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Another Proposal

In the "Further Developments" section of the main article is this: "The interest in cold fusion in India had been rekindled earlier that year by a demonstration in Bangalore by Japanese researcher Yoshiaki Arata." What I propose is that at the end of the "Experimental Details" section we add a couple of sentences.

First, we should add something to this existing paragraph: "The most basic setup of a cold fusion cell consists of two electrodes submerged in a solution of palladium and heavy water. The electrodes are then connected to a power source to transmit electricity from one electrode to the other through the solution." We should note that it can take weeks for anomalous heat to begin to appear, and this is known as the loading time, for the palladium to become saturated with deuterium released via electrolysis.

Second, we could mention the SPAWAR co-deposition technique for reducing the loading time; palladium is electroplated out of solution at the same time deuterium gas is being released, allowing the gas to merge with the metal without having to permeate the metal's volume.

Then we add something like this: "Yoshiaki Arata greatly reduced the loading time by demonstrating a new class of CF experiments involving direct pressurization of powdered palladium with deuterium gas, and others have tried this approach also." --and we use this as the reference for it: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physleta.2009.06.061 (This is an RS document which verifies that others have tried Arata's approach, and anyone who accesses that journal article should be able to find a reference to Arata's experiments; so far as I know there are no direct RS-good-enough-for-Misplaced Pages references for Arata's work, although another reference regarding this approach appears to be http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.surfcoat.2006.03.062 --#77 on the long list.) It appears that Arata had been doing it for a while, but didn't get widely noticed until 2008. V (talk) 18:45, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

At this point I've only pulled up the abstract, but it seems clear that Arata is talking about excess energies of 2.4 vs 1.8 eV/atom for D2 vice H2 loading. This difference is plain electrochemistry. If it was any kind of fusion, we'd be looking for MeV, not eV. It is perhaps of interest to people making expensive batteries and fuel cells, e.g. for satellite applications. LeadSongDog come howl 17:22, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

hmmmm...how is he calculating that? (Better question; how can it be "electrochemistry" when there is no electricity going through the palladium powder in a direct-pressurization experiment?) Could perhaps he be figuring total number of deuterium atoms pressurized into the metal compared to total anomalous-energy? The obvious simple interpretation of that would be, IF fusion is happening, that only a fraction of all the deuteriums were actually involved in releasing the energy detected. Also, what is the time-frame for deciding what "total" of anomalous energy has been released? If it can happen for weeks or months, then the total would grow.... V (talk) 18:45, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Does the word "fusion" even appear in the paper? It's not in the abstract. Electrochemistry involves processes that happen one electron at a time, including the simple ionization and recombination of H2. See doi:10.1021/j100155a010 for example.LeadSongDog come howl 19:47, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Your attempts to confuse the issue will get you nowhere. There is no water involved in the gas pressurization experiments. And the abstract does have this as its last sentence: "The sample charged with D2 also showed significantly positive output energy in the second phase after the deuteride formation." (my emphasis). Do remember that the title of the article mentions "anomalous effects", and that last abstract-sentence is precisely about an anomalous effect (energy production). That word "after" that I emphasized means that the chemistry is done. So, if not fusion (and of course the authors could not use that word; the article wouldn't have been published in that RS journal with that word in it, and you know it!), what other sources of energy would you care to propose, to explain energy that appears when deuterium is pressured into palladium powder, and not when ordinary hydrogen is used? 17:07, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

This article should probably not be discussed in an article on cold fusion since the authors do not appear to be claiming that fusion is taking place. In other words, the word "after" does not clearly indicate that chemical reactions are done. In any event, Arata is not an author, so this article does not do much to document the Arata work. Olorinish (talk) 20:26, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Olorinish, your own feeble attempts to confuse the issue will also get you nowhere. I said nothing about Arata being an author of this article; I said Arata's work is REFERENCED by that article. Why do you suppose the authors of this article did that? Simply because Arata was first to find anomalous energy in that sort of experiment! This article's reference is the RS that Arata actually did earlier experiments along these lines. I don't care in the slightest that this article doesn't talk about fusion; Arata talked about it plenty, even if all such talk has been restricted to sources that Misplaced Pages calls "non-RS". How about we allow one of those references to Arata's work, if you don't like this one? (No? Fine; this one is still RS enough!) V (talk) 16:08, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I was not "attempting" to confuse the issue. In fact, I think it was impolite of Objectivist to suggest I was acting in bad faith. In any event, I don't see how my comments made anything more confusing. Authors hinting that they have produced fusion (by mentioning Arata's work) is far different from authors asserting that they have produced fusion. Since we are building an encyclopedia, we should be very careful about representing sources accurately. If a document link is inserted in a way that supports claims of cold fusion, whether the article "doesn't talk about fusion" is a big deal, at least in my view. Olorinish (talk) 17:03, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

You ARE attempting to confuse the issue when you say nonsense like "this article should probably not be discussed in an article on cold fusion since the authors do not appear to be claiming that fusion is taking place" --and the reason I say that is simple: We have plenty of references in the article to things that don't talk about fusion taking place. Just look in the region of the very first paragraph in the main article and you will see links to heavy water, pathological science, calorimeter, electrolysis, neutrons, tritium, and US Department of Energy. It is not vital that something specifically mention "fusion" (or "cold fusion") to be relevant to the CF article! --and the proof is in that (easily extended) list I just presented. Next, the CF situation breaks down into two main parts. First, there are the reports of anomalous energy production in experiments that use deuterium instead of ordinary hydrogen. Second, there is the interpretation that fusion is responsible for the anomalous energy. This RS article in Physics Letters A is certainly about the first part of the CF situation. And the fact that it references the work of Arata, who has forthrightly connected pressurized-deuterium experiments to fusion, gives us an indirect link to the second part of the CF situation. That should be more than sufficient to any neutral Misplaced Pages editor. Arata's work is not "too recent to be mentionable"; this Phys Letters A article is appropriate secondary-RS for it, and that's the main reason for including it. V (talk) 18:03, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Facts can be supportive of a claim without the messenger having a bias either way. They can also be relevant, pertinent, significant, what have you, irrespective. Furthermore, references in wikipedia are used for the verification of pieces of information in the article, sentence by sentence. Unless the sentence is specifically about the opinion of the author referenced, the author's opinion -- or lack thereof -- does not determine -- or speak to -- whether said reference verifies the sentence. (Or, for that matter, whether it meets the WP:RS criteria for that usage.) That is what matters. Looking for opinions is not supported by WP policies and seems to me like it would unnecessarily introduce risk of bias to otherwise objective reasoning. In sum, I believe that V has made his point clear and is correct. Kevin Baas 21:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Given that there have been no other comments in this section for more than a week, the changes suggested here will likely be posted to the main article in the near future. V (talk) 14:22, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The changes described above would give undue weight to the Kitamura link, considering that the link does not assert that fusion is taking place. Maybe if that line of research is on the increase, it would make sense ("At least 3 groups are currently investigating fusion induced without electrochemical implantation..."), but I don't see evidence of that happening. Keep in mind that we can afford to wait; if that method produces clear evidence of nuclear reactions, someone will report on it and at that time this article can link to it. Olorinish (talk) 14:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Just because you claim "undue weight" does not mean the claim is true. Prove it --and please get over your silly notion that every reference of this article must mention "fusion". Please DO remember that the purpose of the link is to provide evidence that Arata's experiment actually took place. The text I proposed talks about others imitating Arata's experiment; even if Kitamura's group had not found anomalous energy, their experiment would still have been an imitation of Arata's! V (talk) 19:01, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The reason I said that it would be undue weight is that this article is titled "Cold fusion" and the Kitamura link does not provide any real information about cold fusion. Misplaced Pages is not an indiscriminate collection of facts; the goal is to help readers. You imply that it is important to inform readers about the Arata experiment, but I don't see why that is the case. He had a demonstration in front of some reporters, but didn't give any evidence that nuclear reactions were happening. As far as I can tell, he did not show an article with evidence for nuclear reactions yet. Has he done so? Olorinish (talk) 20:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The "evidence" you claim didn't exist was the production of anomalous energy. Arata claimed the logical source was fusion, and whether or not he is correct in that interpretation, it suffices to be relevant to this article (which mostly is about claims of production of anomalous energy and fusion-as-explanation), especially since the anomalous energy production was replicated by Kitamura's team. I see you haven't got over the silly notion that somehow everything relevant to cold fusion must actually talk about cold fusion. WRONG. According to you, then, we need to delete from the article references to such things as electrolysis and calorimeter. Wrong again. Background information is almost always about something other than the topic that needs the background information, and the two Misplaced Pages references just mentioned are appropriate background information for ordinary cold fusion experiments. But Arata has specified something altogether different, and therefore different background information becomes exactly as relevant, for his experiment. It would be Original Research or Synthesis for an editor here to come up with some alternate CF experiment and describe it, but Arata has already done that OR/S, and therefore we are free to report that. However, we are also limited with regard to Reliable Sources, and the only RS currently available, that Arata did his experiment, is this Kitamura article. (I find it humorous/ironic that the reference inside the excellently-RS Kitamura article, to Arata's experiment, is not considered RS by Misplaced Pages!) Regardless of whether or not Kitamura mentions fusion, he does describe the general kind of experiment that Arata performed (background information!) Finally, of the edits I proposed at the start of this section, only one sentence is about Arata's experiment. If that qualifies as "undue weight" in an article considered over-long by some editors, then you have a strange way of measuring "weight". V (talk) 15:07, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I've added the first parts of the proposed change; nobody posted any objections to them. The last part I'll hold off for a bit; the text I just added probably needs an associated reference and possibly a tweak. Unfortunately, my past attempts at adding references failed miserably; there is some trick to it that I don't yet know. V (talk) 18:06, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it does need a link, and the "last part" you mention. Objectivist, in the future please make related edits at the same time so peoeple can evaluate the full point you are trying to make. Olorinish (talk) 18:37, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Even without the last part, about Arata's experiment, the text I added is relevant. There is no other place in the article that mentions "loading time" (not that uses that phrasing, anyway). Arata's experiment is, basically, an alternate route to reducing the loading time, so text about it can be added any time after the first part is stabilized with a reference (or even two!). V (talk) 19:11, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

The first sentence of the added text is asserts the disputed claim of anomalous heat as fact, which is NPOV. The whole added text is completely unreferenced, which would need to be fixed. --Noren (talk) 14:53, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

You have a point; I forgot that sometimes no excess heat ever appears in some of the experiments. Unreliable excess heat production has been, as we know, a major problem. Reliability has improved in recent years, but excess heat production is as yet still not a certain thing, in the typical electrolysis experiment. (On the other hand, the SPAWAR codeposition variation may in fact be very reliable, if they can claim excess heat observed after only a day.) I will tweak the added text. V (talk) 16:39, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Another Proposal (continues)

I'm going to paste here some stuff from farther-down in the discussion, partly to prevent premature archiving of this section, and partly as a reminder that this proposal has mostly passed discussion and still awaits implementation. V (talk) 18:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• “Thermal Behavior of Polarized Pd/D Electrodes Prepared by Co-Deposition”, Thermochimica Acta, 410, 101 (2004). "No re-filling of the cells was necessary due to the short time period of these experiments (8 days) and the low current that were used for the first 5 days" The chart do show some temperature increase in the beginning of the experiment though.

So, experiments typically last several days, and a graph in the last document shows that thermal effects have been observed in the beginning of these experiments. However, I could not find any statement that could be quoted here. Pcarbonn (talk) 11:07, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. The graph may be adequate. We are allowed to write descriptions, after all. I was aware that my text "within a day" was possibly not completely correct, and half-expected that when a reference was found, it would be edited --"within days" could be better, especially when the source is a graph.

We still need an appropriate reference regarding the definition of "loading time", though. V (talk) 15:26, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

When Objectivist said that "this proposal has mostly passed discussion" he/she implied that there was no significant objection to this proposal, which I consider insulting. For the record, this is not the first example of Objectivist's incivility () and (). Olorinish (talk) 19:49, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

You offered an objection that I countered, and since you didn't dispute that, I assumed you were tacitly admitting that your objection was flawed, which in my book counts as "passing discussion", at least with you. (And ditto with the paltry few other objectors.) You are of course welcome to try to poke any holes you can find into my original countering of your objection. I won't even ask why you took so long. V (talk) 20:27, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Apparently Objectivist thinks that Noren's description of the new text as "completely unreferenced" is unimportant. I want to remind everyone that the cold fusion talk page is subject to discretionary sanctions . Olorinish (talk) 14:31, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

That sounds to me very much like a bad faith accusation and a thinly veiled threat. I strongly disapprove of such things. Kevin Baas

Tsk, tsk. I quote from above (Dec 28): "I've added the first parts of the proposed change; nobody posted any objections to them." --That was entirely true at that time. I continue the quote: "The last part I'll hold off for a bit; the text I just added probably needs an associated reference and possibly a tweak." --I just added stress there; I knew full well that a reference was likely needed. But I also wrote: "Unfortunately, my past attempts at adding references failed miserably; there is some trick to it that I don't yet know." --That was an invitation for someone else, who knows the trick, to add a reference. What kind of an editing group is this, where one person invites others to assist in a manner that should have been easy, and instead the others would rather not?

So: Here again is the "first parts of the proposed change" (for the "Experimental Details" section of the article, just before the "Excess heat observations" subsection): "Note that even when anomalous heat does appear, it can take weeks for it to begin to appear, and this is known as the "loading time", for the palladium to become saturated with deuterium released via electrolysis. However, in a significant advance, the SPAWAR team pioneered a "co-deposition" technique for greatly reducing the loading time; palladium metal is electroplated out of solution at the same time deuterium gas is being released, allowing the gas to merge with the metal without having to permeate the metal's volume. They report typically observing excess heat within days." A possibly valid reference for "loading time" is this: http://www.springerlink.com/content/q05420j448382338/ --access to the body of the article, not just the abstract, is essential. And Pcarbonn found this link in support of the SPARWAR group's fast loading time: Thermal Behavior of Polarized Pd/D Electrodes Prepared by Co-Deposition”, Thermochimica Acta, 410, 101 (2004).

NOW: If I once more add the text to the article, will someone tie it to the references?!?! V (talk) 15:41, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

"What kind of editing group is this..?" It is the kind that has mulitple opinions, which means that if you want assistance, it would help to be more clear and persuasive about your requests. Typing "?!?!" does not help. Olorinish (talk) 16:14, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I believe when V said that the text he added "probably needs an associated reference", he was being "clear and persuasive" about his requests. I believe what he just said, in a rather "clear and pursuasive" manner, was that he hasn't found others particularly constructive on this matter, and is frustrated by that. Now responding to something like that with apathy and ascerbic criticism is probably not the most socially prudent way to go about things. Kevin Baas 16:51, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've just re-added the first sentence, that describes "loading time". I don't know that that sentence really needs a reference, due to the phrase being commonly/widely used in this field. A proposed reference I added in my "Edit Summary", so anyone here who knows the reference-adding trick could (presumably easily) add it to my edit. It may not be the best choice of reference for that purpose, though. Discussion? V (talk) 13:58, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I see Hipocrite wasted no time altering the edit, removing the part "for the palladium to become saturated with deuterium released via electrolysis.". In his Edit Summary he made the claim "Assumes facts not in evidence" --which is an outright lie, since what else is the "loading time" about? It is only about the time it takes for significant amounts of deuterium to permeate the palladium! I'm beginning to wonder if Hipocrite has any idea at all what happens when water is electrolyzed. A great deal of the hydrogen and oxygen gas produced bubbles away from the electrodes, even when the hydrogen-producing electrode is palladium, and the water is heavy water. At any moment only a small part of the hydrogen being produced will permeate into the body of the palladium. That is a significant reason why it can take a long time for a solid electrode to get a lot of hydrogen into it --and I'm not even mentioning the fact that some of the hydrogen that goes in can also come out again. It is only the relatively vast quantities being produced by electrolysis that allows more go flow in than flows out, of the metal. Furthermore, the reference I offered something like this in its abstract (my description here is copied from the "Loading Time discussion" below): "It's kind of interesting that this experiment was terminated after only 3 weeks of (possibly inadequate) loading time, while deuterium that had gotten into the palladium was still coming out 8 weeks later." It is this that makes Hipocrite's claim a lie. V (talk) 16:35, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Your edit stated as plain fact that "anomalous heat does appear." This is not accurate. Your edit stated as plain fact that the reason that the reason the anomalous heat might take weeks to appear is "the palladium to become saturated with deuterium released via electrolysis." This is not accurate. In fact, anomalous heat does not appear - it is merely reported (due to experimental error, deliberate fraud or incompetence, take your pick), and the "loading time" for the heat to appear is postulated by some to be due to loading the cathode, but by others to be "the time it takes to fuck up the temperature taking apparatus" or "the time it takes for the researcher to become frusterated at the lack of progress and digress into fraud" or "the time it takes for the experimental error to become manifest." Hipocrite (talk) 17:06, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

How nice of you to quote out of context when feebly trying to make a point. I wrote "Even when anomalous heat does appear" --DUH, "even when" is equivalent to an "IF" --that is a requirement for the anomaly to be reportable! The reason why it appeared (including error as the explanation for the anomaly, but not including fraud) is irrelevant, as regards to reporting. "Fraud" is not a good explanation any more, because fraud requires secrecy, and too many people have been reporting anomalous heat for too long, for frauds to have continued unexposed. (Side/old-old joke: "In the Soviet Union, when 4 conspirators gather, 3 of them are fools and the 4th is a police spy.") Do remember that the "60 Minutes" team invited an independent expert (Robert Duncan) to investigate; instead of finding fraud, he became a convert. So, get over the stupid "fraud" thing, will you?

Now, I don't mind your edit to specify reporting of anomalous heat; my complaint here regards the removal of the description of what "loading time" is about. The RS reference I offered (one that is NOT pro-CF!) specifically talks about loading deuterium into the palladium (per the Google search in the "Loading Time discussion" section): "It is believed that the loading time scales with the thickness of the piece, squared. ... volved in the so-called cold fusion experiments." --that's what Google reported, and my only assumption is that that text exists somewhere in the body of the reference; I have no reason to think Google pulled it out of some other document. If YOU think some other definitions of "loading time" are correct, then obviously they should belong in the article, so why don't you add text about them, too, and provide references for them!!??? V (talk) 18:15, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Provide sources for your various assertions. Hipocrite (talk) 18:35, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I did. If you don't understand them, tough. (Example, "60 Minutes" would have been quite happy to report fraud; they've certainly done plenty of that in other fields! So their first step, always when technicalities are important, is to find an independent expert to investigate.) On the off-chance that what you just wrote has a different interpretation, regarding "include sources in the article", I can only say that I did not explicitly require that degree of "provide" when I used that word. I have certainly provided sources on this page, supporting various assertions (and I've invited others to get them into the reference list). I don't insist you do more than that. V (talk) 19:14, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

You do realize that your assertions are equally invalid. Kevin Baas 18:04, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

It's good I'm not putting them in the article, like your friend V is, no? Hipocrite (talk) 18:35, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, i recognized that. Do you have any suggestions on how to better word what " friend V" has proposed? Kevin Baas 18:50, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that there is disagreement about the notability and the correct definition of "loading time." Has there been a lot of discussion of it in the literature? (PF? Mosier-Boss? others?) If there hasn't, maybe we should wait until there is. Keep in mind that if it is important and the problem has been solved, future articles will describe it and we can cite those articles at that time. Olorinish (talk) 18:45, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I would imagine there are sufficient sources on the loading time of palladium, it seems liek a fairly scientifially standard thing. But even if it's not determined exactly how to calculate loading time, I don't think it's disputed whether or not loading time for palladium exists and is substantial. And one could say the same thing about gravity, but we have a whole article for that! Kevin Baas 18:55, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

(unindent) I'd still like to add some explanation regarding "why" there is a "loading time". Perhaps this could qualify as sufficiently NPOV: "The presumption that deuterium is fusing inside the palladium first requires the metal to become loaded with some minimal amount of deuterium, a process that takes time." V (talk) 17:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Objectivist, can you find one or more articles that you think do a good job of describing loading time? Olorinish (talk) 20:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I haven't any idea about where to look for a whole article on a small thing that everyone in the field takes for granted and uses casually (as I described in the "Loading Time discussion" section farther down). V (talk) 17:33, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it would be a good idea to indentify such articles before making any edits about loading time, since that term is not well known by typical readers of this article. Olorinish (talk) 17:45, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, well, this link that I'm copying from its current location near the bottom of the page ( http://www.ensmp.fr/aflb/AFLB-331/aflb331m629.pdf ) has something to say about loading time (on its second page): "Finally an important factor is time. These reactions take time to appear, one of the main reasons being the time it takes to load palladium with deuterium." All we need to do is decide whether or not that source is RS....

Hey, folks, why all the inactivity lately? Perhaps I should study up on that trick for getting a reference into the article, and see what happens if I add that new ( http://www.ensmp.fr/aflb/AFLB-331/aflb331m629.pdf ) reference? V (talk) 15:32, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

2008 Oxford Sourcebook

Was Marwan, Jan and Krivit, Steven B., eds., Low energy nuclear reactions sourcebook (American Chemical Society/Oxford University Press, 2008; ISBN 978-0-8412-6966-8) peer reviewed? Dual Use (talk) 08:11, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The publisher does not so indicate here. In general, a symposium is not reviewed (by peers or otherwise). A collection of symposium presentations is just that. It appears that the editors are essentially the only assurance of review. Any published evidence to the contrary would be interesting. LeadSongDog come howl 05:40, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Here is the foreword of that book, signed by the "ACS Books Department":

"The ACS symposium series was first published in 1974 to provide a mechanism for publishing symposia quickly in book form. The purpose of the series is to publish timely, comprehensive books developed from ACS sponsored symposia based on current scientific research. Occasionally, books are developed from symposia sponsored by other organizations when the topic is of keen interest to the chemistry audience."

"Before agreeing to publish a book, the proposed table of contents is reviewed for appropriate and comprehensive coverage and for interest to the audience. Some papers may be excluded to better focus the book; others may be added to provide comprehensiveness. When appropriate, overview or introductory chapters are added. Drafts of chapters are peer-reviewed prior to final acceptance or rejection, and manuscripts are prepared in camera-ready format."

"As a rule, only original research papers and original review papers are included in the volumes. Verbatim reproductions of previously published papers are not accepted.

Pcarbonn (talk) 14:36, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Who makes the peer reviews? --Enric Naval (talk) 16:13, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

That one would seem to have been performed by the American Chemical Society. Dual Use (talk) 17:12, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

From the last discussion I gathered that the peer reviewers were suggested by the editors of the book, both editors being CF supporters, and one of them being an outspoken CF advocate (Krivit) this is a bit of a problem.

The comments by Shanahan, Edchem, Mathsci and Bilby are quite informative. Among other issues, there are plenty of RS books calling the whole thing a fiasco, including other university press books that had glowing reviewsm, while the Sourcebook only had a review in the Journal of Scientific Exploration. This lack of reviews gives an idea an idea of how little relevant the Sourcebook is, specially when compared to the DOE reports, which got extensive coverage that mentioned how important they were to the field.

In other words, the Sourcebook has very little weight, the reliability is suspect, the "peer-reviewed" label is not an automatic warranty for inclusion in an article, and this was discussed and rejected before. (and I sound a bit harsh because of having to discuss the same thing so many times, sorry if all of this is news to you). --Enric Naval (talk) 18:22, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

P.D.: please notice the difference between "citing the book in the bibliography" (good) and "using a fringe book to change well-supported stuff in the article" (bad). --Enric Naval (talk) 18:25, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I looked through the discussion you linked to, but I saw no indication of "plenty of RS books calling the whole thing a fiasco" -- to which books are you referring? Dual Use (talk) 18:51, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

these books. Specially Huizenga's "Cold fusion: the scientific fiasco of the century". This doesn't account all the other books that don't use the word "fiasco", like Park's "Voodoo science: the road from foolishness to fraud". --Enric Naval (talk) 19:39, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Those are all much older than 2008. Were any of them written subsequent to the availability of the 2008 peer-reviewed secondary sourcebook we are discussing? Dual Use (talk) 21:27, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

You mean that they are all prior to 2008. And there is no RS outside of CF supporters saying that the situation has improved since 1989. The only paper that has reached mainstream since 2004 is Mossier-Boss, and only when it was announced at the same time as the 20th anniversary of CF. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:27, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Enric, that's not entirely true. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physleta.2009.06.061 is very much a mainstream article; even if that experiment didn't use electrolysis, it still involved deuterium and palladium and anomalous energy production. V (talk) 20:36, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks; I corrected the mistake before I saw your reply. What are you using for a definition of "mainstream"? I count at least six academic journals in Europe and the U.S. which have all had cold fusion papers pass editorial board review in the past five years, and many more if we include Japan. Dual Use (talk) 21:34, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

With "mainstream" I refer to what is variously named as "most scientists", "the scientific community", "the mainstream scientific community", "mainstream scientific publications", "mainstream magazines and journals", etc. Another definition would be "all non-fringe scientists and scientific publications". Depending on context, it might include mainstream publications that don't usually report in science, like Fox News, China Daily, heise online, etc. (P.D.: See also google books search for "cold fusion mainstream" for a few examples of usage in a variety of books.)

for the number of papers, see my other comments on weight, WP:REDFLAG and WP:FRINGE. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:52, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Under that definition, why wouldn't the editorial boards of the growing number of high-impact academic journals publishing reports of cold fusion over the past ten years be considered mainstream? Dual Use (talk) 15:00, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

You seem to forget that wikipedia is a WP:NPOV encyclopedia, not a "mainstream" encyclopedia, whatever that means. WP:NPOV is non-negotiable, as the policy says. This means that significant view points, even in the minority, deserves fair representation, as ArbComm has stated many times. This page has a summary of the ArbComm ruling on fringe science, and in particular, the first one: "Neutral point of view as applied to science: Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view, a fundamental policy, requires fair representation of significant alternatives to scientific orthodoxy. Significant alternatives, in this case, refers to legitimate scientific disagreement, as opposed to pseudoscience."

The ACS endorsements of last year, with its 154,000 scientists, certainly meets the inclusion criteria. Pcarbonn (talk) 09:24, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Pcarbonn was just community banned. The reliable source criteria has already vindicated his point of view as far superior to that of his critics in the accuracy department. I wonder how they will feel when they come to realize that. Does anyone suppose they will act to reverse their support for his ban? Dual Use (talk) 15:00, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, the ACS, which I am a member of, does not 'endorse' cold fusion. Their Press Office did release a press release, but nowhere in it does it say that the ACS endorses CF. Please stop trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. Kirk shanahan (talk) 12:41, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's accurate to use the phrase "endorse CF". I think it's kind of a red herring. really what they're endorsing is particular research into certain poorly understood phenomena, or perhaps not even that, perhaps jsut the quality of certain experiments, or reports, or scientists. In any case, not of them are saying "I like the process of cold fusion", or "I don't agree with what cold fusion has to say". So "endorse CF" is not what anybody really means to say and because of that we will find that NOBODY says they "endorse CF". That would just be silly. It may seem like a subtlety but when you compare end results it shows itself to be an important distinction. Kevin Baas 14:06, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Pcarbonn above says 'The ACS endorsements of last year'. There were no such ACS "endorsements". Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:07, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

EEPS vs DoE

Is there any reason that either of the unreviewed technical reports from the Department of Energy should have any precedence over Krivit's peer reviewed articles in Elsevier's Encyclopedia of Electrochemical Power Sources?

Are there any reasons that the final paragraph of the article's introduction should not be a paragraph summarizing the peer-reviewed secondary academic press sources instead of the unreviewed government technical reports? Would it be better to summarize all of those in the introduction? Dual Use (talk) 22:19, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The 2004 DoE panel was a peer review, and one far more extensive than is typical, with more reviewers and more time spent. Are you objecting because the report on the peer review was not itself peer reviewed again? This is absurd.--Noren (talk) 13:44, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

There is information in the archives about this: The DoE panels never gave the authors a chance to respond to the comments, so they never claimed it was a peer review. I believe the DoE used the term "survey" for both of their reports, but I could be mistaken. Do any sources claim that the DoE reports were peer reviewed? Dual Use (talk) 17:18, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

See the report itself. It's titled "Report of the Review of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions" and goes on with stuff like "the Office of Science agreed to a peer review (...) conducted a peer review of the submitted material (...) was sent out for peer review by mail (...) Nine scientists with appropriate scientific backgrounds (...) were identified by DOE, and were given approximately one month to review (...)" etc, Sounds to me like a groups of peers conducting a review (aka "peer-review").

Can we drop now the "DOE report is not peer-reviewed meme"? The DOE report is a peer-review. The CF supporters asked for a peer-review of the new data since 1989 and they got one. You are asking for a peer-review of a peer-review. There are no RS saying that such thing is necessary, or that there was any error in the DOE report that could have avoided by having it peer-reviewed, or that a peer-review of the report was adequate, necessary or desirable. Please don't bring the topic again until you have an RS suggesting so. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Sure, I'll agree to that for the 2005 review, but not for the 1989 review. In any case, we now have much newer secondary peer-reviewed sources, and the reliable source criteria instructs us to prefer the newest of otherwise-equivalent sources, does it not? Also isn't there something in WP:RS about how academic journals and academic press scholarship are preferable to otherwise-equivalent government work? Dual Use (talk) 18:46, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

WP:RS has to be applied in the context of the subject at hand. There are RS saying that mainstream abandoned the field and that only a small group of researchers continued in it. Only those researchers keep publishing papers, and no one at mainstream bothers to reply (someone wanted to reply to Mosier-Boss in Naturwissenschaft, but I don't know if they finally did it). And that's why there are no critical papers. WP:REDFLAG applies here, and so does WP:FRINGE. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:40, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

There was a critique of Moser-Boss in EPJAP, to which she replied (Reply to comment on 'The use of CR-39 in Pd/D co-deposition experiments': a response to Kowalski," European Physical Journal, Applied Physics, Vol. 44, p. 291–295 (2008)). Pcarbonn (talk) 09:24, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Link for reference: Kowalki's critique of CR-39 results

http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/KowalskiLcommentson.pdf

I was talking about a possible reply to their January 2009 paper, that was mentioned somewhere in this talk page. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:57, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't even know how to respond unless you're willing to say what you mean by "mainstream". Dual Use (talk) 23:05, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Specific proposal for the introduction

The final paragraph of the introduction should be replaced with:

LENR experiments have continued to demonstrate increasingly convincing evidence for a nuclear process or processes year after year. In the early days of the field, few researchers continued working in it long enough to see progress and understanding of the phenomena. Most researchers gave up within six weeks, finding it easier to dismiss the claim in its entirety.

Those statements appear in the Introduction and Conclusions of the peer-reviewed 2009 secondary source: Krivit, S.B. (2009) "Cold Fusion - Precursor to Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions," Encyclopedia of Electrochemical Power Sources, Vol. 2, Garche et al, eds. (Amsterdam: Elsevier; ISBN 9780444520937) pp. 255-70.

Is there any reason that the summary of the Department of Energy sources should remain? Dual Use (talk) 18:39, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, see my comment above about weight, reviews, reliability, etc. Without supporting coverage from non-advocate/non-fringe sources, this could only be added as "cold fusion advocate Krivit says that experiments have been demonstrating increasingly convincing evidence of cold fusion, and that the early attempts lasted too little to understand the phenomena fully.". --Enric Naval (talk) 18:51, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree to leaving the summary of the older DoE reviews in the introduction, in accordance with WP:NPOV. What do you propose as a source for the word "advocate"? Dual Use (talk) 19:05, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Let's use "supporter" instead, as a less loaded word.

Note that Krivit's assertion is contradicted by Derry 2002, and Labinger 2005 (search for "So there matters stand"), which should also go into the article. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:52, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

An unreviewed 2001 monograph classified under "Biographies & Autobiographies" and an unreviewed 2005 essay in a Dutch chemistry journal? Calling Krivit a "cold fusion supporter" would be a mistake because he always insists that the LENR processes may not involve fusion at all. How about this for the final paragraph of the introduction:

In 1989, the majority of a panel organized by the US Department of Energy (DOE) found that the evidence for the discovery of a new nuclear process was not persuasive. A second DOE review, convened in 2004 to look at new research, reached conclusions similar to the first, but with a smaller majority. LENR experiments have continued to demonstrate increasingly convincing evidence for a nuclear process or processes every year. In the early days of the field, most researchers gave up within six weeks, finding it easier to dismiss the claim in its entirety than work on it long enough to see progress and understanding.

If we must qualify Krivit, is it fair to say that he is "an author and editor of three out of the handful of peer-reviewed literature reviews of the field published since 1990"? Dual Use (talk) 21:26, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

"but with a smaller majority" is OR since DOE 1989 never said how many reviewers supported each point, it only says "the Panel concludes", "the Panel recommends", etc

Enric, that phrase is a condensation that resulted from considerable investigation by Abd. I don't recall where he found data about the 1989 panel vote-breakdown, but I do recall that he found something, which allowed it to be compared to the 2004 panel. V (talk) 14:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

You haven't included the attribution to Krivit of the "increasingly convincing evidence" thing. Idem for the "finding it easier to dismiss the claim in its entirety" bit, which is an opinion held by the CF supporters.

For "but they are not peer-reviewed" thing, see WP:REDFLAG and WP:FRINGE. Mainstream no longer bothers to reply to CF claims so you won't find high quality papers and will have to do with other sources more adequate to the fringe status of CF. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:02, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the DoE did provide the survey proportions for both the 1989 and the 2004 panels. Do you agree with my proposed descriptions of Krivit's qualifications? What is your definition of "mainstream"? There have been several reports in the mass media just over the past year. Dual Use (talk) 23:02, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I looked at the DOE 1989 report and I don't see anything like "half the panel thinks" or "some members of the panel think X while others think Y". I only see references to "we" or to "the Panel". I can't find any page where the proportions of voting in the Panel are explained. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:23, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The sentence you are objecting to is one that is already in the article, and has been for a long time. As V states above, the support for it is discussed in detail in the archives. Do you have any objections to the new text which is being proposed? Dual Use (talk) 16:25, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The reliability of a source depends on its publisher and review process more than on its author. In this case, the ACS has endorsed Krivit's book, and the ACS is "outside the CF supporters". I agree that the proposed statement should be mentionned in the lead section. I would also propose to cite the ACS press release of March 2009 in the lead, possibly with attribution: "Researchers are reporting compelling new scientific evidence for the existence of low energy nuclear reactions". That statement was reported by many other journals, giving it both the notability and reliability it needs. Pcarbonn (talk) 21:36, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The Mosier-Boss presentation at the ACS is already in the article, at the end of "Further_developments". Cherrypicking one impressive phrase is not helpful. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:02, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Enric please don't be a hipocrite. Cherry picking is the name of the game! As an example, Scaramuzzi (a CF researcher and advocate is repeatedly quoted in the article in such a manner as to be seen as a reliable (and recent from your viewpoint) "critic" of CF. So, when I publish in a 2010 peer-reviewed journal:

"This accounts for the observations in CMNS of excess heat, in both p-p and d-d reactions, and the observations (or absence) of tritium, 3He, neutrons, and 4He in the d-d reaction. This variation (unpredictability) of results, heretofore the stumbling block to acceptability of CMNS, is now perhaps the greatest validation of its existence. Furthermore, the proposed mechanism accounts for observed “transmutation,” something that we didn’t accept for a long time."

the only thing that you might allow to be quoted from that paper will be things like:

"Conventional physics sees as reasons for considering the Cold Fusion results as impossible: the LENR results of overcoming of the Coulomb barrier at low temperatures/energies; the distortion of the fragmentation ratio (p:n = 50:50 from E > 22 MeV); the high quantities of 4He; and, more recently, transmutation of elements."

- - Aqm2241 (talk) 19:40, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I concur with Pcarbonn. Dual Use (talk) 23:04, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The proposed sentence starting with "In the early days..." implies that establishment scientists do not have a correct "understanding" of cold fusion, something which has not been established. Olorinish (talk) 23:19, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Apparently the peer reviewers retained by Elsevier in their publication of Krivit's tertiary source do not agree with your opinion. Dual Use (talk) 15:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for "Popular Culture" mention

Would anyone object to a sentence about appearances of cold fusion in popular culture? We could put the following sentence at the end of the introduction: "Cold fusion has been mentioned in movies such as Back to the Future, The Saint, Chain Reaction, Goldmember, and ..." Olorinish (talk) 17:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd object to an "In Popular Culture" section (Misplaced Pages:"In popular culture" articles), but I wouldn't object to a section on fictional uses of Cold Fusion. It would be nice if there was a source that discussed how it was used across many mentions - I recall reading something like that - I'll check. Hipocrite (talk) 18:16, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

One should try to be accurate in mentioning fictional references to "cold fusion". For example, while the "Mr. Fusion" unit in "Back to the Future" was nice and compact, there was nothing said about its operating process. Also, the first BtoF movie came out in 1985, well before the original 1989 P&F announcement. (For another story along those lines, here's one from 1960: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24064/24064-8.txt ). And the movie "Chain Reaction" more likely dealt with bubble fusion than the stuff we discuss in this article. V (talk) 18:32, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Such a section used to be in this article, you could take a look around at previous versions for a starting point. Some of the references were explicitly to Cold Fusion -The Saint (film) comes to mind as actually using cold fusion as a genuine plot point. However, most of the list was composed of brief, offhand references to make a power supply gizmo sound futuristic. It was in essence a list of trivia, which is not encyclopedic. If I recall correctly that list was removed from the article as cruft. --Noren (talk) 01:47, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

the 60 minutes video and mainstream acceptance

60 minutes is a program from the CBS, right? Turns out that some years the CBS news covered Joseph Newman. You know, the guy who says that he has the design of a perpetual motion machine. They covered him twice, in a way that endorsed him as a believable inventor with a plausible invention. The first time he was endorsed by two physicists. The second time he was endorsed despite his machine having failed the test of the NBS (today's NIST). Details at the Science book pages 111-113.

In the following pages the book goes on to explain how Patterson got his CETI bead cells featured in ABC's Good Morning America, with him explaining how he was able to remove radioactivity from radioactive stuff. (pages 114-118 in Voodoo Science) (transcript).

I'll note that Joseph Newman's invention was endorsed by one physicist (Roger Hastings). Similarly, the CF video has a cold fusion company being endorsed by one physicist (Robert Duncan).

I'll note that Robert Duncan is endorsing Energetics Technologies, a company claiming 2500% output power. The CEO being Dardik, the one saying that he could cure HIV, Parkinson and depression using SuperWaves. Dardik then lost his medical license for "fraud and explotation". Then he founded Energetics Technologies in Israel and he now claims that those same waves were producing cold fusion excess output. See Washington Post articles and New Energy Times page. That is the guy and the scientific theory that Robert Duncan was endorsing.

(Dardik was already discussed at #Leaked DIA document because the DIA document lists a document from this company as a legit source, which also casts a little doubt in the quality and fact-checking of the DIA document....)

The 60 minutes video about Cold Fusion comes from a source that has been described by a RS as giving for good claims that are outrageously false with no apparently no check of veracity. Either that, or having a willingness to ignore the falsity of the claims in benefit of giving good spectacle.

The 60 minutes video only shows that stories about CF sell well. It's not a RS. We have a RS dedicated to denouncing bad science (the Vodoo Science book) saying that it doesn't seem to have any fact checking against scientific standards of any type. The video doesn't indicate anything about mainstream acceptance (otherwise we'll have to accept that Joseph Newman's claims are also accepted by mainstream). --Enric Naval (talk) 23:37, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Nice twisting, Enric, but you missed a couple of points. Do you know that the original version of the video said that 60 Minutes contacted some organization like the American Physical Society for a qualified person to investigate cold fusion claims? After the video came out with support for the claims, there was an edit to remove that bit; the organization didn't want to be connected to such a result. Tsk, tsk. The fact remains that Robert Duncan is an expert in thermal measurements, and therefore was properly qualified to be an investigator. Now I recognize the guy is human and thus is possible to be bamboozled, but this is less likely in his field of expertise, than for other people. That is, how many magic tricks fool professional magicians? So, Energetics Technologies not only needed to have data sufficient in quantity to convince an expert, that data needed to have a certain internal logical consistency, lest it be declared fraudulent by an expert in such measurements. Next, Duncan plainly indicated that the company could not yet reliably (as in "almost all the time") get positive results. Just like other outfits studying CF; nothing new there. Reliability has improved since 1989, but the conventional CF experiment is still too unreliable to be worthy of lots of notice by the mainstream. It is the reliabilty problem, regardless of the occasional super-success, that is the biggest problem with the CF research field. However, to the extent that techniques like the SPAWAR co-deposition variant, or Arata's direct gas pressurization idea, prove more reliable (more verifications needed!) at producing anomalous energy, that is the extent to which this field has developed an opportunity to put its "fringe" status behind it. I'm not going to care about the actual cause of that energy, while those two developments contine to develop, on the "reliability" front. V (talk) 13:55, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know why for all of the successes of whatever crazy plot you're on right now you can't produce just one dead graduate student. Hipocrite (talk) 14:16, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

No scientist reaches conclusions based on new media reports. The 60 Minuters video is only RS for points regarding the public history of the 'cold fusion fiasco', because , yes, they did actually air a story. Trying to use 60 minutes as justification of CF claims is not RS. Their track record shows they are easily fooled. Kirk shanahan (talk) 14:31, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

60_minutes#Controversies makes for a fun read. Also Killian documents controversy. TechDirt also complained about one recent report: swallowing whole the arguments of the MPAA, not checking easy-to-verify figures, presenting uncritically only one side of the argument, etc. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:12, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Hipocrite, what if the reported anomalous energy is real, but not a result of nuclear fusion? Would you expect dead graduate students in that case? This is why I say it is much more important for researchers to focus at this time on trying to make the experiments reliable (and for the article to focus on that aspect), than it is to worry about the cause of the reported anomalies. If a point is reached where nobody can dispute the existence of anomalous energy in these experiments, then there will be a mad mainstream scramble to find out just what the energy source really is. If that happens to be fusion, and such is proved, then rest-assured they will also eventually find out why there have been no dead graduate students.

Kirk, Robert Duncan didn't reach his conclusions based on media reports. Sure other mainstream researchers now have his media-presented words, rather than the data Duncan saw, as an input to decision-making --but you might recall there was a college-produced video (see link below) in which Duncan offered to discuss the data, and was turned down. Is a pre-existing opinion any better than the media, with respect to the relevance of up-to-date data, when making a decision?

Enric, are you suggesting that Robert Duncan failed to notice the reasons why nuclear fusion wasn't supposed to be possible? Did you fail to see that other video? Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgRiTphJRkg V (talk) 17:43, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it is an interesting question how Robert Duncan reached his conclusions. I don't know, if I were asked to visit a laboratory to confirm the existence of an anomalous effect and its explanation, I would seek out alternative explanations to consider. I've never seen any evidence Duncan considered the CCS, and the ET experiments appear to be another excellent example of just that. Now, Duncan might not have known of my work prior to his public pronouncement, but afterwards I sent him a copy of my papers. He never bothered to reply. Yep, it really raises some questions. Kirk shanahan (talk) 20:20, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

SO? I don't recall you ever bothering to reply with an explanation for observed melted electrodes. I've pointed out on several occasions that it takes actual heat to do that, not illusory heat. Why should Duncan bother to reply to an "explanation" that doesn't actually explain real observations that have (admittedly too rarely for the mainstream) been replicated in different laboratories, and even occasionally photographed? I'm pretty sure even Duncan would like to see a higher percentage of replications; I've no doubt that his becoming a CF proponent has put him in a precarious professional position. V (talk) 22:12, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Two more proposed sources

These two sources were proposed to me on my Talk page, possibly by one of the banned editors. It is claimed they are peer-reviewed and "secondary" (I haven't checked yet, been busy). Obviously these sources exist regardless of who proposes them (and, equally obviously, banned proponents are more likely to find such references than other people who are busy doing other things, like myself). I'm just letting you know about them so you-all can decide if they really do qualify as RS for purposes of this article.

Sheldon, E. (2008) "An overview of almost 20 years' research on cold fusion. A review of 'The Science of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction: A Comprehensive Compilation of Evidence and Explanations about Cold Fusion.'" Contemporary Physics. Volume: 49, Issue: 5, Pages: 375-378. Full text: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a906882120&fulltext=713240928

Biberian, J.-P.; Armamet, N. (2008) "An update on condensed matter nuclear science (cold fusion)." Annales de la Fondation Louis de Broglie. Volume: 33, Issue: 1-2, Pages: 45-51. ( http://www.ensmp.fr/aflb/AFLB-331/aflb331m629.pdf )

Have fun! V (talk) 17:43, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

"Cold Fusion" - But not LENR - Disproved

Hi Eric. Please accept my apologies for my ignorance of the procedures. I propose an edit that notes that a) the "24 MeV" claimed by "cold fusion" researchers as the best proof of "cold fusion" has not been demonstrated and b) that the values shown by them to the Department of Energy were unsupported and contradictory to the experimental facts.

However, I really don't spend much time here and I certainly am not a Wiki expert. I now leave this proposed edit in the hands of more senior Wiki-experts. Signing off. StevenBKrivit (talk) 07:27, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

To put in my initial thoughts on that. a) would amount to (argument from ignorance (and arguably feigned ignorance, at that). and b) is certainly contradicted by the very report wherein said values were shown. thus it's a dispute and it's npov policy that the article does not take a side in it. and presenting one pov as "definitive" or the other as "contradictory to the experimental facts" would be doing just that. Kevin Baas 19:41, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

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