Talk:Cold fusion/Archive7

From RationalWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

This is an archive page, last updated 3 May 2016. Please do not make edits to this page.
Archives for this talk page: , (new)(back)

"Touted" based on what Abd did as establishing "common"?[edit]

Hipocrite edited, to add "touted."

The most commonly-touted system where cold fusion is supposed to occur is an electrolytic cell with a palladium cathode that is electrolyzing deuterium oxide (a.k.a. heavy water), [...]

In his edit summary, he writes, "(ABD himself sold PD/D systems, which is touting.)"

This is preposterous. First of all, this is the lede of the article. I'd assume that something should be notable. We are especially talking about what is "common" here. "Touting" means to

  • to solicit, peddle, or persuade importunately
  • to make much of : promote, talk up

Because Hipocrite is using sale as evidence of "touting," he clearly means the first definition. There are a number of problems with this:

  • Yes, I sold one kit designed to replicate a published experiment, an electrochemical cell. It was not sold as a "cold fusion system," It was very clearly an experimental kit. I also sell relevant materials. I have actually made, so far, in over two years, two sales: the kit in question, which is shown in the upcoming movie, The Believers, and a $30 sheet of solid-state nuclear track detector material, for use in what, I don't know. My barely operational storefront is at [1]. I sell "real stuff for real research." I.e, real palladium chloride, real heavy water, real gold, platinum, and silver wire, and real SSNTD material. The kit in question was not designed to produce any measurable energy. It sold for pure science, testing what actually happens, and isn't touting anything other than the process of science. Even though the SPAWAR results were published under peer review in a major journal (and are highly notable), they have not been confirmed. The experiment itself is fairly simple (though there are still lots of ways to mess it up), and a kit could cost as little as $100. And so what? This was an opportunity for a high school student -- who approached me on the recommendation of a scientist -- to attempt a significant replication. A long shot, actually (why it was a long shot, I won't explain here, but the jury is still out, the SSNTDs are being analyzed). He was very happy to try, and his father was very happy to pay for it, a few hundred dollars, because he bought extra stuff.
  • No "system" was sold, but a partial kit, absolutely not a complete system, and certainly not "systems."
  • So far this isn't notable. It certainly doesn't indicate what is "common," one way or another. I'm one person. What I do does not establish what is "common."
  • Nobody is selling palladium deuteride systems for energy production, and it is rare for anyone knowledgeable or notable to assert they are usable for that purpose. The approach is way too expensive, and way too unreliable, so far.
  • What may actually be being sold -- or represented as being available for sale -- are nickel-hydrogen systems, about which far less is known, and claims are being made that are not, so far, verifiable. So if we want to talk about "touted," in today's world, we must talk about nickel-hydrogen.
  • Hipocrite, truth be told, is just here to poke. --Abd (talk) 20:44, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Silver[edit]

Apart from intermittent bombing from text-producing bioweapons, what stops this from going silver? - David Gerard (talk) 11:50, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Fits the criteria, however physics isn't my forte (it's not even my pianissimo) so I don't know if there's anything blatantly wrong, or missing. My main criticsm is that it needs a drop more goat, it's a bit dry. SophieWilder 12:02, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Anyone feeling intrepid enough to write up the Wikipedia cold fusion wars? I thankfully maintained no interest in them whatsoever at the time - David Gerard (talk) 12:04, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Actually, yes, that's what's missing. Wikipedia wars are always fun. Afterwards. SophieWilder 12:09, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
One line and two reference links added. So who feels like sewer-diving? - David Gerard (talk) 12:43, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
As a participant, I could do it. Hipocrite (talk) 16:22, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Is anyone competent to evaluate the "non-woo" section to check that it is, in fact, non-woo? It's an interesting topic but my own background is in biology and not physics. Doctor Dark (talk) 17:06, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
wikipedia:Muon-catalyzed fusion looks real. The production of huge nuclei at temperatures less than that of the sun is real too, but only cold fusion proponents try to claim it as being in any way in the same category as their fantasies - David Gerard (talk) 22:40, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Be it woo or non woo idk, the F. Celani experiment should be added somewhere. There is also a documented project going on which is reproducing that experiment. These links will do a better job explaining what I'm refering to than anything I could type here.Documented replication project. Video of Celani presentation in august. 49.50.248.2 (talk) 19:12, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Ongoing research at NASA[edit]

http://climate.nasa.gov/news/864

Quote:

Several labs have blown up studying LENR and windows have melted,” according to Dennis Bushnell, Langley’s chief scientist, in an article he wrote for NASA’s Future Innovation website. This, he wrote, indicates that “when the conditions are ‘right’ prodigious amounts of energy can be produced and released.” But it’s also an argument for the approach that the Langley researchers favor: master the theory first.

Another quote:

So what’s the hitch? It’s creating the right oscillation. “It turns out that the frequencies that we have to work at are in what I call a valley of inaccessibility,” Zawodny said. “Between, say, 5 or 7 THz and 30 THz, we don't have any really good sources to make our own controlled frequency.”

But solving that problem can wait until the theory is better understood. “From my perspective, this is still a physics experiment,” Zawodny said. “I'm interested in understanding whether the phenomenon is real, what it's all about. Then the next step is to develop the rules for engineering. Once you have that, I'm going to let the engineers have all the fun.”

And he is sure that if the Widom-Larsen theory is shown to be correct, resources to support the necessary technological breakthroughs will come flooding in. “All we really need is that one bit of irrefutable, reproducible proof that we have a system that works,” Zawodny said. “As soon as you have that, everybody is going to throw their assets at it. And then I want to buy one of these things and put it in my house.”

--Henk (talk) 17:56, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

The US Navy cold fusion device in the photograph wasn't a total waste of money. It has great potential as a bong. — Unsigned, by: ‎94.26.107.82 / talk / contribs

There's a video too:

The #evp parser function was deprecated in EmbedVideo 2.0. Please convert your parser function tag to #ev.

--Henk (talk) 18:21, 23 February 2013 (UTC)