

“Cold fusion” moves closer to mainstream acceptance - limist
http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=222&content_id=CNBP_024353&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=

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tzs
A few years ago, David Goodstein of Caltech wrote an interesting look back at
cold fusion. It's available here:
<http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/fusion_art.html>

Where the story left off, there were a few competent researchers with well-
designed experiments that were getting indications that _something_ was
happening that was not covered by current theory. However, cold fusion
research was by then out of fashion, and no one was interested in looking
deeper into those results and confirming or refuting them.

As Goodstein notes, "What all these experiments really need is critical
examination by accomplished rivals intent on proving them wrong. That is part
of the normal functioning of science. Unfortunately, in this area, science is
not functioning normally. There is nobody out there listening."

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limist
Doubters and such should note several things about this press release:

1\. It's from the American Chemical Society. While no one is infallible,
they're not exactly flakes.

2\. There are some serious names and institutions involved. Same caveat as 1.

3\. Ask yourself if your doubts are based on hearsay of hearsay. Unless you
are a nuclear chemist or physicist who has tried experimentally to produce low
energy nuclear reactions without success, maybe there are reasons research has
continued for so many years in the face of overwhelming public and
professional ridicule.

~~~
andrewcooke
Isn't the fact that it's interesting, and that the pay-off would be huge,
reason enough? The idea that there is a confirmed, reliable, reproducible
effect, but that people are hiding that, seems a little odd.

You seem to be confusing being hopeful or popular with being (proven) right.

~~~
limist
If you are referring to my point 3, there are plenty of problems (cancer,
biotech, AI, energy) that are both interesting, and have the possibility of a
large pay-off, while NOT suffering ridicule from the mainstream - in fact,
while enjoying some respect. Most researchers will (quite rationally) choose
career options that are interesting, potentially valuable, and safe.

Sure, cold fusion is interesting, and has the chance of a big pay-off, but it
also presents enormous problems to a would-be researcher, including lack of
funding, dismissive colleagues, and ignorant pseudo-skepticism from the
public. For a professional scientist to pursue it in the face of such problems
require more than faith and courage; it probably requires at least some
evidence they've seen with their own eyes. If you're interested, lookup
Francesco Scaramuzzi and Julian Schwinger along with keywords of "cold
fusion."

~~~
andrewcooke
there's some strange emotional subtext to your posting that i don't quite get.

these people can choose what they want to work on. i am not putting a gun to
their heads forcing them to do this. nor am i laughing at them.

if they're right - great. who wouldn't want a free lunch? but i don't see the
point in painting them as heroes or presenting this work as something
successful when, as far as i can see, it is not.

i've done research. you do it because it's interesting, not because of what
other people think. and everyone has problems with funding: it's a market; if
there's more money in one area there are more people too.

as i said, i'm not sure why you're so emotionally involved with this, but it
doesn't seem healthy. if you're involved in cold fusion maybe you should look
elsewhere, because science isn't really about being loved or acclaimed by the
public...

~~~
limist
Thanks for playing psychiatrist. I'm not sure why you think I'm emotional
about this. Are you?

BTW, if you do research solely by what you find interesting, more power to
you. But to propose that most or all researchers do so, while not caring what
their colleagues and peers think, doesn't square with well-documented reality
(e.g. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions).

------
hendler
Mostly, I'm glad this isn't the Adobe technology.

~~~
hackernews
Not sure why anyone would vote this backhanded comment up.

~~~
RevRal
I upvoted it because it was my exact sentiment.

When I saw the submission title, I thought "oh no." And then I felt relief
that it was not about the CF platform.

Coldfusion was pretty bad when it was first introduced, and it hasn't improved
much. I've been dodging it for years, but some of my friends haven't been so
lucky. Each of them hates it, and one had even quit his job because his
employer didn't want to give it up.

Yes, I would be sad if CF became "mainstream" again and I had to learn it. If
I recall correctly, everyone _needed_ ColdFusion when it was first introduced,
and it is only barely alive due to that initial boom.

~~~
erlanger
Few things are as ugly as

    
    
      <cfswitch expression="expr">
        <cfcase value="val"> ...

~~~
hackernews
Isn't there a cfscript equivalent that is more pleasing to the eye? Something
like:

    
    
      switch (expr) {
        case "val"....

------
andrewcooke
Not one of the listed papers was a successful reproduction of someone else's
published work.

~~~
Estragon
Well, very few published papers are. Reproduction of others' work is usually a
foundational preliminary to original research.

~~~
andrewcooke
We're talking about cold fusion, right? Maybe things have changed, but I was
under the impression that it was not yet possible to reliably reproduce the
effects. In such a context, reproduction would be quite noteworthy.

~~~
Estragon
You're assuming that a replication of Pons and Fleischmann's original work is
necessary for cold fusion to be an interesting research subject.

~~~
andrewcooke
No, I'm not. As I've said elsewhere, I can understand why this is interesting
to researchers. But to be interesting to _me_ (and, I suspect, at least some
others) there needs to be some reliably repeatable demonstration of "new
physics". I don't see any evidence for that here.

There are lots of people investigating lots of exciting ideas out there.
That's great. But there's a big difference between "wouldn't it be cool if..."
and "hey, I can _show_ that...".

When I saw the conference details, I hoped cold fusion was at the "show that"
phase. Disappointingly, it continues to not be. Hence my post.

------
ph0rque
_"The presentations describe... indications that cold fusion may occur
naturally in certain bacteria."_

Are you serious? This boggles my mind more than anything about how bio systems
work in nature in the last few years...

------
thaumaturgy
One of my clients is working somewhere in this field; they're having a much
easier time recruiting new scientists and other personnel, and they are well
funded.

An NDA prevents me from saying much else, but I think I can say that the field
is better developed than many people realize.

~~~
mechanical_fish
There is also lots of money in homeopathy. It's a going concern.

Then there's fundamentalist religious education. Plenty of funding there. Lots
of impressively architected buildings. People with advanced degrees.

Recruitment, funding, and NDAs are but one metric of success.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply private funding.

------
rbanffy
"the first inexpensive means of identifying the hallmark of cold fusion
reactions: the production of excess heat"

Shouldn't it be excess neutrons?

~~~
curtis
If they can reliably produce excess heat from these experiments, I don't think
we care if it's due to fusion or not. It would certainly be something we want
to study.

~~~
rbanffy
It could be something worth of study, but, unless there is Helium or neutrons,
it's not cold fusion.

The Hagelstein explanation seems interesting, but, again, unless we see some
nuclear fusion, those guys are studying something completely different. Not to
say uninteresting, but not what we could call nuclear fusion.

------
noodle
cold fusion won't move any closer to mainstream acceptance until people can
start to show any examples of positive net energy cold fusion, either in the
lab or in nature.

or, alternatively, show that it is possible to do coldER fusion. just, show
that there's a process with the possibility of scaling down.

~~~
domgblackwell
Exactly. Cold fusion is not necessarily 'junk science' but until someone uses
it to generate net energy it is an interesting theoretical idea rather than
solid science on which real world technology can be built.

------
rauljara
"some describe cold fusion as the 'Fleishmann-Pons Effect' in honor of the
pioneers, Marwan noted."

Really? In honor of the possibly-crazy-but-much-more-likely-liars-and-con men
whose experiments couldn't even come close to being replicated. The whole
article acts like any current research is a vindication of Fleishmann and
Pons, but honestly, if cold fusion ever does come to pass, it will be despite
Fleishmann and Pons' fraudulent work. How much time and credibility was wasted
trying to recreate that BS?

~~~
randallsquared
_liars-and-con men whose experiments couldn't even come close to being
replicated._

Well, in the first few weeks after the announcement, several labs said they
_had_ replicated the experiment, so if Fleishmann and Pons were liars or con
men, I suppose we must assume a vast conspiracy of such across several notable
institutions... well, that or some people were excited, mistaken, and
desperately wanted to find evidence of something that apparently wasn't there.

Bad results -- even replication of results ultimately found to be bad -- do
not require liars, only error.

