What should be the status of cold fusion on this site?

Question

There have been a few questions asked about cold fusion on this site, especially in recent days. Invariably they lead to extended arguments, which is not healthy for the site - the whole Stack Exchange system is built around avoiding that sort of content. Plus, as our FAQ says,

We deal with mainstream physics here.

and the conclusion that cold fusion is bogus, whether right or wrong, is firmly established in mainstream physics. So I am proposing that we disallow cold fusion as a topic of posting on this site (unless and until it becomes established mainstream physics). We already have one good reference question about cold fusion, and I think that's enough.

Of course there are some users who have already made their feelings on this issue well known, but I'm interested in hearing arguments either way from the rest of the community.

Answer 1

I vote for keeping and maintaining (not completely freezing) a very small number of canonical answers. I do not think this particular forum will ever be able to provide a convergent answer regarding the various experiments loosely labeled under "cold fusion."

I've had some wonderful opportunities to communicate and talk directly with solid researchers in this topic, at government-only facilities that I trust and respect. These are solid folks with strong publication records in unrelated materials science fields. I am familiar in particular with work done by good folks at both SPAWAR and NRL, who rather ironically do not always see eye to eye even with each other's published results.

I consider Rob Duncan of Mizzou a personal friend and someone whose opinion I respect, although I have not interacted with him much since we co-presented a few years back on the physics of "cold fusion." I have interacted with other players. Some I refuse to have anything to do with because they are quacks, by which I mean simply that they rely on marketing techniques over experimental evidence to promote their particular views. For the record, Ron Maimon's theorizing here in Physics SE is straightforward and honest, even if Ron can be rather adamant and tends to favor conspiracy theories a bit much.

There are two reasons why this issue will never be resolved in this forum: (1) A certain subset of the reported results are quite real. I've talked to too many solid researchers who are getting data that makes no sense according to either chemistry or nuclear science, yet the data they are getting is self-consistent and detailed in ways that indicate that unknown underlying mechanisms more subtle than just "making heat" or "fusing nuclei." (2) This subset of scientifically interesting results cannot be explained using any combination of known physics.

Catch that second part? This is not complicated. You can theorize all you want about how to design a meter-wide wooden box capable of containing a nuclear explosion, but guess what? It won't work. Scale that down to atomic size and there is your problem for any theory that tries to combine chemical heat with nuclear reactions. The more persuasive reported results combine far too much energy release with too few ways to capture it.

When that sort of situation occurs in science -- and it does more often than you might expect -- it tends not to resolve itself very quickly. The emergence of quantum physics was arguably one of the most conspicuous and unexpected examples. Mechanical and electromagnetic theory were very mature around 1900, so they just did not have much obvious room for new ideas. However, a number of annoying experiments kept giving results that made no sense according to that same mature body of theory. It took two or three decades of bumbling around, often very ineptly at first, to finally get a clear handle on what was really going in those exceptions. It's a good thing they bothered, though.

Traditionally, such situations in science always get very personal and sometimes quite nasty. There was a great story in the early history of molecular gases where one prominent figure accused another of "sloppy experiments" when the experimenter did not get results that match theory. This is the norm for such situations, not the exception, and it's not much fun for anyone involved.

So, am I seriously suggesting that that some kind of dramatic revolution in fundamental physics will be needed to explain some of these results?

Well, sure. But I cannot suggest where the opportunity for that resolution may lie. As in the 1900s for the narrower range of mechanics and electromagnetics, our understanding at the moment of the physical universe is very beautifully and quite elegantly buttoned down for just about every aspect and scale of our universe except these annoying excess heat results. Even tougher, any new theory must explain such odd results without discarding or distorting any significant aspect of current physical theory, since that theory is after all extraordinarily effective at describing our universe. Quantum theory in the early 1900s was a very non-intuitive extension of known mechanical and electromagnetic theory, not a replacement for it. The distinction between extension and replacement is critical.

It should be fun to watch.

Bottom line: A forum like Physics SE is about the worst possible forum for trying to resolve such an issue, because the resolution does not yet exist.

So please, don't try to resolve this mess here, because it just won't happen. Attempting to do so will only cause a lot more distress to everyone, again for the simple reason that you cannot entice someone to contribute an answer that does not yet exist.

Instead, maintaining a small number of canonical answers describing why the problem refuses to go away is probably about the best that SE Physics can do. That's honest, and it minimizes the danger of this forum from turning into a racquetball court for lobbing new theories at bystanders.

Answer 2

David, I have been following from afar the subject ever since it appeared. As I have said at that time most solid state and nuclear physicists were scrambling to understand and some reproduce the results. There was great disappointment in the community that the results could not be consistently reproduced ( which is the norm for accepting something in physics) and the marginalization of the field is a backlash to that initial enthusiasm.

You should give the complete quote of the FAQ on physics.se

We deal with mainstream physics here. Anything that couldn't be published in a reputable journal is probably not appropriate at this site.

Nevertheless there are a number of interesting and solid physical effects in the experiments connected with Low Energy Nuclear Fusion . There is something going on that may not be chemical as we know it, many studies are published in reputable places, peer reviewed etc.

I think censorship should not be imposed apriori, because physics is about thinking outside the box. If one forces everything into the box physics will stagnate, let alone this site. There is always an element of uncertainty in research. True, cold fusion seems a misleading path, but there are experimental effects that need an explanation by physicists. By no means should we close our minds to possibilities outside the box.

I think that if the moderators are aware and delete comments if they become incendiary or even combative that is sufficient to keep a good level of discussion on this site. After all 3 or four questions have come up during the year and a half I have been following this here, that is not a great burden .

Edit in response to David's comment below who said :

Whatever unexplained experimental evidence there is in favor of cold fusion can certainly be discussed and explained in the research community, but I don't believe there is any obligation for us to do so here

If the following is not talking about research, what is it talking about? From the FAQ on

Experimental designs and results

ex: What is needed to claim the discovery of the Higgs boson ?

One could paraphrase :

what is needed to claim the discovery of cold fusion?

It is just expectations and probabilities in our heads that make the first question legitimate and the last one iffy. Fashion. But who determines the probabilities?

In this forum it seems to me the voting system determines naturally the probabilities on how far from the standard physics model/expectations of the community a question is.

Answer 3

You are asking for censorship, and this is not consistent with science. We do not prohibit "non mainstream" questions--- we answer them! I suppose you are annoyed because here is a "non mainstream" question which is not easily rebutted. That's how you know when mainstream is wrong.

I disagree with censorship in the strongest terms: in case you haven't noticed from my pattern of questions/answers, the non-censored treatment of cold fusion is the only reason I participate on this site. I came here by googling for cold-fusion, I answered a few non cold fusion questions to establish credentials (I was worried my account would be summarily deleted), then I answered the cold fusion question with a completely novel theory, and to my surprise, people didn't delete my answer, or censor it, just up/down votes (lots and lots of each), and questions, and thinking about it.

So if this is adopted, or even seriously considered, I'm outta here.

Answer 4

I think the current policy of allowing questions on cold fusion makes your site invaluable. Your adopting a policy that would restrict discussion on the topic to a narrow set of canonical questions would be a mistake in my opinion.

A little about me and why I feel this way: I'm a software engineer whose last physics class was an introductory one in college. It was a rigorous class, and I did well. But my exposure to physics has been so limited in the interim that I struggle not to confuse the Augur process with internal conversion, and the only way I would even suspect that I was looking at a quantum field theory equation would be if I saw an H or bra-ket notation.

When I first saw a video about Rossi on the Internet about a year ago, I thought it was a great laugh; it looked exactly like what the production of a charlatan would look like. But it piqued my interest in the general topic, and when I began to delve into the matter more, I started to have significant doubts that the book had been closed on the subject. The more I looked, the more I started to lose confidence in mainstream physics in this particular area; it started to seem to me like something might have broken down in 1989 and hadn't been fixed yet. Articles like this one did not increase my confidence -- what I saw there was the emphatic promulgation of a set of a priori arguments that cold fusion was impossible, and little attempt to address the experimental evidence. What I was looking for were cogent arguments that tackled specific empirical claims.

Articles like that one eventually brought me to physics.SE. I wanted to see a more serious engagement of specific details. What I appreciate about physics.SE is that there is a good mix of views for and against cold fusion. Both those arguing for it and those arguing against it must defend their positions. For whatever reason, it is very difficult to find this kind of engagement elsewhere on the Internet at this time. Your site is practically the only one I have found where there is any kind of real discussion taking place between competent parties whose views span the full spectrum of positions. In all other instances, the competent people are sequestered away with others of their persuasion. I am an active participant on Vortex-L, for example, and I find the discussion there very interesting, but there is no one there who will take a strong position against cold fusion.

There are some here who appear to become distressed at the thought of countenancing discussion on this and other heretical subjects, perhaps in part for fear of giving the wrong impression to people like me or young physics students that such topics are now becoming mainstream. I think the vigorous responses and the comments leave little doubt as to the tendentious status of these subjects. In other words, giving the wrong impression about the position of mainstream physics on cold fusion is not something to be worried about. Similarly, I see little harm in questions about N-Rays and polywater being addressed here, and I would not imagine that they were for that reason being accepted into mainstream physics.

It has been argued that this site is not the place to try to sort out such a broad question as cold fusion, and that this is really something that should be dealt with elsewhere. Even if this is true, I see no harm done and much to be gained in allowing questions on specific points to be raised and their assumptions refuted if necessary. Everyone will learn more physics in the process.

Answer 5

If it's good enough for NASA it has to be good enough for us:

The next consideration is "What is real? What is happening?" For NASA Langley, the epiphany moment on LENR was the publication of the Widom-Larsen Weak Interaction LENR Theory. It is currently under study and experimental verification (or not) at Langley. The theory appears to explain nearly all the various and often variegated experimental observations and shifted the LENR theoretical focus from some way of "fooling" Particle Nuclear Physics/The Strong Force to Condensed Matter Nuclear Physics, Collective Effects, The Weak Force and "Heavy Electrons."

http://futureinnovation.larc.nasa.gov/view/articles/futurism/bushnell/low-energy-nuclear-reactions.html

On the other hand - trite polemics, crackpots, &c. should be dealt with as usual, downvotes and deletion if spam/flamebait.

Allow the topic, moderate the (unacceptable) behaviours.

Answer 6

Perhaps I am too junior to have a solid opinion, but I feel like I should say something. Regardless of what organization recognizes the topic at hand, and regardless how I may feel about it, I think it would be heavy handed to stop all conversation on it. I agree with @Sklivvz that we should merely delete unacceptable behavior. While it is extra work for the moderators, it is also ensuring that all things can be discussed in the SE setting. I thought this is what moderators were for, but I do understand it is quite the burdan for a single topic.

I do see that the topic is not in mainstream physics, and for reasons already addressed. I do not see the reason why it can not be discussed. I will say, if it starts to dominate the site (I highly doubt it) or if it becomes incredibly inflammatory and becomes more of a problem for the community, I think the heavy handed censorship can be brought up again for consideration; and adding a note to the FAQ about what 'main stream physics' is, topics we stay away from due to historical problems, etc.

I would say try measures to control off hand discussion and discussion clearly off base about the topic, within Physics SE guidelines. If it does not work, I would say we should reconsider.

Answer 7

Just my two cents. I think it would be a good idea to "disallow cold fusion as a topic of posting on this site (unless and until it becomes established mainstream physics)." If somebody strongly believes cold fusion is good science, why doesn't (s)he raise money and produce electricity commercially, getting fabulously rich in the process? Cold fusion is no hot fusion, so (if true) it probably does not need gigantic installations. I cannot understand why people who hate censorship would visit a moderated forum. For example, I go to moderated forums because I do appreciate that moderators filter out noise for me: noise can actually kill any site.

Answer 8

I believe this should be on-topic, since a lot of companies, governments and investors now pouring money into it again, despite it was debunked by mainstream science 25 years ago.

See:

• Cold fusion: Science's most controversial technology is back

• Bill Gates Reportedly Funds LENR Research at Texas Tech University

  The sleuths at lenr-forum.com have uncovered some pretty convincing evidence Bill Gates aka William H. Gates III made a $4 or $5 million dollar donation to the Texas Tech Foundation “to be expended expeditiously and essentially entirely on research for the express purpose of … obviating the major extant technical ambiguities surrounding the set of phenomena in metal hydrides generally known as Anomalous Heat Effects (AHE).”

As per above article which states:

Earlier this year, the US House of Representatives Committee on Armed Services declared it was “aware of recent positive developments” in developing LENRs and noted their potential to “produce ultra-clean, low-cost renewable energy” and their “strong national security implications”. Highlighting too the interest of Russia, China, Israel and India, it suggested the US could not afford to be left behind, and requested that the Secretary of Defense provide a briefing on the science by 22 September.

If the research is back, then I don't see why this should be off-topic on this site.

As per this US House of Representatives Committee on Armed Services document:

The committee is aware of recent positive developments in developing low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR), which produce ultra-clean, low-cost renewable energy that have strong national security implications. For example, according to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), ifLENR works it will be a "disruptive technology that could revolutionize energy production and storage." The committee is also aware of the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's (DARPA) findings that other countries including China and India are moving forward with LENR programs of their own and that Japan has actually created its own investment fund to promote such technology. DIA has also assessed that Japan and Italy are leaders in the field and that Russia, China, Israel, and India are now devoting significant resources to LENR development.

For more details, please see this question:

• What recent positive developments in LENR were identified in this US House report?