Merged Cold Fusion Claims

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belz...

Martial ? As in kick it in the face ?
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What is the point of this comment? Was it supposed to be funny?

Be careful about what you think is obvious. Cold fusion, so far, has not held up to scrutiny. It's only fair that we be even more skeptical than usual about its repeated claims now.
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Now this is funny. Not only do you make a extremely strong statement about cold fusion standing up to scrutiny, but then you claim that your behavior is more skeptical than usual.

Your behavior is less skeptical than usual. You are not rationally examining the facts, you are throwing around insults and nit picking every statement made that doesn't toe the group-think line. You deliberately focus on parts of posts that can be twisted to reflect poorly on posters and attempt to paint others as irrational simply because they disagree with you. This is not skepticism at all. It is school yard level rhetoric is weakening the reputation of everyone on this thread. A rational skeptic should not tolerate this kind of thing under any circumstance.
 
attaboy said:
Here is the abstract from the Review by Dr. Storms titled "Status of cold fusion (2010)":

The phenomenon called cold fusion has been studied for the last 21 years since its discovery by Profs. Fleischmann and Pons in 1989. The discovery was met with considerable skepticism,
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Agreed. Though actually cold fusion attempts date back much further, to Paneth and Peters, and Tandberg in '27. All failed to actually work.

Other laboratories attempted to replicate their (Pons and Fleischmann's) work and failed. This includes the UK facility at Harwell which had assistance from Fleischmann including some of the cells that supposedly worked. When the sloppy methodology (e.g. no controls with light water) came to light, and the lack of gamma and neutron emissions (as demonstrated by the experimenters lack of radiation poisoning) it was clear that fusion was not occurring.

attaboy said:
but supporting evidence has accumulated, plausible theories have been suggested,
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But now the nonsense begins. Show me the studies from independent universities, the believable theoretical basis for cold fusion.

attaboy said:
google - - > edmund-storms-on-the-rossi-device-there-will-be-a-stampede/.
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I'm quite familiar with Storms. He's been predicting a fusion generator in every house for how many years? Lots of claims and predictions, no substance. Just look at his involvement with Blacklight.

attaboy said:
And please note the allusion to the possibility of big money taking over the Rossi discovery and withholding it from the public, which is in line with what I was saying in an earlier thread but was accused of being a "conspirator".
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Again with the conspiracies...........

attaboy said:
I WILL GO WITH WHAT DR. STORMS SAYS instead of believing the skeptics on this forum.
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You can go with whomever you wish. Real scientists go with the evidence.
 
ben m

That'd be a start. Then you'd try to remove the effects of at batch-to-batch variation in the acrylic (Variation in: background track density, etch response, neutron sensitivity.). Then you'd double-blind the etching, pit counting, and data analysis operations. Then you'd do a blind, controlled, beam-off map of the room backgrounds (neutrons---and they're everywhere, as a component of cosmic rays---do surprising things. And most importantly you'd publish tables of numbers (not smoothed-out graphs) showing the raw pit number counts on ALL of the plates (not on selected "representative" runs, nor averages or any sort)---beam-off, beam-on, calibration, etc.
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This is exactly what they did.. barring the publishing of the raw data of every single plate they ever measured (I don't know any experimenter that does this in any field). Watch the seminar presentation to see more about how they conduct their experiments.

Dancing David

I asked you what data there is on how they used the CR-39 and controlled for the background, you made the claim and I asked you to support it. So what did they say they did for control, yous aid they used controls and I am sking how they did it.
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As I said, I am not here to present a paper. The generally agreed upon sentiment on this thread is that cold fusion has never been replicated or observed under rigorous conditions. The research I suggested for the consideration of the rational skeptics here is literally the tip of the iceberg as far as the available data is concerned. An examination of the Storms review will direct you to an avalanche of convincing information. The argument that cold fusion has never been replicated and has never been observed under rigorous experimental conditions is a logical fallacy not born of an actual reading of the literature but out of intellectual laziness. I do not intend to fall into a pseudoskeptical nit picking debate about intricate details of experiments when a reasonably full description of those experiments already exist in readily available literature and even in a videotaped conference lecture.

An examination of the literature will lead you to very interesting observations of transmutation in cold fusion experiments and lowering of the coulomb barrier in metal lattice adsorbed hot fusion experiments with deuterium and particle beams among other observations. The evidence in favor of the cold fusion effect is growing and cannot be reduced to a few posts by me explaining information that you could easily go find yourself.
 
Crawdaddy -

I fear that two lines of thought/agument have gotten badly mixed. The first argument is whether "Cold Fusion" exists. The second is whether the Rossi e-Cat works. The two are not the same.

For example, after you quoted the abstract of the Storm summary, I was able to find a downloadable preprint at http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEstatusofcoa.pdf . A search of the document for "nickel" produces only 2 hits, and neither one refers to nickel-hydrogen fusion (by Rossi or anyone else). So, as of 2010, the Rossi process was apparently not part of the canonical "Cold Fusion". And, please, let's keep it that way, at least on this thread.

And a tip - with 19 posts you now have url posting privileges, so there is no excuse for not posting links.
 
whatroughbeast

I fear that two lines of thought/agument have gotten badly mixed. The first argument is whether "Cold Fusion" exists. The second is whether the Rossi e-Cat works. The two are not the same.
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They are very much linked. The entire premise of the argument against the rossi e-cat is that cold fusion has been proven not to exist. If you accept that cold fusion has been observed in experiments then the legitimacy of the Rossi device becomes very much more probable. If cold fusion doesn't exist then the Rossi device is no better than any other perpetual motion machine.

The implications of cold fusion are much more theoretical than practical. If experimental evidence of cold fusion is reliable, then the possibilities for new science may be dramatic. Just as transistors arose from quantum mechanical theory (the FET was first postulated in 1924 but took 40 years to come to fruition) a theoretical framework for cold fusion may lead to discoveries that make the rossi device look unremarkable. One does not have to stretch the imagination too far to imagine a mundane theory for cold fusion that does not overly tax the existing framework of physics, or, like other unexplained phenomena which are much less controversial than cold fusion(e.g. the cosmological constant, high temperature superconductivity, sonoluminescence, etc.) they may lead to an entirely new model of nature.

Many people dismiss cold fusion out of hand because it "violates the laws of physics", yet they do not dismiss the observation of a cosmological constant which also "violates the laws of physics". There have been an amazing number of cold fusion experiments that report observing the effect, dismissing them out of hand without examining them betrays a lack of objectivity. Using the unfounded popular notion that cold fusion is a scam to back up the claim that the e-cat is also a scam is basing your argument on a false premise.

Whether cold fusion is real or not is the most important aspect of any rossi device discussion.
 
Catsmate1 nobody said cold fusion was going to be easy. It takes a while. How long have they been working on hot fusion reactors? Where are they? Which has the bigger budget?
 
Crawdaddy said:
whatroughbeast

They are very much linked. The entire premise of the argument against the rossi e-cat is that cold fusion has been proven not to exist. If you accept that cold fusion has been observed in experiments then the legitimacy of the Rossi device becomes very much more probable. If cold fusion doesn't exist then the Rossi device is no better than any other perpetual motion machine.
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Sigh. You know, I'd hoped we could keep this pleasant. So what part of

WhatRoughBeast said:
1) Per Sagan's Dictum, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

2) I have seen a lot of fakery, scams, wishful thinking and wilful credulity in my time, and I believe I can smell a con when I see one.

Applying these two principles, what Rossi says, and how he changes what he says, and what he doesn't say, and the questions he doesn't answer, all get my hackles up. Basically, he plays silly buggers with the facts. I'm morally certain he's a fraud, but I would love to be proven wrong.
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didn't you understand?

Rossi changes his story, he can't be bothered to keep his facts straight, he refuses to answer simple questions, he does sloppy work, and he generally behaves in ways that are puzzling only so long as you assume he is honest.

So let's take it step by step:

Crawdaddy said:
The entire premise of the argument against the rossi e-cat is that cold fusion has been proven not to exist.
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Wrong. The entire premise of my argument is that Rossi behaves like a con man. And, frankly, I am puzzled that you don't see it.

Crawdaddy said:
If you accept that cold fusion has been observed in experiments then the legitimacy of the Rossi device becomes very much more probable.
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Wrong again. As I pointed out in an earlier post, the Storm article never mentions nickel-hydrogen fusion. In fact, it points to a whole slew of other proposed mechanisms. Are we required to accept all of them? Just as an example, how would acceptance of P/F fusion require me to accept Rossi's claims? The mechanisms are entirely different. This sounds, frankly, a whole lot more like religion than like science.

Crawdaddy said:
If cold fusion doesn't exist then the Rossi device is no better than any other perpetual motion machine.
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Hey, you got it. One out of three. And why, exactly, is that a bad thing? Especially if it's true? But once again your vaunted logical facilities have lead you astray. If cold fusion doesn't exist then the Rossi e-Cat doesn't work - but the reverse is not true. So why do you adamantly defend Rossi in the name of defending cold fusion?
 
Whatroughbeast

Sigh. You know, I'd hoped we could keep this pleasant. So what part of
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What I said was not adversarial, it was a statement of opinion based on my thoughts on the subject, which I then conveyed to you in the rest of my post. Your comment conveys a definite adversarial attitude. I have no interest in debating the possibility of fraud in the case of the rossi device. I find it tiresome and the simple fact is that there is not enough evidence to prove it one way or the other.

The case for cold fusion in general is backed up by a wealth of evidence in the peer-reviewed literature.


1) Per Sagan's Dictum, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

2) I have seen a lot of fakery, scams, wishful thinking and wilful credulity in my time, and I believe I can smell a con when I see one.
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1) Sagan, in case you didn't already know is not an authority on the philosophy of science. I recommend you read some philosophy of science texts to gain a deeper understanding of the practice of science in general as well as the practice of science as it surrounds controversial issues. The comment by Sagan is subjective and depends on your definition of extraordinary, observations of the cosmological constant must constitute extraordinary evidence (since it is an extraordinary claim), the data available on cold fusion is collected in suitably rigorous way to meet that standard in my opinion.

2)I have no desire to debate subjective assesments of people's characters. Perhaps you should watch the 25 minute italian TV production and develop your character model of the swedish skeptics who did the latest e-cat tests:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzL3RIlcwbY

Wrong again. As I pointed out in an earlier post, the Storm article never mentions nickel-hydrogen fusion. In fact, it points to a whole slew of other proposed mechanisms. Are we required to accept all of them? Just as an example, how would acceptance of P/F fusion require me to accept Rossi's claims? The mechanisms are entirely different. This sounds, frankly, a whole lot more like religion than like science.
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The review article I suggested does not even cover 10% of the total volume of cold fusion publications. You are making baseless claims about mechanisms of action that are unknown without putting any effort into doing any actual work by learning about the subject. I suggest that you ignore the idea of mechanisms entirely and focus on experimental observations. In science theory is only valuable if it helps you to design experiments and make observations, otherwise it is just an imaginary model of no value... still not as bad a as religion however.

Hey, you got it. One out of three. And why, exactly, is that a bad thing? Especially if it's true? But once again your vaunted logical facilities have lead you astray. If cold fusion doesn't exist then the Rossi e-Cat doesn't work - but the reverse is not true. So why do you adamantly defend Rossi in the name of defending cold fusion?
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I never implied that the rossi device must be true because cold fusion is true. I find it strange that you accuse me of logical fallacies while committing one yourself. In this thread, many posters have bluntly stated that cold fusion is not a real phenomenon while discussing the e-cat. This is a false premise and in pointing that out I was forced to defend my opinion. If you don't think the two are related why would you allow others to blatantly flaunt the principles of skeptical discussion by framing their argument in such a fashion?

It must be because you have a firmly held belief (perhaps even faith) that despite not actually looking into the facts yourself the rossi e cat is a fake and cold fusion is a fraud as well. Unfortunately, it takes more than a Carl Sagan quote and a "gut feeling" to engage my mind in a discussion.
 
unclep2k said:
Catsmate1 nobody said cold fusion was going to be easy. It takes a while. How long have they been working on hot fusion reactors? Where are they? Which has the bigger budget?
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But it *is* easy. Take a beaker, add paladium, a bit of electricity and... (ignore the man behind the curtain) abracadabra! fusion.

Not talking about what it will take to get a gigawatt power plant online. Just a recipe (not a claim) that generates some real heat. I don't need to elaborate here.
 
Crawdaddy said:
ben m



This is exactly what they did.. barring the publishing of the raw data of every single plate they ever measured (I don't know any experimenter that does this in any field). Watch the seminar presentation to see more about how they conduct their experiments.
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You seem to have missed the key point of Ben's post, which was the final line.
 
Crawdaddy said:
BTW here is a link to an ever-changing document written by some dudes who are out to debunk this claim
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Quotes a believer of fairies. That must make it true debunkary. If I bend a spoon using a trick you are unaware of, you would believe I'm psycho psychic!
 
BenBurch said:
Not fair. Most people don't even know what those were supposed to be.
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In my undergraduate days we were taught about Blondlot as an example of experimenter bias and self delusion leading to experimental error.
 
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Crawdaddy said:
The case for cold fusion in general is backed up by a wealth of evidence in the peer-reviewed literature.
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Really?? List some of these peer reviewed papers please.

Crawdaddy said:
2)I have no desire to debate subjective assesments of people's characters. Perhaps you should watch the 25 minute italian TV production and develop your character model of the swedish skeptics who did the latest e-cat tests:
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Actually character is an issue; when a known fraudster claims to have built a device that violates known, and frequently demonstrated, physics observers should be more than usually skeptical. Such as person has an existing negative credibility.
When that person refuses to allow independent examination and fakes a "journal" to support his concept skepticism should increase.
 
ben m said:
Yep. Nobody references anything any more.

Old style: "Wolfe-Simon et. al., PLOS1 55 256-259 (2009)". New style: "I could swear I saw something by Wolfe-Simon on the Web but Firefox 4 ate my browser history."

Old style: "Trace Analysis, ed. GR Morrison, Wiley Interscience 1965". New style: "Some chemistry book. Green binding, minor foxing, about yea thick. It used to be shelved at eye level somewhere on the 2nd floor. You can find it."
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:D

Nominated.
 
Crawdaddy said:
What is the point of this comment? Was it supposed to be funny?
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Yes. Did it work ?

Now this is funny.
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Well at least I got you to laugh once.

Not only do you make a extremely strong statement about cold fusion standing up to scrutiny
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The fact that we're still waiting after 20 years make it an easy statement to make. I used to be enthousiastic about cold fusion before I realised nothing was forthcoming. You seem to favour it for unknown reasons.

but then you claim that your behavior is more skeptical than usual.
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Really ? Where did I say that ?

Your behavior is less skeptical than usual.
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Wait, what ? Less skeptical than my usual skeptical behaviour ? What are you talking about ?

You are not rationally examining the facts
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What facts ? We're still waiting for confirmation. So far, zilch.

you are throwing around insults
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Again, where ?

nit picking every statement made that doesn't toe the group-think line.
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Are you sure you got the right poster ? I don't remember nit picking "every statement", nor am I group-think oriented. If you knew anything about me, you're know that, but it seems now you're just throwing random thoughts about what you think I may be like, which seems to show that you're not as good a critical thinker as you think you are. This also throws into question your interpretation of cold fusion claims.

You deliberately focus on parts of posts that can be twisted to reflect poorly on posters and attempt to paint others as irrational simply because they disagree with you.
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No, because nobody's been able to reproduce the results of the original claimants. I said so explicitely upthread, so I can only surmise that your characterisation of me here is an intentional lie.
 
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