Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

[Phys-l] Sam Smith on cold fusion, continued



I didn't post the preceding in which Sam writes of his early interest in "cold fusion", inter alia.

bc
Cold fusion continued


[Post a comment is in the page linked above.]


A reader points out that the latest contributors to the cold fusion issue are somewhat controversial . For example, in the Swedish blog, Alekett’s Energy Mix one finds:

||||| As a professor in physics I have been asked to comment on what “Ny Teknik” (a weekly newspaper on technology in Sweden) called “Rossi’s energy catalyst” .. . .First I would like to mention that Professor Sven Kullander – who is chairman of The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ Energy committee, since the beginning of the year – is also a professor emeritus in my research group at Uppsala University. He sits in the room next to mine so Rossi’s experiment has come up every time we have met in recent weeks. I always try to be as critical as possible, but at the same time it is exciting to be pretty close to the center of something that is either a hoax or something new and exciting. There are scientists who criticize Sven for associating himself with the experiment, but also many that think he is doing the right thing. As scientists we have a responsibility to investigate whether a reported phenomenon is real or a hoax. Sven’s involvement is quite natural since he is chairman of the KVA’s energy committee, but if anyone thinks that he has simply accepted the results then they are completely wrong. ||||

The reader notes that Rossi and Focardi “founded and run the Journal of Nuclear Physics, in which they have subsequently published their own claims. Publication in the Journal of Nuclear Physics does not mean the paper, experiment, or results have been peer-reviewed by other scientists or duplicated. Founding a journal with a legitimate sounding name, in order to publish one's own results is highly dubious, akin to greenwashing.”

Some more comments:

Physorg
New Energy Times
Oil Drum

Sam Smith - Coming at this issue as a journalist and not a scientist, I have been fascinated by how intense the debate has been. For example this line from above struck me: “As scientists we have a responsibility to investigate whether a reported phenomenon is real or a hoax.” It would seem a third and easily likely possibility would be that the reported phenomenon was simply in error.

I would be interested in any comments from scientists on why this matter inspires such heated discussion and what’s in it for a scientist to perpetuate the sort of hoax that has been alleged? Isn’t it more likely for the accused scientists simply have been wrong? And, on the other hand, isn’t it possible that the existing energy industries – such as oil and nuclear – might have a strong vested interest in discrediting any investigations of this sort?