Talk:Cold fusion/Archive 4

message: I took the liberty of adding the following paragraph to the opening section of the article in the interest of neutrality and fairness to the reader:
"As of this writing (2005), the existence of cold fusion reactions is the subject of intense and sometimes acrimonious disagreement.  It should be noted at the outset, however, that there exists a body of serious, peer-reviewed scientific work in this area conducted by competent and well qualified researchers.  If the phenomena in question truly exist, contemporary resistance to work in this area may reflect historical and institutional processes of the kind famously examined by historian and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn in his seminal work on scientific revolutions.  All parties to the current debate are in agreement that, if cold fusion truly exists, then there is indeed a scientific revolution in the works.  It is hoped that this article will contribute toward open-minded, rigorous and impartial assessment in the best spirit of scientific comity.  Readers are urged to carefully examine all sides of the debate for themselves and to draw their own conclusions."
I'd interested in hearing what people think of this addition.
-- Patrick Knowles <pknowles1@mindspring.com>
:Good job! it is a shame we cannot delete this biased skeptical nonsense from the beginning:
::"The vast majority of professional chemists and physicists do not believe this phenomenon exists, and regard the subject to be an example of pathological science."
:As far as I know, this is not in evidence. No one has taken a poll of professional chemists and physicists, so we do not know what the vast majority believe. Obviously there is a noisy group of professionals who despise the subject and consider it pathological science. Some of them post comments here. Some are highly influential, such as the editor of Scientific American. But how big this group is no one can say.
:I have not taken a poll either, but based on my interactions with individual professionals, I get the impression that most of them know nothing about cold fusion and they have no opinion about it one way or the other. When they read about it they are favorably inclined toward it. Professionals worldwide download ~3,000 papers per week from LENR-CANR.org, and they have never sent me a single e-mail deriding or attacking the subject. (They have sent plenty of e-mails requesting papers or pointing out typos and OCR errors.) 
:I am pretty sure that most of our audience does consist of professionals for four reasons:
:1. They are the only ones who contact me.
:2. These papers are so boring and technical only a professional would read them.
:3. Readership seems to ebb and flow with the academic calendar. During final exam weeks in the US and Europe, it falls drastically.
:4. In a few cases the Log file records are programmed with friendly little messages from the institutions, telling me that the librarian at Such-and-such University has downloaded all files using a program such as WebReaper.
:I was thinking of modifying those opening sentences to say that no one has taken a poll, but I decided it is not worth debating and we do not want more tit-for-tat petty arguments. I shall only try to rebut technical statements made by skeptics, not statements like this which are clearly a matter of opinion & politics with no supporting evidence. (You are not supposed to post mere opinion in Wikipedia, but that never stops the skeptics, does it?)
: --JedRothwell 17:02, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutrality

message: >deuterium/palladium ratio of 100% (i.e., one deuterium atom for each palladium atom)
Isn't this a ratio of 50%?
: Ratio in this context means no. of deuterium atoms divided by no. of palladium atoms. This ratio is definitely 1 (or 100%) in that context. Another figure would be eg. no. of deuterium atoms vs. no. of total atoms present. This would be 50% as you mentioned. richardb 12:12, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ratio? 

message: Whoa! These are not suggested changes! This is only a quick, rough and ready stab at what is needed. I batted it out in less than an hour. I would need to do much more work before making real suggestions. I was just trying to illustrate the kind of thing that I think this article needs: footnotes, many more references to actual experimental results, rigor (way more rigor than I just demonstrated!), quantitative information and so on. The whole thing has to be triple-checked and reviewed by experts, too.
[This looks way better in the original Windows format, but Windows does a terrible job of converting to HTML, so I will paste it as is. Yikes! What a mess when you paste it . . .]
Rebuttal to statements published in wikipedia.org
Jed Rothwell
March 9, 2005
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion says, in part:
“Energy source vs power store
While the output power is higher than the input power during the power burst, the power balance over the whole experiment does not show significant imbalances. Since the mechanism under the power burst is not known, one cannot say whether energy is really produced, or simply stored during the early stages of the experiment (loading of deuterium in the Palladium cathode) for later release during the power burst.
A ‘power store’ discovery would yield only a new, and very expensive, kind of storage battery, not a source of abundant cheap fusion power.”
Cold fusion cannot be caused by chemical energy storage. This possibility is ruled out for a number of reasons, mainly:
1.	There is no significant chemical fuel present in the solution in a cold fusion cell. The potential chemical energy and chemical storage of cells has been carefully inventoried [1-5] and it has been shown to be less than 500 joules for a typical cathode, [6] whereas many cold fusion cells have produced hundreds of thousands of joules, [2,7,8] and some have produced 50 to 600 million joules. [9-11]
2.	The products of a chemical reaction (chemical ash) are never found in a cold fusion cell after an experiment. Such products would have to be present in macroscopic quantities to explain the heat, in most cases. In some cases, the volume of chemical ash would exceed the entire volume of the cell many times over.
3.	No chemical process can produce (or store) more than 12 eV per atom of reactant. (The highest energy density is in covalent electron bonds in substances such as diamond, 7 eV/atom, http://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/matv/pdf/ssp_3y.pdf) whereas many cold fusion reactions have produced between 200 and 100,000 eV per atom. [12] To put it another way, gasoline contains more energy per unit of mass than nearly any other chemical. (Only a few forms of rocket fuel are better.) Gasoline stores ~45 megajoules per kilogram. Cold fusion cathodes typically weight 1 g or less, but some of them have produced much more than 1 kg of gasoline, and a few have produced as much as 13 kg of gasoline.
4.	Many cells have produced significant excess heat after a reasonably short incubation period (10 to 20 days), so if there were energy storage, it would show up quite clearly as an energy deficit (an endothermic reaction). Small endothermic reactions such as the initial formation of palladium deuteride are readily observable with most calorimeters. [13] For example, consider a reaction in which the reaction begins after about a week of incubation, and then 10% to 30% excess heat is produced for a month continuously. If this were caused by a storage mechanism, there would have to be an energy deficit large enough to capture all of the heat during the first week. Roughly 60% of the input energy would have to be absorbed by the palladium, presumably in the formation of an exotic deuteride. This is chemically impossible, and there is no evidence that such deuterides have been formed, but if they were, the 60% deficit would show as clearly as the 30% positive excess does.
5.	Some cold fusion reactions have started up with little or no incubation time, sometimes as short as 20 minutes, and many occur without any significant input energy, especially with gas-loaded, cavitation [14] and ion-beam loading, [15] or with finely divided (powder) metal targets. 
Reference 4 discusses many of these issues in more detail, in section II.1.2. Quote:
“Energy can be stored either as it would be in a battery or it can form an unstable compound that later decomposes. In both cases, the storage process would be obvious as a negative power being recorded by the calorimeter. Of course, the magnitude of such negative power might be too small to be considered important, but would represent significant energy if it occurred over a long time. Consequently, samples that take a long time to turn on suffer from this possible error. However, many samples produce power and integrated energy at such high levels that this issue no longer applies and some cells turn on immediately. . . .
 
If energy were in fact stored as in a battery or even as in a capacitor, stored energy cannot be released unless the power supply is disconnected and the cell shorted. In practice, this is never done. If energy were stored by generating an unstable compound, this compound could be identified and detected in the electrolyte, on the electrodes, or somewhere else in the cell. No such compound has ever been found nor would the chemistry available in a LiOD + D2O electrolyte allow formation of such a compound. One reviewer suggested that the deuterium stored in the cathode, upon release and while reacting with oxygen, might provide the observed energy. Three well established facts eliminate this reaction as a source of energy. First, the cathode does not deload significantly while current is flowing through the cell. Even when current stops, deloading is very slow and does not produce detected energy. Deloading is very easy to observe in most modern cells. . . .”
1.	McKubre, M.C.H., et al., Isothermal Flow Calorimetric Investigations of the D/Pd and H/Pd Systems. J. Electroanal. Chem., 1994. 368: p. 55. PDF
:This article describes a series of experiments that appear to produce excess power from deuterium setups but not from hydrogen setups.  I can find no detailed inventory of the chemical energy budget in the cell, nor any discussion of the "power storage" suggestion; they do not observe negative surplus energy at any point. --Andrew 02:27, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
::The inventory is Ref. 2, p. 3A-14 through 3A-16. I reproduced it, in part, here: lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJreviewofmc.pdf
::- Jed
2.	McKubre, M.C.H., et al., Development of Advanced Concepts for Nuclear Processes in Deuterated Metals. 1994.
3.	Kainthla, R.C., et al., Eight chemical explanations of the Fleischmann-Pons effect. J. Hydrogen Energy, 1989. 14(11): p. 771.
4.	Storms, E., A Response to the Review of Cold Fusion by the DoE. 2005, Lattice Energy, LLC.
5.	Pons, S. and M. Fleischmann, Calorimetric measurements of the palladium/deuterium system: fact and fiction. Fusion Technol., 1990. 17: p. 669.
6.	Fleischmann, M. and S. Pons, Reply to the critique by Morrison entitled 'Comments on claims of excess enthalpy by Fleischmann and Pons using simple cells made to boil. Phys. Lett. A, 1994. 187: p. 276. PDF 
:Response to a criticism of one of their articles.  At the end there is some discussion of the energy budget of "stage 5", in which (I think) the current is shut off and the cells remain hot; they estimate this remaining hot required 1.1 MJ and the energy available from combustion of D contained in the 1 cm3 electrode is only about 8.7 kJ.  --Andrew 02:27, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
::This cathode is much smaller than 1 cm3. It is 0.04 cm3, so the maximum release is ~650 J. Quote from paper: "We observe that at a heat flow of 144.5W (corresponding to the rate of excess enthalpy generation in the experiment discussed in our paper [2] the total combustion of all the D in the cathode would be completed in ~ 4.5s, not the 600s of the duration of this stage." That is based on 100% loading, which is unrealistic, so I estimated ~500 J instead. By the way, I get ~15 kJ from 1 cm3 of Pd loaded at 100%, which weighs 12 grams. 12 g = .11 mole Pd, holding 0.11 mole H, which converts to 0.055 mole of water, and the heat of formation of water 286 kJ/mol.
::Actually, in real life, when the hydrogen from a cathode degasses in the last phase of this experiment, it does not produce any heat in the cell, because there is no free oxygen in the headspace. It recombines outside the cell.
::- Jed
7.	Schreiber, M., et al. Recent Experimental Results on the Thermal Behavior of Electrochemical Cells in the Hydrogen-Palladium and Deuterium-Palladium Systems. in 8th World Hydrogen Energy Conf. 1990. Honolulu, HI: Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, 2540 Dole St., Holmes Hall 246, Honolulu, HI 96822.
8.	Fleischmann, M. and S. Pons, Calorimetry of the Pd-D2O system: from simplicity via complications to simplicity. Phys. Lett. A, 1993. 176: p. 118. PDF
:6 is a response to criticisms of this paper.  It describes a relatively simple system and computes (I think) the total enthalpy input of one cycle (after days of operation) as 22500 J, and the enthalpy output as 102500 J.  They compute a very large value (3700W/cm3) for the power per unit cathode volume. --Andrew 02:27, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC) 
9.	Mizuno, T., Nuclear Transmutation: The Reality of Cold Fusion. 1998, Concord, NH: Infinite Energy Press.
10.	Campari, E.G., et al. Overview Of H-Ni Systems: Old Experiments And New Setup. in 5th Asti Workshop on Anomalies in Hydrogen / Deuterium loaded Metals. 2004. Asti, Italy.
11.	Roulette, T., J. Roulette, and S. Pons. Results of ICARUS 9 Experiments Run at IMRA Europe. in Sixth International Conference on Cold Fusion, Progress in New Hydrogen Energy. 1996. Lake Toya, Hokkaido, Japan: New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan.
12.	Hagelstein, P.L., Summary of ICCF3 in Nagoya, Feb. 16, 1993. 1993.
13.	Arata, Y. and Y.C. Zhang, Excess heat in a double structure deuterated cathode. Kaku Yygo Kenkyu, 1993. 69((8)): p. 963 (in Japanese).
14.	Stringham, R. Cavitation and Fusion. in Tenth International Conference on Cold Fusion. 2003. Cambridge, MA: LENR-CANR.org.
15.	Kamada, K., et al. Anomalous Heat Evolution of Deuteron Implanted Al upon Electron Bombardment IV. in 8th International Conference on Cold Fusion. 2000. Lerici (La Spezia), Italy: Italian Physical Society, Bologna, Italy.
:That's twice now that you've made comments like "chemical storage of cells has been carefully inventoried [1-5] and it has been shown to be less than 500 joules for a typical cathode, 6 whereas many cold fusion cells have produced hundreds of thousands of joules, [2,7,8] and some have produced 50 to 600 million joules. [9-11]"
:However, 500 joules falls right into that range.  Or is that 50 joules just a case of sloppy writing of the type that would eventually get fixed in Wikipedia?    Gene Nygaard 23:13, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested changes by Jed 

message: James, I don't know that JL Naudin is the orignator of anything novel in this field. Certainly he has a sexy Web site and has created a following among amateur scientists and experimenters, but I don't know that he has published any paper, or make any presentations at any major CF conferences. I too question this placement.
-Steve Krivit
:There exists a rule that vanity sites should not be included.  This may be in a grey area (or may be fully in the exclude category) The original editor who added that link included the note:
:* The Cold Fusion Reactor project by JL Naudin The CFR Project is fully based on the T. Mizuno plasma electrolysis reactor - Full construction details and replicable tests results on the JLN Labs web site.
:I regarded this as way too verbose, but restricted my editing to trimming the overlong comment rather than deletion.  I'm definately a skeptic on the cold fusion topic but didn't want to be too... agressively dismissive.  It does seem that there's some consensus here that this particular citation is unneeded/inappropriate, and as the article is overlong already it should be removed. --Noren 19:58, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's already out.  I removed it back when I thought it was a dead link.  I raised the question here when I discovered that I was mistaken on that point, but no one has restored the link, so I think you're right about the consensus.  On the other hand, even if it's a vanity site, if it turns out to have some important information that's not available elsewhere, it might merit a link (perhaps a link to that specific page within the site). JamesMLane 00:30, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  JLN Site 

message: Nobody appears to have responded to my "to whom it may concern" note in the TO DO LIST. I propose that, unless there are objections, items 1, 2 and 4 be deleted. -SteveK
:The "To Do List" here has been there for some time and hasn't really been a focus of activity; I've had reservations about it for some time as well.  It may have been put there by few people to draw extra attention to their concerns, but I don't think it represents any sort of consensus.  I'd support its removal in toto; in addition to 1,2,4 as you mention- 3 is not such a bad idea but too vague to be really useful, and 5 is well intentioned but (in my opinion) would comprise too much detail for the introduction, and is already being addressed in later sections. 
:Editing others' text in the talk page is often frowned upon (the idea is to allow free expression), but as that list is presented as a semi-official-looking manner and wasn't signed I think it's reasonable to remove it in this case.--Noren 21:34, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  PENDING TASKS / TO DO LIST 

message: Hyacinth has, in this person's view, appropriately identified the field of cold fusion. Krivit requests that if Noren can support the assertions of "Pathological science and Pseudoscience" that Noren provide such justification. 
For justification on why cold fusion follows the scientific process, it is reccomended to first start here: http://www2.nau.edu/~gaud/bio372/class/behavior/sciproc.htm and note that empirical observations supersede incumbent theory, and are not required for an early science.
A series of experiments that repeated the findings of excesss heat and helium production are listed here: http://newenergytimes.com/Reports/Heat&NuclearProductCorrelation.htm
A listing of peer reviewed journals which have published cold fusion papers is here:
http://newenergytimes.com/Reports/PublishedPapers.htm
The irony of cold fusion is that the laboratories which supposedly disproved cold fusion - didn't.
They were false negatives. Full documentation for this claim is here: http://newenergytimes.com/Reports/HistoricalAnalysisSummaryCharts.htm
A condensed version of this analysis in a slide presentation, given at the APS meeting in March 2005 is here: http://newenergytimes.com/Conf/APS2005/2005KrivitS-APS.pdf
A collection of good papers that show the observations, hypothesis, experiments and results (a.k.a. Scientific Process) are here:
http://newenergytimes.com/Reports/Review20ColdFusionPapers.htm
Several hundred other cold fusion papers are here: www.lenr-canr.org
Keep something in mind about Bob Park, the pathological science cheerleader of the U.S.. Park -is not- an expert in cold fusion BY HIS OWN ADMISSION (see link below) and cannot seriously be taken as an authority. In the past, cold fusion was a favorite target of his satire and acrimony. If you track his statements publicly over the last few years, you will see that he is keeping his options open and slowly changing his attitude toward this field. Nature magazine, 02 December 2004, "Park says that although the quality of research has improved, no one should buy into cold fusion just yet." Bob has not known much about cold fusion in the last decade: http://newenergytimes.com/critics/park.htm but he is starting to pay attention, according to a fellow APS member, and Navy scientist who happens to be friends with him, and also is a leading cold fusion researcher. Park cannot be cited as an authority.
- Steven Krivit
: Certainly.  From the Wikipedia page on Pseudoscience: "A pseudoscience is any body of knowledge purported to be scientific or supported by science but which is judged by the mainstream scientific community to fail to comply with the scientific method."
: The judgement of the mainstream scientific community is best represented by the 2004 DOE peer review.  Excerpts:
:"Two-thirds of the reviewers commenting on Charge Element 1 did not feel the evidence was conclusive for low energy nuclear reactions, one found the evidence convincing, and the remainder indicated they were somewhat convinced. Many reviewers noted that poor experiment design, documentation, background control and other similar issues hampered the understanding and interpretation of the results presented."
:"The preponderance of the reviewers’ evaluations indicated that Charge Element 2, the occurrence of low energy nuclear reactions, is not conclusively demonstrated by the evidence presented. One reviewer believed that the occurrence was demonstrated, and several reviewers did not address the question."
:The majority of the peer reviewers representing the mainstream scientific community did not find the body of "cold fusion" work to be plausable, and gave specific objections to the methods used.
:as to Pathological science, the six criteria are, if we are to use that Wikipedia page:
    * The maximum effect that is observed is produced by a causative agent of barely detectable intensity, and the magnitude of the effect is substantially independent of the intensity of the cause.
    * The effect is of a magnitude that remains close to the limit of detectability, or many measurements are necessary because of the very low statistical significance of the results.
    * There are claims of great accuracy.
    * Fantastic theories contrary to experience are suggested.
    * Criticisms are met by ad hoc excuses.
    * The ratio of supporters to critics rises and then falls gradually to oblivion.
: "Cold fusion" meets each of these criterion, though the fall to oblivion seems to be particularly slow in its case.
: Giving "cold fusion" a label of Protoscience is very generous, considering the length of time and amount of funding which has gone into it without the production of sufficient evidence for a peer review to find indicates that the effect even exists. 
: A shorter answer is that, if it actually worked, cold fusion plants would be selling electricity on the open market. --Noren 09:30, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Protoscience

message: It is my opinion that Noren has not presented convincing data to demonstrate that the field of cold fusion, as a whole, lacks scientific merit. There are are also several points to Noren's argument that are invalid. Because of this, it is my opinion that the representation of the topic of cold fusion, and sub-topic of "science" by Wikipedia, as presented by Noren, does not reflect well on Wikipedia. But let me put my opinions aside for the moment and focus on where I agree with Noren. 
I agree that an influential political body, the United States Department of Energy, has concluded that the claims of cold fusion are still unproved after 16 years. I agree that a panel of experts in science have largely concluded that many of the claims of cold fusion are unconvincing.
I also agree that it would reflect poorly on Wikipedia if it were to be unscrupulous in what it represents. I respect what I presume is Noren's unstated care and concern in this regard with the choice to use the denigrating label of "pseudoscience" and "pathological science."
Without going further into the granularity of the Krivit and Noren arguments, I see that there is a larger disagreement, and decision at hand. I would appreciate some feedback from the Wiki community before proceeding futher.
 
And that is this:
Does the core value of the Wiki community place a greater value on popular, accepted opinion, or does it place a greater value on original data and specific expertise? 
Does the core value of the Wiki community place a greater value on taking the position that a new field, which may or may not be scientific, is guilty until proven innocent, or is it of greater value to maintain a neutral point of view?
-Steven Krivit
I'm not sure I understand your questions exactly, but I believe you are touching on an important and difficult issue. I have my own (often strong) opinions about what is pseudoscience and what is pathological science, but I'm not sure that can be objectively determined. You notice the problem when you try to make a foolproof list of criteria to differentiate them from real science. (In the case of cold fusion, I think it is bad science, but I'm not sure if it is really "fake" or "sick" science.) Although these categories can be interesting and useful, does the implied value judgement make them inherently POV? Do they really have a place in Wikipedia at all? Art Carlson 19:57, 2005 Apr 14 (UTC)
::Art Carlson writes: "I agree that an influential political body, the United States Department of Energy, has concluded that the claims of cold fusion are still unproved after 16 years." No, it did not reach any clear conclusion one way or the other. It said it would support more cold fusion research, but a few months later it reneged. The technical judgment was a split decision. The DoE called together 18 experts and gave them several papers on cold fusion. One expert said that cold fusion is definitely real, 6 had mixed opinions, and 11 said it probably is not real. You can read all of their opinions in full, and see most of papers they reviewed here: lenr-canr.org/Collections/DoeReview.htm. Decide for yourself. Write your own technical review.--JedRothwell 22:03, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is "Pathological" and "Pseudo" NPOV? 

message: The first paragraph above is an example of an attempt to shift the burden of proof in an unreasonable fashion.  The burden of proof is on those who make an extraordinary claim which is said to be scientific, not on the rest of the community to have "presented convincing data to demonstrate that the field of cold fusion, as a whole, lacks scientific merit."  If I were to make a claim that I am an alien from the planet Zarquon it would not be reasonable to expect Steven Krivit to present convincing data that I am not; rather, it would be my responsibility to prove my own extraordinary claim. 
As to the presentation of original data, Wikipedia has a specific Wikipedia:No original research policy; for the most part I don't think it's being violated here, but it is something to keep in mind.  This may not be what you intended by the phrase, I thought it should be reiterated.
You're correct that I think that we should be scrupulous in minimizing the amount of bias presented in articles.   Wikipedia often presents opposing views on the same subject in the same article, either one of which might be seen as biased if the counterarguments were not presented at the same time.  The above focuses on my edit, neglecting that the "Protoscience" category had just been added, while in the same edit the "Pseudoscience" label was removed.  I find the "Protoscience" label questionable for reasons which may be similar to the reasons you object to the "Pseudoscience" category.  Leaving the categories list with only the (incorrectly biased in my opinion) Protoscience category would give the incorrect impression to the reader that this topic is considered a protoscience by the community.  The presence of both labels in the category listing gives the reader a more balanced picture.  This is why I left Steven Krivit's addition of the Protoscience category when I restored the Pseudoscience label (that he had deleted) and added the Pathological label.
If we're going by a "it must be clearly proven to be included" standard, none of the three categories meets that criterion; if we go by a "a reasonable, if not compelling, argument can be made that it belongs in this category" standard, all three should be included.
:That's a good way to phrase the question. With the former it is difficult to find consensus, so the latter is probably more practicable and is probably the way it has been implemented in practice. But then a note to that effect should be included in each of the categories. Art Carlson 19:34, 2005 Apr 15 (UTC)
::I found a Wikipedia statement on this point in Wikipedia:Categorization#When to use categories, though I'm not sure to what extent it is Official Policy, or even reasonable: 
:::Categories appear without annotations, so be careful of NPOV when creating or filling categories. Unless it is self-evident and uncontroversial that something belongs in a category, it should not be put into a category.
::And also in Wikipedia:Categorization#Creating subcategories:
:::Whatever categories you add, make sure they do not implicitly violate the neutral point of view policy. If the nature of something is in dispute (like whether or not it's fictional or scientific or whatever), you may want to avoid labelling it or mark the categorization as disputed.
Art Carlson 14:42, 2005 May 3 (UTC)
I would also be satisfied if none of those three categories were included, but if we were to leave only the Protoscience category it would  not be NPOV.  It's already muddled enough (see Hyacinth's comment.)
(I am also tempted to challenge the Nuclear Fusion category on the basis that none occurs, but I'm attempting to find a middle ground.)
--Noren 14:46, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Are "Pathological" and "Pseudo" and "Proto" NPOV? 

message: Categories are such an annoying necessity. 
I stand corrected regarding the responsibility for shouldering the burden of proof. Yes, I agree that it is on those who make and support the claims. I thought I had already referenced the proof but I can see from others’ perspectives that it is not necessarily so.
After careful consideration, it is clear to me that neither “Science” or “Pathological /Pseudo-Science” are as definable and objective as we would all like them to be. 
For example, the core terminology that we are using in this discussion is likely to be subjective from one person to another. I challenge anyone to provide objective definitions for these terms with regard to “extraordinary claims.”  
Reputable Peer-Review Journal 
Mainstream Scientist
Reputable Scientist
Reproducible 
Highly Reproducible 
Experimental Replication
Nuclear Evidence
Evidence of Fusion
Independent researchers
Additionally, I challenge anyone to answer the following, also with regard to “extraordinary claims”:
How many published papers are required to satisfy a scientific requirement?
How many replications are required to satisfy a scientific requirement?
How large of a signal to noise ratio is required to satisfy a scientific requirement?
How large of an effect is required to satisfy a scientific requirement?
How commercially viable must an effect be to satisfy a scientific requirement?
How many control samples are required to satisfy a scientific requirement?
What would be a suitable control for a cold fusion experiment and why?
Is an accepted theory required to satisfy a scientific requirement?
Is a theory which does not contradict accepted theories required to satisfy a scientific requirement?
Is an experiment which does not contradict accepted theories required to satisfy a scientific requirement?
If an experiment cannot be replicated without specialized tools, facilities and expertise 
does this indicate a failure to satisfy the scientific requirement?
If a claimant stands to gain financially from the acceptance of a claim, does this indicate a failure to satisfy the scientific requirement?
If an effect is not well-understood after 16 years of research, does this negate its scientific validity?
If an effect is not commercially viable after 16 years of research, does this negate its scientific validity?
And just for fun, with regard to the posted comment, ““if it actually worked, cold fusion plants would be selling electricity on the open market.” Where can I buy some hot fusion electricity?
-Steve Krivit
*Once Wikipedia starts allowing original research, we can start debating this! Until then, troll elsewhere. --brian0918™ 02:22, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is Science NPOV? 

message: I noticed that there existed no Cluster Impact Fusion page, though as is accepted wikipedia practice the existing Cold Fusion page linked to it, so I did a bit of searching on it with the intent of making a stub or page on it.  Unfortunately, the link in that paragraph labeled as "Recent research" was a paper published in January 1992.  A bit more searching revealed that other researchers had found substantial problems in the experimental setup of that experiment and had concluded that the effects reported were due to these problems rather than to fusion.  The comment as it stand didn't include the original BNL authors of that paper's erratum showing that the fusion rate dropped by a factor of 100 when a magnetic field was applied to deflect charged deuterium contaminants.  The fusion observed thus appears not to be a result of the impact of neutral heavy water clusters.
I did find one post-1995 cluster impact fusion paper I found (in an admittedly brief search) was in this abstract, though I've only seen that abstract.  This does make me think that there may be something happening with the impact of charged heavy water clusters, but the lack of other mentions leaves me still skeptical.  The old description that was in the Cold Fusion page was was fatally flawed in my opinion, and the existence of the phenomenon appears controversial.  If there's more source material I've missed on the topic a new entry on the topic might be appropriate. --Noren 06:48, 29 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cluster Impact Fusion 

message: Fellow Wikis, the current descriptor for cold fusion is entirely inadequate. 
It states, "Cold fusion is a name for any nuclear fusion reaction that occurs well below the temperature required for thermonuclear reactions (which occur at millions of degrees Celsius)."
This description is vague and vacuous. Considering the variety of viewpoints on this subject, this condition is understandable. I would like to help make an improvement. 
In a few weeks I will post a new proposed definition. I will endeavor to be sensitive to my own biases and respect a neutral point of view. I will also ask that for anyone who should disagree with my edits, that you be sure that your knowledge of this field is current, and that your sources are primary, and not secondary sources for experts in the cold fusion field. For clarification, primary sources would be researchers actively engaged in the research. Secondary sources would be reporters and experts in hot fusion. 
Also, while not required here on Wikipedia, I think that if you sign your real name to your posts, rather than a hidden screen name, others may take your comments more seriously and the level of integrity and responsibility of Wiki as a whole will rise.
Steven Krivit 06 25 2005
:Yes, Brian's comments are pretty out of line in relation to what you wrote above. Previous comments of yours may have partially justified Brian's but I haven't looked. But I would also say, much better than signing your name in text (which anyone can replicate or imitate), would be to create a user account in your real name and sign your comments in talk pages with that. That way, your edits are all collected under one user and the account has a password allowing you to prevent others from impersonating you and keeping you from repudiating comments that appear to be made by you. It also allows leaving comments for you and having a coherent conversation without so much off topic material on a page such as this. Your user page would also allow discussing who you are and what background you have. Other than that, since we don't know you from Adam, your real name is just as anonymous as my username. Anyone can type "Steven Krivit". I for one, choose not to reveal my real name for a variety of reasons. If ever need be, I could substantiate my real identity. Lacking that, the edits under my user name have provided a substantial backing of trust from those that are familiar with my editing. That is quite sufficient for Wikipedia's needs. I would also request that you format your comments in a more compact manner to keep the talk pages easier to read. Thank you - Taxman Talk June 28, 2005 15:44 (UTC)
*Once Wikipedia starts allowing original research, we can start allowing your edits! Until then, troll elsewhere. --brian0918™ 02:24, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cold Fusion is... 

message: Let's start with this: "The vast majority of scientists consider current cold fusion research to be pathological science".  Does anyone have a source for it?  I would offer the latest DOE report (which was not exactly in favor of cold fusion) as counter-evidence.  If 1/3 of reviewers thought there was some merit in the work they looked at, that makes it a legitimate scientific controversy/dispute, and not pathological.  Moreover 2/3 is definitely not a "vast majority".  If this overly-broad claim cannot be sourced, I would like to modify (perhaps "a number of scientists") or delete it. I also would question whether the opinion of scientists who have nothing to do with the field should count (perhaps make that "physicists and electrochemists"?)  ObsidianOrder 9 July 2005 05:14 (UTC)
:2/3rds represents a super majority, so to out right reject it as "vast majority" is silly.  Also, those 1/3rd thought that the research had merit, not that they believed it was actually fusion.  THere is a supermajority based on the DOE report, so to call that "a number of scientists" would be incredibly misleading.  Nathan J. Yoder 9 July 2005 14:24 (UTC)
::I think the problem he's having with it is that the claim is unsourced. The fact that scientists (or more specifically, physicists) aren't exactly polled about their opinions makes it seem more suspect. Also, there were only 18 scientists (were they physicists?) in the DOE report, which may or may not be representative of the total "population". --brian0918™ 9 July 2005 14:28 (UTC)
:Why wouldn't the scientists on the review panel be physicists?  It's not like they couldn't easily find 18 physicists, do you have any actual reason to believe they weren't (other than "it's a conspiracy--they hired marine biologists!")?  Furthermore, if they aren't really representative, then why are cold fusion papers continually rejected by mainstream journals?  If the journals don't stand for mainstream scientific opinion, then I don't know what does and frankly trying to negate mainstream scientific opinion based on your own analysis goes along the lines of original research.  Nathan J. Yoder 9 July 2005 18:19 (UTC)
::For someone who prides himself on his logical infallability, I'm surprised at your latest slew of fallacies. I'll leave you to comb the List of fallacies for the cool Latin names to throw around. --brian0918™ 9 July 2005 18:26 (UTC)
:Then feel free to cite some instead of making a blind accusation.  I've noticed you have a tendency to try to undermine my credibility and contribute nothing of value to the discussion.  I won't be suprised if you can't cite any, because you know they'd easily get shot down.  Nathan J. Yoder 9 July 2005 18:32 (UTC)
----------
Here are some fun ones:
"In contrast, hundreds of researchers worldwide claim they have reproduced cold fusion, often at very high signal to noise ratios. Excess heat has been measured at sigma 50 to 100, and tritium between 60 and 1 million times background. Roughly 500 papers were published about polywater at the peak, but most were theory and only a handful claimed positive results, whereas over 3,000 papers on cold fusion have been published."
"In most bulk palladium electrochemical experiments, an incubation period of 10 to 20 days is followed by continuous excess heat production, which often continues longer than the incubation period." 
I'll look through it later and I'll bet there are few more doozies like that.  Nathan J. Yoder 9 July 2005 14:24 (UTC)
:Nathan J. Yoder writes: "Here are some fun ones . . ." I added those statements. I will add some source footnotes for them. Note that there were already foodnotes for the statement about polywater, which comes from Franks, F., "Polywater," (MIT Press, 1981). All of the other statements refer to well-known experiments that are familiar to everyone who has read the literature. Over 3,000 have been published and are listed at LENR-CANR.org. I will add a footnote for that. 
:It should be noted that claims by the skeptics in this article have no footnotes, and many are unsupported by either theory or experiment. For example, "These relationships do not appear to hold consistently, and the inability to establish any definite relationships between the energy output of the experiments and experimental inputs leads to skepticism that what is being observed has anything to do with fusion." That is a figment of someone's imagination, and it is so wrong in so many ways I hardly know how to begin correcting it, so I shall refrain from even trying. As usual, the skeptics are themselves guilty of what they accuse us of.
:--JedRothwell 16:28, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  unsourced claims 

message: I remembered reading about this experiment at UCLA recently, and hunted up the link (similar article here if it prompts for subscription). Has their work been included in the article yet? According to the articles, the experiment has been repeated successfully, and the results made it into Nature as well: Full Text, PDF. Here's the abstract for non-subscribers:
::"While progress in fusion research continues with magnetic and inertial confinement, alternative approaches—such as Coulomb explosions of deuterium clusters and ultrafast laser−plasma interactions—also provide insight into basic processes and technological applications. However, attempts to produce fusion in a room temperature solid-state setting, including 'cold' fusion and 'bubble' fusion, have met with deep skepticism. Here we report that gently heating a pyroelectric crystal in a deuterated atmosphere can generate fusion under desktop conditions. The electrostatic field of the crystal is used to generate and accelerate a deuteron beam (> 100 keV and >4 nA), which, upon striking a deuterated target, produces a neutron flux over 400 times the background level. The presence of neutrons from the reaction D + D -->He (820 keV) + n (2.45 MeV) within the target is confirmed by pulse shape analysis and proton recoil spectroscopy. As further evidence for this fusion reaction, we use a novel time-of-flight technique to demonstrate the delayed coincidence between the outgoing alpha-particle and the neutron. Although the reported fusion is not useful in the power-producing sense, we anticipate that the system will find application as a simple palm-sized neutron generator."
::Non-subscribers might be able to see this figure (though I can't check): . 
--brian0918™ 20:44, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Has this content been included? (UCLA research)

message: This article is about relatively-low-temperature fusion, just as Fusion is about fusion. The article called Fusion power discusses fusion as a power source (systems generating more energy than required from the wall outlet, with a relatively high reprate). This article, however, seems to focus on low-temperature fusion as a power source, rather than simply on low-temperature fusion, as if it is completely discounted by not being useful as a power source. Such language might be proper in an article titled Cold fusion power, but not necessarily in Cold fusion. Cold fusion may definitely still be considered controversial in the "sustainable-energy-source" aspect, but not in the "actually-occurring" sense, at least for certain setups such as that at UCLA. --brian0918™ 23:09, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: "Cold fusion power" versus "Cold fusion"

message: As of the recent development it would be good if someone would add news in the recent development of cold fusion:
Bubble Fusion takes next hurdle
This verified experiment shows that cold fusion is possible.
Also a reverence to the currently in development hot fusion reactor ITER would be nice.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Helohe (talk • contribs) 09:56, 18 July 2005.
: First, on bubble fusion, there is already an entry in the "Fusion with high energy reactants in relatively cold condensed matter" section of the "Other kinds of fusion" section.  The particular article you cite has significant errors- for example, "Until then only nuclear fusion in experimental reactors as big as houses were scientifically accepted" ignores the well-established tabletop Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor that has been known since the late 1960s.  In any case, bubble fusion is thought to be done (though whether it occurs at all is also debated)  by making a small area of a collapsing bubble very hot, on the order of 108 K. Strictly speaking this would not be cold fusion.  As it's not quite on topic, we mention it here and link to it, but leave extensive discussion of it to its own page.  
: ITER is even farther from the cold fusion topic than is bubble fusion.  Also in the "Other kinds of fusion" section, this page does link to fusion power, which itself links to the ITER page. --Noren 15:58, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two Topics To Add 

message: Describing Huizenga as a representative of the scientific mainstream is hardly controversial. He was the head of the DOE panel, made up of prominent scientists, which established the consensus in that presently exists in the scientific community regarding the Pons and Fleischmann experiment. Likewise, describing Park as skeptical is absolutely accurate: from the OED, a skeptic is one who maintains a doubting attitude with reference to some particular question or statement. Also, one who is habitually inclined rather to doubt than to believe any assertion or apparent fact that comes before him; a person of sceptical temper. I don't see how you can disagree with that. NPOV is not an excuse to adopt a solipsistic attitude. –Joke137 21:47, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "the consensus in that presently exists" - there is no consensus on this.  "majority view" (which this may be, rightly or wrongly) is not the same "consensus".  there are some pretty damn prominent people who disagree (Brian Josephson, Bockris, ...).  Huizenga and Park may be members of the scientific mainstream (although I believe both are better known as bureaucrats of science than as researchers) but they are in no way "representatives of" it... there isn't any such thing, and even if there were they wouldn't be it ;)  Finally, they are not skeptics: writing a book that calls something "the scientific fiasco of the century" or "voodoo science" while it is still very much an open question is not indicative of skepticism, it is indicative of blind faith.  ObsidianOrder 22:32, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

text: "strong voices on both sides" - isn't that the definition of non-consensus?  ;)  "I don't think that consensus implies total agreement" - of course not, it's something considerably more than simple majority but less than unanimity.  it doesn't exist here.  "Park's book" - Huizenga's as well, actually.  I do think rushing to conclusions is incompatible with skepticism.  "inelegant sentence" - ok, true.  "did sign off on the DOE report" - do you mean the old or the new one?  the new one is just a face-saving way to restart that research in the US, as far as I'm concerned. ObsidianOrder 04:49, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  references 

message: The U.S. Supreme Court recently denied review of a federal appellate decision, which affirmed the rejection of a cold fusion-related patent based on scientific doubt as to its utility.  The decision affirmed was In re Dash, 118 Fed.Appx. 488 (Fed. Cir. 2004).  If someone versed in the science could take a look at this and get started on describing what it was talking about, I'll help with the legal analysis.  Postdlf 18:12, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Patent rejection 

message: I revised the "Current understanding of physics section." I feel that it was incredibly biased toward the skeptical point of view. I preserved all of the skeptical statements but added a few paragraphs representing the cold fusion researchers views. I hope the skeptics do not come in and erase what I have written.
I realize that Wikipedia tries to maintain a neutral point of view, but in cases like this it fails drastically. The only way to deal with this is to try to represent both points of view and to clearly demarcate them.
I could say much more about this section but I shall refrain from doing so on the main page. Let me just point out a few of the other skeptical errors in this section:
"Although requiring exotic or unknown physics does not rule out the existence of a process . . ."
Cold fusion researchers do not require exotic or unknown physics. They are experimentalists; they do not require any explanation. Their experiments are based on 19th-century instruments, techniques and thermodynamic theory. Some theorists feel that cold fusion can only be explained with "exotic or unknown physics" but others say it can be explained with conventional physics. This discussion is beside the point because cold fusion is not based on theory.
". . . it does drastically increase the level of evidence needed to establish a process . . .
No it does not. This is a variation of the ridiculous notion that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. All claims should require equal levels of proof. All should be held to the same rigorous standards. The more extraordinary the claim is, the more "ordinary" and conventional this proof should be. Fortunately, cold fusion is based on calorimetry, mainly on the instruments and techniques that James Joule perfected in the 1840s. 
". . . while at the same time making it much harder to perform experiments to verify that the process exists."
There is no inherent difficulty in cold fusion experiments. The techniques have been an accepted part of mainstream science for 160 years. It does require considerable skill, of course, but most research does. It is no more difficult than cloning, or open-heart surgery, or constructing a tokamak plasma fusion reactor.
"Requiring exotic or unknown physics increases the skeptic's suspicion that the underlying cause of the experimental results lies in errors of experimental design or misinterpretation of results . . ."
This is a non sequitur, as I said. No one requires exotic or unknown physics, and in any case the skeptic should judge experimental results strictly according to the experimental techniques and instruments, not the implication the results may hold. the person who rejects cold fusion experimental results  because he thinks they may violate theory turns the scientific method upside down.
". . . and causes the scientific community to be skeptical of marginal results and demand unambiguous demonstrations of a process."
As I noted in the main page, cold fusion results are unambiguous. Excess heat has been demonstrated at Sigma 90 and above, and the effect has been replicated hundreds of times. The skeptics have been given what they demand year after year starting in 1990 yet they ignore this evidence and continue to publish statements like this.
Please note that I left all of these absurd statements in the main page unchallenged. I will let the skeptics have their say. I hope they do not erase the few statements I wrote in rebuttal. 
Let me also point out that skeptics often publish a single sentence on this page -- usually an unsupported opinion without any proof or published references -- and then they object when cold fusion researchers respond with two or three sentences in rebuttal. They claim that we are dragging out the argument or adding more detail than an encyclopedia such as Wikipedia normally includes. Suppose we play by these rules. The debate would go like this:
SKEPTIC: A "power store" discovery would yield only a new, and very expensive, kind of storage battery, not a source of abundant cheap fusion power.
CF SUPPORTER: Cold fusion researchers disagree.
That is useless. The reader sees there is a disagreement but he has no idea whether the disagreement has been carefully considered or resolved or on what basis it might be resolved. It might as well be a matter of taste, or whimsy. We must add at least a few verifiable, experimentally based statements about actual energy releases reported in the literature, and we have to show how they relate to conventional physics and chemistry. That is why I added these statements:
"[Cold fusion researchers] point out that in all experiments in which excess heat has been recorded, the overall balance has been positive; there are no instances in which a heat deficit was recorded first, that would balance out the excess. In most bulk palladium electrochemical experiments, an incubation period of 10 to 20 days is followed by continuous excess heat production, which often continues longer than the incubation period. 'Isothermal Flow Calorimetric Investigations of the D/Pd System' shows typical examples. [10]" . . .
And so on, for a couple of paragraphs. 
If that is too much detail, then the entire debate should be removed, including both the skeptical statements and my rebuttal. Actually, you might as well delete the whole article, because this assertion -- that the heat is easy to detect and that it is far beyond the limits of chemistry -- is at the very heart of the cold fusion claims. I could write a 10-page essay describing all the reasons the skeptical claim about a "power store" is wrong, and I could list hundreds of experiment proving my points. The skeptics should not be allowed to throw in unfounded opinions and wild assertions that contradict 19th century physics, and then complain when we add in slightly more detail showing how and why they are in error. It is much easier to make an absurd assertion that it is to correct one.
--JedRothwell 23:42, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revised "Current understanding of physics" section 

message: A skeptic wrote that "pathological science" is:
:"a term to describe ideas that would simply not "go away", long after they were given up on as wrong by the majority of scientists in the field."
If we are talking about pathological science as defined by Irving Langmuir, and as described in this encyclopedia, this statement is incorrect. Nowhere in Langmuir's definition does it say that pathological subjects linger for a long time. On the contrary, the only examples usually given, N-Rays and polywater, disappeared abruptly. Also, as I noted in the article on pathological science, cold fusion does not fit a single one of the criteria listed by Langmuir. So there is really no reason why it should be linked cold fusion but I left the link there anyway.
I redefined the term here. I hope Mr. Skeptic does not revert this out of existence.
Skeptics often redefine "pathological science" to mean whatever notion pops into their heads, and then they claim that cold fusion fits the new definition. The most extreme case was the late editor of the Scientific American, J. Piel, who defined pathological science as any phenomenon for which "the mechanism is not fully understood" (In other words, he thought that any unsolved mystery is pathological.) See: lenr-canr.org/AppealandSciAm.pdf
--JedRothwell 17:36, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed bogus definition of "pathological science" 

message: This is nitpicking but I changed this sentence in the intro:
"In a recent peer review of the topic by the USDoE only one of the eighteen reviewers found the evidence of excess heat production to be fully convincing."
The word "peer review" was linked to the Wikipedia article that begins: "Peer review (known as refereeing in some academic fields) is a scholarly process used in the publication of manuscripts and in the awarding of funding for research. . . ." The 2004 DoE Review did not fit that description. There was no manuscript to be corrected or funding at stake. (Actually, the panel recommended funding but the DoE decided not to fund research.) Also, the reviewers were not "peers" strictly speaking; they were chosen because they are outside the field -- not electrochemists or material scientists.
Also, I noted yet again that a third of the reviewers were "somewhat convinced." Assuming this group is representative of scientists in general, I thought that it is exaggerated to say "the vast majority" think that "cold fusion does not exist." One-third are somewhat convinced that it does exist, and two-thirds is not "vast." So I changed that to "majority." As I noted above, no one has take a poll so we do not actually know what scientists think.
--JedRothwell 18:16, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) decided to review all previous research of cold fusion in order to see whether further research was warranted by any new results.
They did not review all previous research. That would have taken months. They spent a day or so reviewing papers about some research. They did not actually look at any experiments in the laboratory, talk to many researchers, or attend any conferences.
Finally, some skeptic repeated the fact that the review panel was mainly unconvinced several times, so I deleted one appearance of that statement. This is in the introduction and I think all readers will duly note it.
--JedRothwell 21:04, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes "peer review" in intro. 

message: There were several comments about the 2004 DoE Review scattered through this article, and some were duplicated, so I brought them together in a new section. I added some more comments from the reviewers themselves, and I posted a tally of what I consider their opinions:
:". . . a cold fusion supporter feels that the breakdown of opinions were:
:* 7 unequivocally No
:* 5 conclusively Yes (for at least some aspects of cold fusion)
:* 7 maybe (including the four quoted above)
:Skeptics may feel the breakdown is different."
I am sure they will disagree. For reference, here is my tally:
* 7 unequivocally No: #1, 2, 6, 14, 15, 17, 18
* 5 conclusively Yes: 4, 8, 9, 13
* 7 maybe: 3, 5, 7, 10, 11, 12, 16
--JedRothwell 21:31, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Created a "2004 DoE Review" section 

message: Have you considered the fact that less papers are published refuting the existence than confirming the existence because scientists just don't think it is worth refuting? I mean how many papers are there refuting the idea that the sun moves around the earth? - FrancisTyers 23:34, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Scientific papers

message: If the phenomena in question truly exist, contemporary resistance to work in this area may reflect historical and institutional processes of the kind famously examined by historian and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn in his seminal work on scientific revolutions. If cold fusion exists then there is indeed a scientific revolution in the works.
Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. Even if this doesn't fit the exact definition, it certainly doesn't belong in the lead. Please bear in mind the WP:3RR before continuing to revert and attempt to reach consensus on the talk page. - FrancisTyers 16:26, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If the phenomena in question truly exist, contemporary resistance to work in this area may reflect historical and institutional processes of the kind famously examined by historian and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn in his seminal work on scientific revolutions. [1] If cold fusion exists then cold fusion researchers belive there is indeed a scientific revolution in the works.
1. Mallove, E., Fire From Ice. 1991, NY: John Wiley, p. 278.
I could add a few more refs if you like. If this is not satisfactory I suggest you propose a revision rather than simply deleting the text.
--JedRothwell 17:05, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikipedia is not a crystal ball

message: Yesterday I inserted a parenthetical comment under "Current understanding of physics"
:"(Some journals, such as Nature, refuse to print cold fusion papers, but others accept them.)"
Someone said the same thing today at the beginning of article, so I deleted my comment. No point in repeating it.
I added that Scientific American also attacks the subject, and I mentioned a couple of prestigeous journals that do accept papers on the subject. Let us keep things fair and balanced!
--JedRothwell 19:27, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Duplicate comment about Nature not publishing removed 

message: Anything happen in this field between the 1920s and Pons/Fleischmann?  Kaisershatner 19:53, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Research History

message: I removed this text. To me citing the individual reviewers doesn't meaningfully add to the article.  Kaisershatner 20:22, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: 2004 DOE report

message: This was moved down to "Continuing efforts" but I moved it back up to the early history section, under the intro to the National Cold Fusion Institute (NCFI):
:In September 1990, the National Institute published a tally of replications of cold fusion. lenr-canr.org/acrobat/WillFGgroupsrepo.pdf It included data from 92 research groups in 10 countries . . .
Reasons:
1. That ended a long time ago; it is not a "continuing effort."
2. This is ancient history. There are lot more than 92 reports now.
3. Let us not split up info about the NCFI.
--JedRothwell 20:37, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moved NCFI stuff back to early history