecker ball can be 'constantly' swung (oscillated) like a pendulum, and once a sufficient subtended arc or angular rotation is achieved, the entire 35+ tons of crane and wrecker ball, will lurch violently on it's foundations. 30 tons of steel will rise and fall with startling attitude(rock-crushing force) all day long, if the paltry effort required to maintain the pendulum swing is applied. Input is trivial, the output is significantly substantial!... This experimental evidence is repeatable and utterly conclusive! The Laws of Thermodynamics were drafted by a blithering idiot! Q.E.D. NO CONTEST!

[lewisglarsen]

Professor Josephson:

It is axiomatic that use of precise language is very important in science, unlike everyday informal conversation and online Internet banter. My apologies, but you sir are attempting to play sophistic intellectual semantic games with the definition of "fusion." You are trying to employ some sort of 'poetic license' to dramatically broaden the accepted scientific definition of nuclear "fusion" to include neutron capture processes (a key element of the Widom-Larsen theory of LENRs). Your assertion is patently incorrect and violates longstanding common practice in nuclear physics.

The general 'dictionary definition' of "fusion" that you so confidently state in your post: "to join or become combined" is certainly true for broad English usage of that word outside the domain of science. However, as you well know, the word/concept "fusion" takes on a narrower, much more specific meaning in the context of science in general and nuclear physics in particular.

Speaking of dictionaries, in the Oxford Dictionary of Physics (Oxford University Press, Fourth edition, 2000) the entry for "nuclear fusion" on page 323 reads in part as follows:

"Nuclear fusion. 1. A type of nuclear reaction in which atomic nuclei of low atomic number fuse to form a heavier nucleus with the release of large amounts of energy.... in nuclear fusion the two reacting nuclei themselves have to be brought into collision. As both nuclei are positively charged there is a strong repulsive [Coulomb] force between them, which can only be overcome if the reacting nuclei have very high kinetic energies. These high kinetic energies imply temperatures on the order of 10*8 K. As the kinetic energy required increases with the nuclear charge (i.e., atomic number), reactions involving low atomic-number nuclei are the easiest to produce."

So according to the above definition, to be considered a conventionally defined "fusion" process at least two conditions must be fulfilled: (Condition 1) the reacting nuclei must generally have a low atomic number; and (Condition 2) the reacting nuclei are positively charged, i.e, there is a large Coulomb energetic barrier that must either be surmounted with high kinetic energies or somehow tunneled through.

However, neutrons are uncharged particles, which violates Condition 2. By your arbitrary, ad hoc expansion of the definition of "fusion," you are also effectively asserting and in fact explicitly state that nuclear fusion processes take place between elements at high atomic numbers, i.e., high A, which violates Condition 1.

Since your opportunistically 'revised' definition of "fusion" violates both conditions listed in the Oxford Dictionary of Physics, it is incorrect. Your assertion is therefore false. Neutron captures on nuclei at any value of atomic number are not "fusion" processes, at least as far as commonly accepted usage of that term by nuclear physicists is concerned.

Agreeing completely with the definition listed the Oxford Dictionary of Physics, an identical concept of the word "fusion" in a nuclear context is echoed in the well respected nuclear physics textbook by Yang and Hamilton, "Modern Atomic and Nuclear Physics," McGraw-Hill 1996, pp. 592 - 595.

Interestingly, this particular semantic ploy has been attempted before (i.e., ad hoc redefinition of the word "fusion"). Specifically, this issue is discussed in Issue #30 (October 14, 2008) of the e-zine "New Energy Times" at the following,

Source URL = http://www.newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2008/NET30-jgk39gh12f.shtml#looklike

in Item # 24. "Response to 'Anon' on the 24 MeV Belief and the Krivit ACS Presentation" in the subsection 3 titled, "A New Definition of Fusion?"

In conclusion: your self-revised definition of "fusion" is scientifically incorrect and misleading. This will be my final comment in this venue on this subject matter.

[Brian_Josephson]

Larsen talks of 'undying adherence to an ill-founded belief that some sort of fusion process ("cold" D-D fusion in particular) is the underlying mechanism that is responsible for various types of anomalous phenomena', on the face of it in order to promote his own theory of LENR. However, his own paper admits 'final products ... may have fairly high A [atomic number]'. By the dictionary definition this implies fusion (my dictionary gives as one meaning of to fuse: 'to join or become combined', and you can't get a high A from lower A parts without combining things. Should I consider posting him a dictionary in order to encourage him to stop creating confusion (confuse: to make unclear) in this way?

[JedRothwell]

lewisglarsen accuses me and others as follows:

"For example, cold fusioneers have desperately tried to ignore excellent experimental evidence for the occurrence of nuclear transmutations in light hydrogen systems (no Deuterium present in them)."

That is incorrect. I have sponsored (paid for) experiments with light hydrogen, and uploaded several important papers about them. Violante has published important light water observations (such as ViolanteVxrayemissi.pdf), so it is ridiculous to claim that he opposes or ignores this subject.

I have also uploaded skeptical papers attacking cold fusion, because I believe that all points of view should be heard. But I have no objection whatever to Ni-H experiments. I am not fully convinced the excess heat effect with Ni is real, but if it is, it would be very promising. So this should be a high priority.

[lewisglarsen]

Continuing to samuelblack and joclondon:

When examining the previously cited experimental data, also consider a further possibility: that the cold fusioneers are simply wrong --- LENRs are not fusion --- never were. Their long-standing cold fusion paradigm is thus mistaken; the 'cabal' have been viewing LENR experimental data through the wrong conceptual 'lens' for twenty years.

You may be interested to know that we have developed and published a comprehensive theory of LENRs based on well-established electroweak theory within the context of the Standard Model and collective effects that posits weak interactions and subsequent neutron-catalyzed nuclear reactions, not any form of fusion, as the dominant physical processes underlying experimentally observed LENR phenomena (especially see the peer-reviewed Widom-Larsen 2006 European Physical Journal C - Particles and Fields reference listed down below). Our seven technical publications on the Widom-Larsen non-fusion theory of LENRs can be found on the Cornell physics preprint arXiv; I suggest starting with the "Primer" summary that we uploaded to the Cornell physics preprint arXiv in October 2008 (see below). As discussed in my comments above, transmutation data reported in the above-noted experiments is consistent with and readily explained by the Widom-Larsen theory of LENRs

Importantly, there is no 'new physics' in our theoretical work and in our view, LENRs most assuredly do not involve any appreciable amount of "cold fusion." Importantly, we believe that our theory can explain all of the good experimental data in the field of LENRs, including McKubre's, Energetics', and Pons &Fleischmann?s, among others. Read our papers and judge for yourselves.

Dick Garwin does have a valid point from his perspective ---- given the incredibly tangled, controversial history of the field, many skeptics may not be satisfied until they can physically hold an LENR device that can "boil tea" and burn their hands. So be it. Depending upon one's personal experience with the field, different people may have wildly varying thresholds for scientific believability.

Unfortunately for Pons & Fleischmann, their excess heat effects were poorly reproducible in 1989-1990 because they were completely wrong about their D-D fusion hypothesis and had no knowledge whatsoever of what is now called nanotechnology and plasmonics. Indeed, certain technical knowledge derived from nanotechnology, plasmonics, and materials science that is utterly necessary to be able to fabricate reproducible, well-performing LENR devices did not even EXIST in 1989, or even in the mid- to late 1990s. In my opinion, there is no way LENRs could have been truly experimentally reproducible prior to the past several years --- the related parallel scientific knowledge and technologies necessary to accomplish that task are just now becoming available.

Device operating temperature and system power output scale-up issues are discussed in a series of six 'plain English' articles that were published by I-SiS, a London (UK) based 'green' environmental group; titles and URLs to those articles are provided below.

Lewis Larsen
Chicago, IL

1. "Ultra Low Momentum Neutron Catalyzed Nuclear Reactions on Metallic Hydride Surfaces", Eur. Phys. J. C 46, 107 (2006 - arXiv in May 2005)
http://www.newenergytimes.com/v2/library/2006/2006Widom-UltraLowMomentumNeutronCatalyzed.pdf

2. "Primer for Electro-Weak Induced Low Energy Nuclear Reactions" (Oct 2008) Srivastava, Widom, and Larsen
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0810/0810.0159v1.pdf

November 13, 2008
"Low Energy Nuclear Reactions for Green Energy - How weak interactions can provide sustainable nuclear energy and revolutionize the energy industry"
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/LENRGE.php

December 4, 2008
"Widom-Larsen Theory Explains Low Energy Nuclear Reactions &Why They Are Safe and Green - All down to collective effects and weak interactions"
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Widom-Larsen.php

December 10, 2008
"Portable and Distributed Power Generation from LENRs - Power output of LENR-based systems could be scaled up to address many different commercial applications"
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/PortableDistributedPowerFromLENRs.php

December 11, 2008
"LENRs for Nuclear Waste Disposal - How weak interactions can transform radioactive isotopes into more benign elements"
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/LENR_Nuclear_Waste_Disposal.php

January 26, 2009
"Safe, Less Costly Nuclear Reactor Decommissioning and More - How weak interaction LENRs can take us out of the nuclear safety and economic black hole"
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/safeNuclearDecommissioning.php

January 27, 2009
"LENRs Replacing Coal for Distributed Democratized Power - Low energy nuclear reactions have the potential to provide distributed power generation with zero carbon emission and cheaper than coal"
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/LENRsReplacingCoal.php

[lewisglarsen]

Continuing to samuelblack and joclondon:

Now see:

1. URL = http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/CirilloDtransmutat.pdf
"Transmutation of metal at low energy in a confined plasma in water"
ICCF-11 2004
D. Cirillo and V. Iorio

Comment: nuclear transmutations observed and reported in this paper by Cirillo and Iorio (in the form of new elements not present at the beginning of a given experiment) are consistent with successive ULM neutron-captures on 'target' elements interspersed with beta decays a la the Widom-Larsen theory of LENRs.

In particular, starting with Tungsten (W) as a 'target element' on the cathode surface, W-L weak interaction ULM neutron production and successive ULM neutron captures interspersed with beta decays will result in the production of Rhenium (Re), Osmium (Os), and Gold (Au), which are in fact observed in the experiments. To wit, W (starting 'target' element) -> Re -> Os -> Au. Interestingly, this reaction path is very similar to neutron-catalyzed nucleosynthetic reactions that astrophysicists believe take place in exploding stars.

Unbeknownst to the experimenters, they probably had either Barium (Ba) titanate and/or Dysprosium (Dy) as component(s) in the composition of the dielectric ceramic sleeve that was partially covering the cathode immersed in the electrolyte; Ba and/or Dy are often present in such ceramics. Under the stated experimental conditions, Ba and Dy could easily 'leach' from the surface of the ceramic out into the electrolyte, creating yet another 'target' element that can migrate onto the surface of the Tungsten cathode. Since none of the potential intermediate transmutation products such as Nd (Neodymium), Sm (Samarium), and Gd (Gadolinium) were observed/reported, it is possible that there could have been LENR ULM neutron captures starting with Dy -> Er (Erbium) -> Tm (Thulium) ->Yb (Ytterbium) which are transmutation products that were in fact observed in their experiments.

2. URL = http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/SzpakSexperiment.pdf
"Experimental evidence for LENR in a polarized Pd/D lattice"
NDIA Naval 2006
S. Szpak et al. (SPAWAR - San Diego)

Comment: in the MS-PowerPoint conference presentation by Szpak et al., they show fascinating high-resolution infrared camera images of IR 'hot spots' that were observed on the surfaces of operating LENR cathodes. They then present a number of SEM images of "micro-volcano-like-features " comprising weird-looking micron-scale structures that are commonly observed post-experiment on the surfaces of LENR devices. Lastly, they show SEM images in which the presence of anomalous elements, i.e., likely transmutation products, is correlated with specific locations on such surface structures.

3. URL = http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/ZhangWSexcessheat.pdf
"Excess heat reproducibility and evidence of anomalous elements after electrolysis in Pd/D2O + H2SO4 electrolytic cells"
ICCF-13 2007
W. Zhang and J. Dash

Comment: nuclear transmutations observed and reported in this paper by Zhang and Dash (in the form of new elements not present at the beginning of a given experiment) are also consistent with successive ULM neutron-captures on 'target' elements and subsequent interspersed beta decays a la the Widom-Larsen theory of LENRs.

In particular, starting with Palladium (Pd) as a 'target element' present on the cathode surface, Silver (Ag) is simply a direct product of LENR ULM neutron captures on Pd with subsequent beta decays to Ag isotopes. To wit, Pd -> Ag.

Their observations of Nickel (Ni) on the Pd cathode surfaces, if correctly detected and measured, probably resulted from LENR ULM neutron captures on Iron (Fe) that somehow 'leached' out of the walls of the Pyrex glass vessel comprising the cell containing the electrolyte. It is well known that metallic elements that are compositionally present in Pyrex will 'leach out' of the glass during extended exposure to hot electrolyte under the stated experimental conditions. Fe is known to be a minor constituent in many types of 'Pyrex,' e.g., Corning #7740 Fe2O3 = 0.04%. Such embedded Fe could potentially leach out of the walls of a Pyrex electrolytic cell into the electrolyte and migrate to the cathode surface where it would provide yet another local 'target element' that can absorb LENR ULM neutrons and be transmuted.

[lewisglarsen]

Continuing to samuelblack and joclondon:

For example, certain LENR researchers can now experimentally trigger local nuclear reactions that can flash-boil Tungsten or Palladium in a hit-or-miss fashion in scattered, micron-scale surface 'hot spots.' You can actually see the effects in SEM images of the post-experiment surfaces of LENR devices. Well, if today you can explosively melt Tungsten (MP = 3,410 C and BP = 5,666 C) in small numbers of 'hot spot' sites on the surfaces of LENR devices in the laboratory, it is not unreasonable to believe that someday, with time, more R&D, and adequate funding, someone should eventually be able to design and manufacture fully optimized LENR devices that release very large fluxes of device-level macroscopic excess heat from a much larger number of 'hot spots' on commercial device surfaces. Granted, a daunting array of nontrivial engineering-related device fabrication, system embodiment, and operating issues must first be addressed and overcome for that to happen. However, those are more engineering issues than basic science issues. The basic science is clear today: LENRs are real and they involve nuclear processes, albeit hit-or-miss laboratory phenomena for most researchers at the moment.

While little published in prominent refereed journals, there is a wealth of fascinating, sometimes important experimental data on LENRs to be found in various conference proceedings. With regard to 'hot spots,' I will cite three interesting conference presentations in which different types of weird, micron-scale surface structures suggesting 'flash' heating/melting (that are commonly found on the surfaces of many LENR devices post-experiment) are spatially correlated with the presence of anomalous nuclear transmutation products. Please read through the presentations, view the SEM images, consider the data, and then decide for yourselves.

Before examining the conference presentations, please consider the following statement (source URL = http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Widom-Larsen.php):

LENRs produce enormous heat in tiny hot spots on metallic hydride surfaces

" Lithium LENRs can produce huge amounts of heat in tiny hot spots located on the surfaces of metallic hydride substrates. There is direct experimental evidence for the existence of such hot spots in before-and-after scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of the surfaces of experimental LENR devices, some of which have lithium in or around them. In post-experiment SEM images [15], a host of new, weird looking micron-scale structures are observed scattered randomly across the metallic surfaces. Various researchers have described these unusual structural features as resembling ?craters?, ?volcanoes?, flash melted and cooled ?puddles,? ?gas holes?, ?ejecta from craters?, etc. Based on their appearance, they appear to be the result of some sort of ?flash? melting of the surface in small sites at many locations. A US Navy group actually imaged an operating cathode with an IR camera: hot spots in infrared looked like fireflies in a field at night [16, 17] (see From Cold Fusion to Condensed Matter Nuclear Science , SiS 36). In their paper, Widom and Larsen calculated LENR reaction rates based on their theory and found they matched the experimental results [18]. They also estimated the ?noise temperature? for such ?hot spots? to be 4 000 ? 6 000 degrees Kelvin, comparable to the temperature on the surface of the sun and above the boiling point of any metal. This is entirely consistent with many experimental observations."

[lewisglarsen]

samuelblack and joclondon:

Your skeptical remarks about Mr. Rothwell's claimed 'evidence' for "cold fusion" are incisive, well-reasoned, and cogent.

Mr. Rothwell happens to be a member of a long-standing group of hard-core, diehard LENR researchers and assorted camp followers like Rothwell who comprise --- for lack of a better description --- what I call the "cold fusion cabal." High profile members of this loosely coordinated group include Dr. Michael McKubre (SRI), Irving Dardik et al. (Energetics), Dr. Peter Hagelstein (MIT), Dr. Michael Melich (Naval Postgraduate School), Dr. Edmund Storms (independent), Dr. David Nagle (George Washington Univ.), Dr. Graham Hubler et al. (USN-NRL), Dr. Scott Chubb (USN-NRL), Dr. Pamela Mosier-Boss et al. (USN-SPAWAR), Dr. Lawrence Forsley (JWK International), Dr. Vittorio Violante (ENEA - Italy), Dr. Mitchell Swartz (JET Technologies), and Noble laureate Prof. Brian Josephson, among others.

What distinguishes the 'cabal' subgroup from other active participants in the field of LENRs is their undying adherence to an ill-founded belief that some sort of fusion process ("cold" D-D fusion in particular) is the underlying mechanism that is responsible for various types of anomalous phenomena that have been repeatedly observed experimentally for more than 20 years. Such phenomena include, among other things: excess heat; nuclear transmutations; Helium-4 production; MeV-energy charged particles; absence of energetic neutron production; and absence of 'hard' gamma radiation.

What is counterproductive about the activities of this very vocal, highly visible group of people is that for many years they have actively ignored and even tried to suppress any experimental data or theoretical work that directly contradicts their cherished "cold fusion" conceptual paradigm. The oft-repeated mantra of their quasi-religious paradigm includes incessant recitation of the words: D-D fusion (heavy water); heavily loaded Palladium; and Helium-4 production.

For example, cold fusioneers have desperately tried to ignore excellent experimental evidence for the occurrence of nuclear transmutations in light hydrogen systems (no Deuterium present in them). Why? Because this conflicts with their pet paradigm: according to their worldview, no nuclear transmutations should occur if Deuterium is not present in a system. Well, the CFers are wrong on that point --- they do. In addition, there is abundant, well documented experimental evidence that LENR effects do not require the use of Palladium. The truth is that under the right circumstances, other metals such as Nickel, Titanium, Lithium, and Tungsten can work equally well in, yes, both light and heavy hydrogen experimental systems. Ironically, many papers reporting experimental evidence that directly contradicts the "cold fusion" paradigm can readily be found at lenr-canr.org, the useful online repository of which Mr. Rothwell is the 'librarian.'

To support the "cold fusion" paradigm, over the years theorists such as Hagelstein and Chubb have proposed a variety of ad hoc theories based on "new physics" that magically explain away the nagging (even incomprehensible) absence of dangerous energetic neutrons and deadly gamma radiation from well executed LENR experiments that produced inexplicably large fluxes of excess heat. Unfortunately, such theories of "cold fusion" have not been accepted by mainstream physicists, which they resent.

Members of the "cold fusion cabal" such as Mr. Rothwell who try to argue with outside skeptics by playing weasel-worded semantic games about 'replication' versus 'reproduction' of macroscopic, calorimetrically measured device-level excess heat results using current 'cave man era' LENR device fabrication technologies and system embodiments/operating protocols are doing a poor job of communicating the true status of the field to the mainstream scientific community and the public. By not being forthright about ALL of the good experimental evidence on LENRs, the 'cabal' does a disservice to legitimate, important work being done by other much less vocal members of the field such as Prof. Tadahiko Mizuno (Japan), Dr. Yasuhiro Iwamura et al. (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries - Japan), Dr. John Dash (Portland State University - USA), Piantelli and Focardi (University of Siena - Italy), and many, many others.