Re: Cold fusion

[Rondo Jeffery <RJEFFERY@WEBER.EDU>]

Bill Beaty wrote:

> > > William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM> 09/21/99 11:31AM >>>
> On Mon, 20 Sep 1999, Stefan Jeglinski wrote:

> > PF's work, if shown to be true, would require a great deal of new
> > physics. This was an additional objection to the early result. Even
> > if the there was agreement that there is excess energy created (and
> > there is still not agreement), any acceptance would still take a long
> > time, as the community generally requests an explanation before
> > taking it seriously.
>
> This is exactly the problem!  If theory says that this strange sort of
> "fusion" is impossible, then it becomes clear that the evidence MUST be
> faulty.  The evidence is not taken seriously.
>
> Theory defeats evidence.
>
> In science, if I present evidence that goes against theory, where is it
> written that you may dismiss my evidence out of hand, on the grounds that
> I did not supply a theoretical explanation?  Science advances in part
> because of the observation of anomalies.  Do we dismiss evidence of
> anomalies on the grounds that theory does not predict their existence?
> It seems to me that this is exactly what is happening in Cold Fusion
> research.

   It is not my intent to get involved in the 'conspiracy theory' debate.  Let me just point out a recent counter example of what Bill is talking about.  First of all, just because someone like Stefan Jeglinski says 'a new result is only accepted if there is at least a plausibility argument advanced to support it' doesn't make it so.  You don't have to look any further back than the announcement of high-Tc superconductors to see that such is not the case.  When the announcement was made, no one had any theoretical explanation for how it could happen.  The BCS theory only applies in metals with free electrons that can be paired up, not in ceramic insulators.  But, the claim was made that these ceramics could be made superconducting at much higher temperature than the highest known metallic superconductor.  What was the reaction of the physics community?  Not to say, 'Oh that doesn't fit our neat BCS theory, so it must be wrong.'  No, it wasn't that at all.  Large numbers of groups rushed to their labs to try
it out to see for themselves if it worked.  And, lo and behold, it did work!  To this day, as far as I know, there is no satisfactory explanation of the effect.  Even John Bardeen himself was unable to come up with an explanation.  But it works, and the alloy combination has been modified to tweak the temperature up to nearly 100 K.  I expect that some day someone will hit on a way to explain the effect, but the lack of a theory has certainly not been a restraint on people utilizing the effect.  There are commercially available kits to demonstrate high-Tc superconductivity in probably every physics department in the country.
   On the other hand, when CF was announced, hundreds, literally, of groups went to their labs to try and replicate the effect.  Unfortunately, not enough information was given in the press conference to know all the conditions that were used.  One gourp, at Ohio State, wore out a video tape they had obtained of the press conference, looking at the apparatus, comparing the size of the hands in the pictures, etc.  Many meetings and conferences were held, the hundreds of groups reported mostly negative results, while a few reported sporadic positive results.  These were hailed as having done it right, the others as having done it wrong.  The bottom line, for me at least, is that no prototype energy producing device has been forthcoming.  In other words, there still is no water heater.
   There is a lesson in the CF business.  One should not let dollar signs cloud your ability to be objective about your work.  And be sure you have your ducks all in a row before you start shooting.  P&F gave their first scientific paper on CF at a chemical society meeting in Dallas, (not even to a bunch of physicists) and were asked the two most obvious questions: 1) have you integrated the power input to the cells over the duration of the experiment to be sure you have net excess energy (they had not), and 2) what happens when you do the experiment with ordinary hydrogen (that experiment was only in process, and seemed to give the same effect, so they weren't going to talk about it).  Eventually they blamed physicists for being severe critics, but it started with chemists.
   Carl Sagan said something that I think has been quoted on the list before: "I believe that the extraordinary should be pursued.  But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
   I hope cold fusion does pan out some day.  But you really can't blame people who have tried it and found nothing for being skeptical.  And it is not just a matter of dismissing it out of hand because there is no theory to back it up.
   Cheers.
Rondo Jeffery
Weber State University
Ogden, UT 84408-2508
rjeffery@weber.edu