Demosthenes

well it's possible to extract energy from zero-point fluctuations via Casmir effect, but currently, far more energy goes into the effort than what comes out so obviously casmir effect isn't going to give us a nearly unlimited energy source anytime soon.

Chip

Yeah, Right. BTW, the tenth International Conference on Cold Fusion is scheduled for August 2003 in Boston, MA <a href="http://iccf10.org/" target="_blank">http://iccf10.org/</a>

Somebody should tell these folks they are just wasting their time.

Neato! A non-scientist came up with the idea of geosynchronous satellites. Maybe you should stop using any satellite assisted communications 'cause it was invented by a Sci-fi writer and must be bogus.

Regards, Chip

Chip

Hot dog. Here is an online library of research papers <a href="http://www.lenr-canr.org/LibFrame1.html" target="_blank">http://www.lenr-canr.org/LibFrame1.html</a>

Guess they are all just a bunch of conspiracy wackos.

Regards, Chip

Chip

Golly, them crazy Japanese seem to have jumped on the conspiracy band wagon too. What is it with this insanity, must be viral or bacterial in nature. Hope you don't catch this disease too.

<a href="http://www.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp/nuc/03/nuc03web/JCF/indexe.html" target="_blank">http://www.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp/nuc/03/nuc03web/JCF/indexe.html</a>

Thor Q. Mada

Chip,

I will not catch this disease, but you seam to be on the right track. i unerstand you are completely enthousiastic, and in fact for mankind, I wish they were rght but they are not.

Gauge Boson

So, you want to get in a link war? Fine. I refer you to:
<a href="http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/cold.txt" target="_blank">Victor J. Stenger's Cold Fusion Primer</a>
<a href="http://www.math.ucla.edu/~barry/CF/reportcover.html" target="_blank">Failed Attempt at Reproduction of CETI Cold Fusion Claims</a>
<a href="http://www.phact.org/e/skeptic/ceti.htm" target="_blank">A Scientific Look at the Patterson Cell (by an author who very much wants to confirm cold fusion)</a>
<a href="http://www.math.ucla.edu/~barry/CF/mmbet.html" target="_blank">The Merriman-Mallove Pact</a>

I would not consider the ICCF an impartial source of information. Claiming that as support for cold fusion (instead of the non-existent confirmed findings published in peer-reviewed journals*) is like saying that the Templeton Foundation's conferences agreeing that science supports belief in a god is evidence of that. Why are they so out of touch with the rest of science? I guess you'll fall back on that massive conspiracy again. One must wonder, though, why, if they can already reliably conduct cold fusion, that they have not produced any tangible results from that - say, no energy bills for their labs, or vast wealth for such an amazing innovation... I'll leave that for you to ponder.

Essentially, we have two hypotheses on cold fusion before us. You claim that the lack of acceptence of and evidence for cold fusion (and its lack of any tangible benefits) is because of a massive worldwide conspiracy. I maintain that a much more plausible explanation is that nobody has produced good evidence of cold fusion (yet?). Occam's razor tells us that if both equally explain the observations, pick the one with the least variables (not in the mathematical sense - in the physical sense of the least assumptions and unobserved phenomena). Not only is my explanation better supported be Occam's razor; it fits the observations better! A conspiracy does not explain the total lack of tangible benefits (or any changes) from cold fusion; the absence of cold fusion does.

*Several years ago, cold fusion papers were published in mainstream journals, such as fusion journals. A consensus has been reached, however, that cold fusion does not exist. If someone produces a paper on cold fusion today that can withstand peer review, it will be published in a mainstream journal.

Chip

Cool Gauge. Some real data is very much appreciated over these complete unreferenced denials. I'll have a look. There are a number of studies purported to debunk the debunking, for example, I believe it was Mallove who quit his position with MIT over claims that researchers at his university falsified their findings to discredit CF. I'll research your links and get back to you. I hope I become convinced one way or the other. In the mean time, if you could possibly find that video, Phenomenon Volume II, maybe you could request a rental from BlockBuster, I think you'd enjoy it. The films of the experiments with the plainly evident excess heat look to be very difficult to pull off as a trick. I'll be able to pull some more data from that film soon if Blockbuster comes through with my order that I placed today, about $12.

Thanks again, Chip

Vorkosigan

I can't believe anyone takes this seriously at this late date. Cold Fusion is a joke.

As for conferences, Chip, there are conferences on all sorts of wacky stuff every year. ESP. UFOs. Ghosts. Theology. You name it, there's someone out there with a PHD supporting it.

And Clarke did not propose his idea in a science fiction story, but as a non-fiction proposal: Extra-terrestrial Relays: Can Rocket Stations give World-wide Radio Coverage?" published in October 1945 issue of the Wireless World. Such speculation is normal and comes from all walks of life.

Mr. Sammi

Talk, talk talk, what is the driving principle behind cold fusion? What MUST OCCUR in order that cold fusion be viable?

Is this the put A and B in a cookie jar and out comes C plus D which is lots of power? If D was money and A, B and C were compliant parts then would this not be the cold fusion of any fly-by-nite company AND the stock market?

Sammi Na Boodie ()

Corona688

It all comes down to this, Chip:

Nobody will be impressed by Cold Fusion anymore, unless someone actually performs a successful experiment, and gets it reproduced in other scientific laboratories! So far, this has not happened; in fact, the opposite has. Cold fusion has not been successfully reproduced by those without a vested interest IN it.

I posit that you have your conspiracy theory backwards. Cold fusion research is not being blocked by those with a vested interest in blocking it; it is being blocked by those with a vested interest in keeping the dream of cold fusion alive.

Less real research = less evidence to discount it. And since they're nearly the only ones that take cold fusion seriously anymore, they're pretty well the only ones that could be expected to provide such research. And they're not.

Sometimes science DOES run into dead ends, Chip. Polywater, fusion-in-a-bottle, cold fusion... it is possible to be WRONG. Which is why we have the scientific process in the first place. The lesson? Don't believe everything you read. An interesting experiment, if it cannot be reproduced, is nothing but hot air or faulty readings.