This article will be permanently flagged as inappropriate and made unaccessible to everyone. Are you certain this article is inappropriate? Excessive Violence Sexual Content Political / Social
Email Address:
Article Id: WHEBN0000007463 Reproduction Date:
Cold fusion setups utilize an input power source (to ostensibly provide activation energy), a platinum group electrode, a deuterium or hydrogen source, a calorimeter, and, at times, detectors to look for byproducts such as helium or neutrons. Critics have variously taken issue with each of these aspects and further assert that there has not yet been a consistent reproduction of claimed cold fusion results in either energy output or byproducts. Some cold fusion researchers who claim that they can consistently measure an excess heat effect have argued that the apparent lack of reproducibility might be attributable to a lack of quality control in the electrode metal or the amount of hydrogen or deuterium loaded in the system. Skeptics have further criticized what they describe as mistakes or errors of interpretation that cold fusion researchers have made in certain calorimetry analyses and energy budgets.
In 1989, after Fleischmann and Pons had made their claims, many research groups tried to reproduce the Fleischmann-Pons experiment, without success. A few other research groups however reported successful reproductions of cold fusion during this time. In July 1989 an Indian group of BARC (P. K. Iyengar and M. Srinivasan) and in October 1989 a team from USA (Bockris et al.) reported on creation of tritium. In December 1990 Professor Richard Oriani of Minnesota University reported excess heat.[158][notes 4]
Groups that did report successes found that some of their cells were producing the effect where other cells that were built exactly the same and used the same materials were not producing the effect.[159] Researchers that continued to work on the topic have claimed that over the years many successful replications have been made, but still have problems getting reliable replications.[160] Reproducibility is one of the main principles of the scientific method, and its lack led most physicists to believe that the few positive reports could be attributed to experimental error.[159][text 12] The DOE 2004 report said among its conclusions and recommendations:
"Ordinarily, new scientific discoveries are claimed to be consistent and reproducible; as a result, if the experiments are not complicated, the discovery can usually be confirmed or disproved in a few months. The claims of cold fusion, however, are unusual in that even the strongest proponents of cold fusion assert that the experiments, for unknown reasons, are not consistent and reproducible at the present time. (...) Internal inconsistencies and lack of predictability and reproducibility remain serious concerns. (...) The Panel recommends that the cold fusion research efforts in the area of heat production focus primarily on confirming or disproving reports of excess heat."[88]
As David Goodstein explains,[31] proponents say that the positive results with excess heat and neutron emission are enough to prove that the phenomenon was real, that negative results didn't count because they could be caused by flaws in the setup, and that you can't prove an idea false by simply having a negative replication. This is a reversal of Karl Popper's falsifiability, which says that you can't prove ideas true, never mind how many times your experiment is successful, and that a single negative experiment can prove your idea wrong.[31] Most scientists follow Popper's idea of falsifiability and discarded cold fusion as soon as they weren't able to replicate the effect in their own laboratory. Goodstein notes that he was impressed by a "particularly elegant, well designed experiment" and warns that by ignoring such results "science is not functioning normally." [31]
Cold fusion researchers (McKubre since 1994,[160] ENEA in 2011[86]) have posited that a cell that was loaded with a deuterium/palladium ratio lower than 100% (or 1:1) would never produce excess heat.[160] Storms added in 1996 that the load ratio has to be maintained during many hours of electrolysis before the effects appear.[160] Since most of the negative replications in 1989–1990 didn't report their ratios, this has been proposed as an explanation for failed replications.[160] This loading ratio is tricky to obtain, and some batches of palladium never reach it because the pressure causes cracks in the palladium, allowing the deuterium to escape.[160] Unfortunately, Fleischmann and Pons never disclosed the deuterium/palladium ratio achieved in their cells,[161] there are no longer any batches of the palladium used by Fleischmann and Pons (because the supplier uses now a different manufacturing process),[160] and researchers still have problems finding batches of palladium that achieve heat production reliably.[160]
Some research groups initially reported that they had replicated the Fleischmann and Pons results but later retracted their reports and offered an alternative explanation for their original positive results. A group at Texas A&M discovered bad wiring in their thermometers.[162] These retractions, combined with negative results from some famous laboratories,[6] led most scientists to conclude, as early as 1989, that no positive result should be attributed to cold fusion.[162][163]
The calculation of excess heat in electrochemical cells involves certain assumptions.[164] Errors in these assumptions have been offered as non-nuclear explanations for excess heat.
One assumption made by Fleischmann and Pons is that the efficiency of electrolysis is nearly 100%, meaning nearly all the electricity applied to the cell resulted in electrolysis of water, with negligible resistive heating and substantially all the electrolysis product leaving the cell unchanged.[25] This assumption gives the amount of energy expended converting liquid D2O into gaseous D2 and O2.[165] The efficiency of electrolysis is less than one if hydrogen and oxygen recombine to a significant extent within the calorimeter. Several researchers have described potential mechanisms by which this process could occur and thereby account for excess heat in electrolysis experiments.[166][167][168]
Another assumption is that heat loss from the calorimeter maintains the same relationship with measured temperature as found when calibrating the calorimeter.[25] This assumption ceases to be accurate if the temperature distribution within the cell becomes significantly altered from the condition under which calibration measurements were made.[169] This can happen, for example, if fluid circulation within the cell becomes significantly altered.[170][171] Recombination of hydrogen and oxygen within the calorimeter would also alter the heat distribution and invalidate the calibration.[168][172][173]
According to John R. Huizenga, who co-chaired the DOE 1989 panel, if unexplained excess heat is not accompanied by a commensurate amount of nuclear products, then it must not be interpreted as nuclear in origin, but as a measuring error.[174]
Control experiments are part of the scientific method to prove that the measured effects do not happen by chance, but are direct results of the experiment. One of the points of criticism of Fleischmann and Pons was the lack of control experiments.[31]
Although details have not surfaced, it appears that the University of Utah forced the 23 March 1989 Fleischmann and Pons announcement to establish priority over the discovery and its patents before the joint publication with Jones.[28] The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced on 12 April 1989 that it had applied for its own patents based on theoretical work of one of its researchers, Peter L. Hagelstein, who had been sending papers to journals from the 5th to the 12th of April.[175] On 2 December 1993 the University of Utah licensed all its cold fusion patents to ENECO, a new company created to profit from cold fusion discoveries,[176] and on March 1998 it said that it would no longer defend its patents.[72]
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) now rejects patents claiming cold fusion.[85] Esther Kepplinger, the deputy commissioner of patents in 2004, said that this was done using the same argument as with perpetual motion machines: that they do not work.[85] Patent applications are required to show that the invention is "useful", and this utility is dependent on the invention's ability to function.[177] In general USPTO rejections on the sole grounds of the invention's being "inoperative" are rare, since such rejections need to demonstrate "proof of total incapacity",[177] and cases where those rejections are upheld in a Federal Court are even rarer: nevertheless, in 2000, a rejection of a cold fusion patent was appealed in a Federal Court and it was upheld, in part on the grounds that the inventor was unable to establish the utility of the invention.[177][notes 5]
A U.S. patent might still be granted when given a different name to disassociate it from cold fusion,[178] though this strategy has had little success in the US: the same claims that need to be patented can identify it with cold fusion, and most of these patents cannot avoid mentioning Fleischmann and Pons' research due to legal constraints, thus alerting the patent reviewer that it is a cold-fusion-related patent.[178] David Voss said in 1999 that some patents that closely resemble cold fusion processes, and that use materials used in cold fusion, have been granted by the USPTO.[179] The inventor of three such patents had his applications initially rejected when they were reviewed by experts in nuclear science; but then he rewrote the patents to focus more in the electrochemical parts so they would be reviewed instead by experts in electrochemistry, who approved them.[179][180] When asked about the resemblance to cold fusion, the patent holder said that it used nuclear processes involving "new nuclear physics" unrelated to cold fusion.[179] Melvin Miles was granted in 2004 a patent for a cold fusion device, and in 2007 he described his efforts to remove all instances of "cold fusion" from the patent description to avoid having it rejected outright.[181]
At least one patent related to cold fusion has been granted by the European Patent Office.[182]
A patent only legally prevents others from using or benefiting from one's invention. However, the general public perceives a patent as a stamp of approval, and a holder of three cold fusion patents said the patents were very valuable and had helped in getting investments.[179]
In Undead Science, sociologist Bart Simon gives some examples of cold fusion in popular culture, saying that some scientists use cold fusion as a synonym for outrageous claims made with no supporting proof,[183] and courses of ethics in science give it as an example of pathological science.[183] It has appeared as a joke in Murphy Brown and The Simpsons.[183] It was adopted as a product name by software Coldfusion and a brand of protein bars (Cold Fusion Foods).[183] It has also appeared in advertising as a synonym for impossible science, for example a 1995 advertisement for Pepsi Max.[183]
The plot of The Saint, a 1997 action-adventure film, parallels the story of Fleischmann and Pons, although with a different ending.[183] The film might have affected the public perception of cold fusion, pushing it further into the science fiction realm.[183]
"Final Exam", the 16th episode of season 4 of The Outer Limits, depicts a student named Todtman who has invented a cold fusion weapon, and attempts to use it as a tool for revenge on people who have wronged him over the years. Despite the secret being lost with his death at the end of the episode, it is implied that another student elsewhere is on a similar track, and may well repeat Todtman's efforts.
Futurama, Family Guy, South Park, Matt Groening, Gracie Films
Philosophy of science, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Logic, David Hume
Philosophy of science, Epistemology, Karl Popper, Positivism, Inductive reasoning
Pseudoscience, Homeopathy, Science, Alternative medicine, Perpetual motion
Homeopathy, International Space Station, Cold fusion, Fraud, Pseudoscience
ArXiv, Popular Science, University of Cambridge, Cold fusion, Hydrogen
Proton, Deuterium, Tritium, Neutron, Electron volt