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On 23 March 1989 Martin Fleischmann of the University of Southampton, UK, and Stanley Pons of the University of Utah, US, announced that they had observed controlled nuclear fusion in a glass jar at room temperature, and — for around a month — the world was under the impression that the world’s energy woes had been remedied. But, even as other groups claimed to repeat the pair’s results, sceptical reports began trickle in. An editorial in Nature predicted cold fusion to be unfounded. And a US Department of Energy (DOE) report judged that the experiments did “not provide convincing evidence that useful sources of energy will result from cold fusion.”
This hasn’t prevented a handful of scientists persevering with cold-fusion research. They stand on the sidelines, diligently getting on with their experiments and, every so often, they wave their arms frantically when they think have made some progress.
Nobody notices, though. Why? These days the mainstream science media wouldn’t touch cold-fusion experiments with a barge pole. They have learnt their lesson from 1989, and now treat “cold fusion” as a byword for bad science. Most scientists* agree, and some even go so far as to brand cold fusion a “pathological science” — science that is plagued by falsehood but practiced nonetheless.
[*CORRECTION 29/05/08: It has been brought to my attention that part of this last sentence appears to be unsubstantiated. After searching through past articles I have to admit that, despite it being written frequently, I can find no factual basis that “most scientists” think cold fusion is bad science (although public scepticism is evidently rife). However, there have been surveys to suggest that scientific opinion is more likely divided. According to a 2004 report by the DOE, which you can read here, ten out of 18 scientists thought that the hitherto results of cold-fusion experiments warranted further investigation.]
There is a reasonable chance that the naysayers are (to some extent) right and that cold fusion experiments in their current form will not amount to anything. But it’s too easy to be drawn in by the crowd and overlook a genuine breakthrough, which is why I’d like to let you know that one of the handful of diligent cold-fusion practitioners has started waving his arms again. His name is Yoshiaki Arata, a retired (now emeritus) physics professor at Osaka University, Japan. Yesterday, Arata performed a demonstration at Osaka of one his cold-fusion experiments.
Although I couldn’t attend the demonstration (it was in Japanese, anyway), I know that it was based on reports published here and here. Essentially Arata, together with his co-researcher Yue-Chang Zhang, uses pressure to force deuterium (D) gas into an evacuated cell containing a sample of palladium dispersed in zirconium oxide (ZrO2–Pd). He claims the deuterium is absorbed by the sample in large amounts — producing what he calls dense or “pynco” deuterium — so that the deuterium nuclei become close enough together to fuse.
So, did this method work yesterday? Here’s an email I received from Akito Takahashi, a colleague of Arata’s, this morning:
“Arata’s demonstration…was successfully done. There came about 60 people from universities and companies in Japan and few foreign people. Six major newspapers and two TV [stations] (Asahi, Nikkei, Mainichi, NHK, et al.) were there…Demonstrated live data looked just similar to the data they reported in [the] papers…This showed the method highly reproducible. Arata’s lecture and Q&A were also attractive and active.”
I also received a detailed account from Jed Rothwell, who is editor of the US site LENR (Low Energy Nuclear Reactions) and who has long thought that cold-fusion research shows promise. He said that, after Arata had started the injection of gas, the temperature rose to about 70 °C, which according to Arata was due to both chemical and nuclear reactions. When the gas was shut off, the temperature in the centre of the cell remained significantly warmer than the cell wall for 50 hours. This, according to Arata, was due solely to nuclear fusion.
Rothwell also pointed out that Arata performed three other control experiments: hydrogen with the ZrO2–Pd sample (no lasting heat); deuterium with no ZrO2–Pd sample (no heating at all); and hydrogen with no ZrO2–Pd sample (again, no heating). Nevertheless, Rothwell added that Arata neglected to mention certain details, such as the method of calibration. “His lecture was very difficult to follow, even for native speakers, so I may have overlooked something,” he wrote.
It will be interesting to see what other scientists think of Arata’s demonstration. Last week I got in touch with Augustin McEvoy, a retired condensed-matter physicist who has studied Arata’s previous cold-fusion experiments in detail. He said that he has found “no conclusive evidence of excess heat” before, though he would like to know how this demonstration turned out.
I will update you if and when I get any more information about the demonstration (apparently there might be some videos circulating soon). For now, though, you can form your own opinions about the reliability of cold fusion.
Cartwright say : “After searching through past articles I have to admit that, despite it being written frequently, I can find no factual basis that “most scientists” think cold fusion is bad science (although public scepticism is evidently rife).”
Could PhysicsWorld organize a survey on this topic ? It would be very interesting to have some hard facts about the level of acceptance of cold fusion by scientists.
“Cold Fusion” is another triumph of
hope over experience,
fantasy over reality,
delusion over sanity,
stupidity over reason.
It will be laughed about for centuries.
Your comment will be laugh during centuries if somebody remember that. The mainstream will pay for accepting what the oil/energy lobby says. There are more and more proves about the proffesionality of Pons and Fleischmann work. Only uninformed parrots of some mainstream members does the work to block again and again the facts.
LENR is reproducible!, it works, it needs to be promoted with money so that we have products and energy plants. That is not a dream, we can have soon the technology to harvest LENR physical process if we invest.
It is so stupid that having the proofs the US government and others doesn´t invest! I just see that this epic fail that cost maybe our planet will be remember. How the scientific method was corrupted to neglect LENR by energy companies.
LENR is a thread because it produce a distributed energy system where the petrodollars and taxes cannot work the same.
We saw it with the electric car, we see with the global warming, we saw it how they disproves the facts of the oil poison with lead!!! so many years, and so many examples and YOU still beleive to some scientisc that without proves just say Ignore LENR!.
My god!
I am certain I have become more stupid for having read this. How many in the room have actually spent any time studying Physics? If fusion could work like this, it would almost certainly have happened by accident over the last 150 years or so. What blows my mind about cold fusion is that the people who promote it seem to accept the fact that it just magically happens.
I haven’t seen a single credible, detailed explanation of how the energetics of cold fusion are even supposed to work. It’s like trying to get to the moon by jumping really high. There’s a reason why the sun burns at over a million kelvins and a hydrogen bomb has to be triggered by a fission bomb, people. Let’s not forget we’re trying to push two protons into intimate physical contact against their mutual electrostatic repulsion. This requires an extreme amount of energy to do on a macroscopic scale, and there is simply no getting around that, because the electromagnetic force is a fundamental force of nature that cannot be asked to look the other way. Electrostatic repulsion is a scalar potential, too, so this is a really straightforward question. Maybe we can fuse nuclei locally using high-powered lasers or something at a huge net energy loss, but we’re simply not going to replicate our sun on the kitchen table at room temperature by plugging a couple of beakers into a standard electrical outlet.
Scientists are not engaging in Big-Brother suppression of new technology. They are electing not to waste their time, reputations and funding on something that obviously doesn’t make any sense. It’s a fool’s errand, people. Let it go.
I disagree with some of these comments, for one reason. Surely, if there was a way to overcome the Coulombic relpulsion and electrostatic repulsion, then this would be entirely credible, I also add, it would work
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If we’re not supposed to have late night snacks…why is there a light in the fridge?
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Even the humble waterfall does nuclear fusion
“Chance favors the prepared mind”
Pasteur
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