Re: COLD FUSION

[Ludwik Kowalski <kowalskil@MAIL.MONTCLAIR.EDU>]

On Monday, Jun 30, 2003, Brian Whatcott wrote:

> The cynic sees that the electrolyte is heavy in oxygen
> and that the plasma reaction produces scum.
> It would be well to address conventional avenues for
> the excess heat noted - say burning a cell component
> in oxygen.
>
> This reminds me, there was always the nagging concern
> in the Pons-Fleischmann arrangements, that the 700
> volumes of  hydrogen  that  palladium metal
> can take up, might be released exothermally.

The situation is without precedent. Highly qualified Japanese
scientists, Mizuno et al., published an article describing experiments
in which generation of excess heat was said to be highly reproducible.
According to Mallowe (see item #74 on my list *), Mizuno’s findings
were confirmed by four other teams. They were also confirmed by
Naudin (see my item #73*). But no excess heat was found in several
ETI experiments in Texas, as reported at:

http://www.earthtech.org/experiments/index.html

At one point the ETI team sent their cathode to Mizuno and in his
laboratory this cathode produced excess heat. The same cathode,
however, did not produce excess heat in Texas. Likewise, Mizuno’s
cathode worked in Japan but not in Texas. And this happened despite
the fact that scientists cooperated to make the experiments as identical
as possible. How can this be explained? What shoul one think about a
situation in which six groups are able to demonstate excess heat and
one is not able to demonstrate it? Storms would say (see my item #50*)
that NAE, the unrecognized “nuclear active environment,” is absent in
the ETI setup. Why is cold fusion unique in that respect? Experiments
are usually reproducible, more or less, in other areas of science.

Suppose the situation were different, one team claiming excess heat
and six not able to confirm it. In that case most physicists would
conclude that the claim is not valid. But an extraordinary claim calls
for extraordinary demonstration and 100% reproducibility is expected.
I suppose this is fair, provided only honest, and highly competent,
teams are allowed to be involved.

* The referred items are at http://blake.montclair.edu/~kowalskil/cf/
Ludwik Kowalski