Navy Chemist May Have Rediscovered 'Cold Fusion'

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this vaccine argument got me interested in this sort of stuff again.

what do you think about cold fusion?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,510589,00.html

Navy Chemist May Have Rediscovered 'Cold Fusion'

Thursday, March 26, 2009

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Pamela Mosier-Boss, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center

The 'cold fusion' device produced this pattern of 'triple tracks' that may be caused by high-energy neutrons resulting from a nuclear reaction.

Twenty years ago this week, a pair of previously unknown scientists stunned the world by announcing they'd done the impossible by achieving nuclear fusion in a lab flask at room temperature.

Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons quickly became celebrities as the news media hailed them for discovering a cheap source of nearly limitless power. But it all fell apart as other scientists couldn't duplicate their results, and the pair later admitted they'd made mistakes in the experiments.

Now a U.S. Navy researcher, speaking on the anniversary of their announcement and in the same city where they made it, thinks Fleischmann and Pons may have been right.

In a paper presented on Monday, chemist Pamela Mosier-Boss told the annual convention of the American Chemical Society in Salt Lake City that her team had gotten "very significant" evidence of some sort of nuclear reaction.

"To our knowledge, this is the first scientific report of the production of highly energetic neutrons from an LENR device," said Mosier-Boss, a researcher at the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego, in a press release.

• Click here to read the American Chemical Society press release.

• Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Natural Science Center.

Highly energetic neutrons, which Mosier-Boss' team detected using special neutron-trapping plastic, are emitted from atoms splitting apart — or fusing together — and indicate that a serious nuclear reaction is going on.

"People have always asked 'Where's the neutrons?'" Mosier-Boss said in the press release. "If you have fusion going on, then you have to have neutrons. We now have evidence that there are neutrons present in these LENR reactions."

I'm skeptical.

First, it was a Fox News story - automatically suspect due to the media channel ("Headlines first; check facts later").

Second, it was not announced in a peer-review journal - typical method of those who seek funding and publicity before confirmation.

Third, it was "coincidentally" announced on the anniversary of the first announcement - also suspicious.

Fourth, the scientist is a chemist, not a physicist - so the methodology and equipment may not be appropriate.

...

In my opinion, there is still the need for confirmation of the results, so while "Cold Fusion" would be a boon to humanity, there is still insufficient evidence to hail this announcement as a breakthrough. Also while the news is interesting only independent confirmation would make it exciting.

Okay, well:

First, Fox news was not the only news service to carry this. I found several articles aside from other sources.

Second, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18828003

Third, the Navy had been quietly working on Cold Fusion since 1989, and announced this in 2002, along with a plea for funding. For example, Mosier-Boss has a paper on a related topic published in


http://www.infinite-energy.com/iemagazi ... /navy.html that describes what the Navy was doing.

2004: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 3103004015 (I suspect this is not the only paper she has published). I also found a lecture of hers on the topic recorded in 2007.

With all that in mind, I suspect the announcement was more a matter of publicity than coincidence, and the result of two decades of work by multiple researchers.

Fourth, Mosier-Boss is not the only researcher responsible for the paper. These are the individuals in question, and I suspect more than one discipline is represented:

Pamela A. Mosier-Boss, Stanislaw Szpak, Frank E. Gordon and Lawrence P. G. Forsley

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to determine what their specialties were.



I don't know whether it has been confirmed. I tried to find any information from the past two years and it doesn't seem to be getting much attention at all. What I did find was this:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 182909.htm

More people are working on it than ever.

What I did not find was any debunking at all, although I may not have looked carefully enough.

Well, Science is not about "debunking", so much as it is about "confirming".

If the results can be independently confirmed, then I want to be among the first to install a "Mr. Fusion" power-plant on my car.

Until then, I will happily drive my hybrid wherever I go.

I am skeptical of the announced results, not disbelieving.

I know what science is about, but I know that the press likes terms like "debunking." For that matter, so do many skeptics. My point wasn't to say that I unreservedly believe it works, but to offer accurate information. Mostly, I thought you would like to know there was more substantial backing for this than a Fox News story.

I appreciate that, Ver. That was good research on your part.

The OP omitted the necessary info, and while it may be that something real and practical will come out of this, I'm not going to hold my breath while waiting for it to happen...

I am quite disappointed in the literal dearth of followup research on this. It's actually kind of frustrating.

I agree. This is such a potential boon to the world that there should be a flood of research into the mere possibility that this could be real.

Cold fusion research just isn't as "sexy" as stem-cell research or research into other "Green" energy sources.

I have to wonder if there's a lot more going on than we're being told...

Ooo ... Conspiracy!

That's a good one, Wooist ... er ... Wooster!

Haha - I'm not really a conspiracy freak as such - but for example I have no doubt the only reason those two American guys who cracked the one way encryption algorithm thing (public key / private key) are still alive is that they immediately made their discovery public...

With the cold fusion thing it does seem odd how quickly it all died away at the time - considering how big it blew up to initially - and then there's been virtually no more on it. I'm quite surprised to hear this new stuff come up about it all.

anyone think we should place bets on whether or not it's already installed on some sub running around in circles in the ocean while the world's sociopolitical issues worsen in part over energy problems? :/ j/k

I think they've built a full scale working fusion power plant on Mars...

Moved from General Autism to Science

A surefire win.

ruveyn