Cold fusion, Why not? Options

[Abd]

I'll just start this with a whimper, not a bang. JzG, the big meanie, just removed Yet Another Link to lenr-canr.org from Cold fusion. Waaa! Teacher told him not to do that! I'm going to take my marbles home! Now that I'm banned, I get to whine all I want! It's kinda fun!

No discussion, he gave the same argument that was discussed to death at Martin Fleischmann (T-H-L-K-D), that was discussed to death at MediaWiki talk:Whitelist, and always, in the end, rejected.

Pure wikilawyering: there is zero legal risk to Wikipedia from linking to that paper, the web site claims permission for all that it hosts, and if there is a defect with a couple of pages, it's basically irrelevant. (Very different situation with newenergytimes.com, they host under a claim of fair use, which they can get away with as a nonprofit until the publisher squawks.) The specific paper he delinked was approved by Beetstra at the whitelist page, after all the objections had been raised about copyright.

Ban the cat, the place is overrun with mice. Kind of cute, aren't they?

Wikipedia, you traded Abd and WMC's bit for JzG and Hipocrite. Enjoy.

[Apathetic]

Isn't this basically the same as the post you made earlier to which no one replied?

Abd, this moping around isn't becoming of you.

[Abd]

Isn't this basically the same as the post you made earlier to which no one replied?

Abd, this moping around isn't becoming of you.

Isn't becoming what? Terse? You expect that to happen from one day of being blocked?

All right, so it was redundant. I really just wanted to start a Cold fusion article thread, so picked what was on my mind at the moment, which, indeed, I 'd mentioned elsewhere. Just goes to show. Now, anybody have any complaints about the present Cold fusion article? After all, if we give credence to the complaints at RfAr, it's truly awful, promoting cold fusion with every other sentence, leading gullible elderly people to invest their life savings in get-rich-quick-while-doing-good-by-investing-in-brilliant-invention-to-make-energy-from-water, as a result of my six months of disruption. Or was it all fixed with JzG's edit, which simply made it more inconvenient for readers to find a copy of the article?

[Appleby]

Cold fusion is a spectacular example of the problems of NPOV. Virtually all experts reject cold fusion but a few WP editors seem determined to promote it using rather dubious references. Were there any proper editorial control or involvement of experts, these promoters would be shoved off.

[Eva Destruction]

Cold fusion is a spectacular example of the problems of NPOV. Virtually all experts reject cold fusion but a few WP editors seem determined to promote it using rather dubious references. Were there any proper editorial control or involvement of experts, these promoters would be shoved off.

Is that not what just happened?

[Peter Damian]

Cold fusion is a spectacular example of the problems of NPOV. Virtually all experts reject cold fusion but a few WP editors seem determined to promote it using rather dubious references. Were there any proper editorial control or involvement of experts, these promoters would be shoved off.

Is that not what just happened?

Not before quite a few previously sane people were driven insane. See my earlier post on another thread where I prove by pure logic that the only people who continue to edit on such subjects are the utterly deranged

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&sh...ndpost&p=194103

This post has been edited by Peter Damian:

[One]

Not before quite a few previously sane people were driven insane.

I don't think arguing cold fusion is analogous to witnessing the horror of the blind faceless god Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, and his amorphous idiot flute-players.

I think it's pure self-selection.

This post has been edited by One:

[Abd]

Cold fusion is a spectacular example of the problems of NPOV. Virtually all experts reject cold fusion but a few WP editors seem determined to promote it using rather dubious references. Were there any proper editorial control or involvement of experts, these promoters would be shoved off.

Thanks, Appleby. You have made some claims here, some are time dependent, i.e., were true at one time, some are historical claims about Wikipedia. Since this thread is about the article, not the editors, I'll address only what relates to cold fusion itself, i.e., the topic, plus the "references."

Virtually all experts reject cold fusion. I really understand how you could think that. But it's a misleading statement. It is in the present tense, unsourced and probably unsourceable by WP standards. The statement would be more agreeable, a bit, if it was "By 1990, virtually all experts rejected cold fusion," though even that is POV, i.e., "virtually all" implies less acceptance of cold fusion than did exist and did persist through the rejection phase. I'd agree with "most," as to 1990 and for quite some time after that. But let's focus on the present.

Would you agree that we can generally assume that an established consensus continues until there is evidence to the contrary? As well, "Virtually all" implies very low difference of opinion. If no more than two-thirds of experts "reject" low energy nuclear reactions (nobody calls it "cold fusion" formally any more), would you agree that this is not "virtually all"?

A problem here is that there is no mechanism, ordinarily, for polling experts to find out if their opinions have changed, and opinions do change in science based on two factors: the availability of new evidence, and better analysis of old evidence. We have several mechanisms we can use:

(1) Peer-reviewed and academic secondary sources. What is found in reviews of the field, independently published by reputable publishers? Here, the more recent the secondary source, the more important it would be to assessing the present situation.

(2) Peer-reviewed primary sources. Are peer-reviewers approving articles? Here, if our task is understanding the status of the field, the quality of the publications may be important. Particularly relevant would be the availability of knowledgeable experts to review papers; but often this is largely speculative, we don't know who actually reviewed papers.

(3) Secondary reliable academic sources other than peer-reviewed, such as independently published monographs.

(4) Other formal reviews by independent bodies, an example would be the 2004 U.S. Department of Energy review panel, which can be compared with the 1989 review panel. Those panels represent a selection of experts, and what the panels concluded would be an indicator of expert opinion. Was there any change between 1989 and 2004?

(5) And least reliable, other reliable source, particularly media reports.

In addition, there is another problem. Who are the experts? A rough generalization of the problem with cold fusion is that the electrochemists, experts in calorimetry, said that the excess heat found (in very many experiments by very many groups) could not be chemistry, it must be nuclear physics, and the nuclear physicists, who knew well how to measure radiation but had little or no experience with calorimetry, said that it couldn't be nuclear physics, it must be chemistry. The field of condensed matter nuclear science is cross-disciplinary. And what experts think may very much depend on their exact expertise.

It may be important to recognize that many working in the field no longer claim that the "Fleischmann effect" is fusion. It may be something else. But there remain two basic questions:

(1) Is there excess heat, i.e., heat other than explainable through known chemical reactions that would be expected to take place in these experiments?

(2) If so, is the origin of this heat nuclear in nature? (We can assume that someone who does not accept that there is excess heat will not accept that the excess heat is nuclear in origin!)

Do we agree so far? (Anyone can answer, of course, but I'll attend to those who are willing explore these questions.)

This post has been edited by Abd:

[Milton Roe]

It may be important to recognize that many working in the field no longer claim that the "Fleischmann effect" is fusion. It may be something else. But there remain two basic questions:

(1) Is there excess heat, i.e., heat other than explainable through known chemical reactions that would be expected to take place in these experiments?

(2) If so, is the origin of this heat nuclear in nature? (We can assume that someone who does not accept that there is excess heat will not accept that the excess heat is nuclear in origin!)

Do we agree so far? (Anyone can answer, of course, but I'll attend to those who are willing explore these questions.)

If there is this large isotope effect between deuterium and protium (H-2 vs. H-1) in the heat produced, as claimed, it can hardly be anything other than a nuclear effect. If it were chemical it would imply one-step complete electrochemical separation of the isotopes, which has never been seen in any other system. Yes, the isotopes do differ chemically, but the effects are subtle (polymerization of macromolecules in eukaryotes) and not gross, such as the idea that there is a system where one might freely participate in a highly exothermic chemical reaction releasing great free-energy, and other isotope, not at all. If that were so, one could use palladium disks as a one-shot production route to making heavy water. Or purifying out the last light water remnants in already purifed heavy water.

Perhaps everyone has their sights too high? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)

[Abd]

If there is this large isotope effect between deuterium and protium (H-2 vs. H-1) in the heat produced, as claimed, it can hardly be anything other than a nuclear effect. If it were chemical it would imply one-step complete electrochemical separation of the isotopes, which has never been seen in any other system. Yes, the isotopes do differ chemically, but the effects are subtle (polymerization of macromolecules in eukaryotes) and not gross, such as the idea that there is a system where one might freely participate in a highly exothermic chemical reaction releasing great free-energy, and other isotope, not at all. If that were so, one could use palladium disks as a one-shot production route to making heavy water. Or purifying out the last light water remnants in already purifed heavy water.

Perhaps everyone has their sights too high? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)

Yeah, you noticed.

Generally, in most experiments, use of light water as a control reduces the effect by more than three orders of magnitude. (Which, by the way, testifies to the sensitivity of the calorimetry....) Pons and Fleischmann, early on, were asked if they had done light water control experiments, and they were evasive. Later, they explained that they had done such experiments, and did not get the clean baseline they had expected. In the SPAWAR CR-39 detection of charged particle radiation, co-deposition shows charged particle radiation, at the far lower level, with light water, they speculate that this is due to the normal concentration of deuterium in light water.

Alternatives to "nuclear"? Let's start with the obvious:

(1) The calorimetry is bad. I can produce a whole pile of sources indicating differently. While there has been a lot of bad work published, the best of it has been done by world-class experts, starting with Fleischmann. Nevertheless, perhaps there is some effect that systematically throws off the calorimetry. However, it's speculation. Kirk shanahan has proposed a theory that basically punts: he suggests that there is an unknown effect which generates local heat that throws off the calibration of the calorimeter. Since this would be unlikely to affect all forms of calorimetry, it seems weak, and has gained little attention.

(2) Unexpected deuterium/oxygen recombination. (And this might be Shanahan's effect.) Again, this wouldn't explain that the effect still is found where all the deuterium and oxygen are accounted for. The magnitude of the effect in "heat after death" experiments would indicate much more energy storage than the chemistry could handle.

(3) Hydrino theory: the heat is the heat of hydrino formation. This hypothesis, of course, is more revolutionary than low energy nuclear reactions! It also wouldn't seem to explain the extremely high energy density found in some experiments. Palladium metal, immersed in heavy water is, on a very small scale, melted and vaporized. Tricky to explain that with anything other than nuclear.

Because there are other observed phenomena, most notably helium levels detected that correlate with the excess energy measured, there is validation of three things: the calorimetry and the helium measurements, on the one hand, because the usual explanations (calorimetry error for the heat, sloppy handling for the helium) don't explain the consistent correlation at about the right Q-value for d-d fusion. (That doesn't prove d-d fusion, there are other possible nuclear reactions that would do the same), and, on the other, since if helium is appearing where it didn't exist before, nuclear reaction is a strong conclusion.

But, back to the first question here: what is the mainstream view of low energy nuclear reactions? How would we know? I'll wait for an answer to the questions and issues I raised about "mainstream."

[Abd]

Example of recent presentation by SPAWAR group (U.S. Naval Research Lab) at ACS symposium, March, 2009. The 23 peer-reviewed publications described are just those by the SPAWAR group. Any questions?

[Angela Kennedy]

But, back to the first question here: what is the mainstream view of low energy nuclear reactions? How would we know? I'll wait for an answer to the questions and issues I raised about "mainstream."

Well, Abd, you won't find any arguments for me on what I think is your premise, that it is EXTREMELY difficult to quantify what is 'mainstream' view on any given subject that claims to be 'scientific'.

Even 'mainstream' as a concept is full of problems, as is the way 'fringe' is used on wikipedia (usually to mean 'lunatic fringe', or even 'extremist'). These are abstract, social and ideologically informed constructs, and therefore need to be avoided, unless their meaning is absolutely clear. But try telling Wikipedians that.

The trump games that ensue on Wikipedia even around which is the allegedly more 'respected' or 'reputable' peer-reviewed journal, and therefore 'the truth', is excrutiating to watch.

The so-called 'science' people on WP seem so unaware of these epistemological problems, or may be deliberately refusing to consider them, that it is highly frustrating to watch.

These are most obvious in areas where there is disagreement within the academic or professional communites, or where lay people have cause to disagree with the positions of some academics or professionals.

So- to answer your question, I have no idea what is the 'mainstream' view of cold fusion. I don't know who exactly is 'the mainstream'. Do you think you do? (honest question, bearing in mind my caveat about the term being an unstable metaphysical construct!)

Again- in light of the dearth of knowledge about these issues (some of which are addressed in social science, ironically) it would be better if WP wrote the shortest articles possible about subjects on which there is strong disagreement. I can't see that happening, for all sorts of crazy reasons, some of which are to do with control of knowledge and its power effects. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unhappy.gif)

[Moulton]

It would be better if WP wrote the shortest articles possible about subjects on which there is strong disagreement.

Indeed. But NPOV operates to increase the verbiage on both sides, since each side perceives that the other side has more than their fair share of coverage.

A tug-of-war that is in perfect balance can be said to be "neutral" even as the tension on the rope increases on both sides of the dividing line.

[Milton Roe]

If there is this large isotope effect between deuterium and protium (H-2 vs. H-1) in the heat produced, as claimed, it can hardly be anything other than a nuclear effect. If it were chemical it would imply one-step complete electrochemical separation of the isotopes, which has never been seen in any other system. Yes, the isotopes do differ chemically, but the effects are subtle (polymerization of macromolecules in eukaryotes) and not gross, such as the idea that there is a system where one might freely participate in a highly exothermic chemical reaction releasing great free-energy, and other isotope, not at all. If that were so, one could use palladium disks as a one-shot production route to making heavy water. Or purifying out the last light water remnants in already purifed heavy water.

Perhaps everyone has their sights too high? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)

Yeah, you noticed.

Generally, in most experiments, use of light water as a control reduces the effect by more than three orders of magnitude. (Which, by the way, testifies to the sensitivity of the calorimetry....) Pons and Fleischmann, early on, were asked if they had done light water control experiments, and they were evasive. Later, they explained that they had done such experiments, and did not get the clean baseline they had expected. In the SPAWAR CR-39 detection of charged particle radiation, co-deposition shows charged particle radiation, at the far lower level, with light water, they speculate that this is due to the normal concentration of deuterium in light water.

Well, D-depeted light water (less than 1% background) is freely available at prices far below the rest of the budget for this stuff, so why are these SPAWAR CR-39 people speculating about a control experiment they should already have done? Again I have this feeling I'm being bullshitted, just as 20 years ago when P&F would not discuss light water controls.

Alternatives to "nuclear"? Let's start with the obvious:

(1) The calorimetry is bad. I can produce a whole pile of sources indicating differently. While there has been a lot of bad work published, the best of it has been done by world-class experts, starting with Fleischmann. Nevertheless, perhaps there is some effect that systematically throws off the calorimetry. However, it's speculation. Kirk shanahan has proposed a theory that basically punts: he suggests that there is an unknown effect which generates local heat that throws off the calibration of the calorimeter. Since this would be unlikely to affect all forms of calorimetry, it seems weak, and has gained little attention.

Okay, this amounts to suggesting 20 years of experimental error. Sigh.

(2) Unexpected deuterium/oxygen recombination. (And this might be Shanahan's effect.) Again, this wouldn't explain that the effect still is found where all the deuterium and oxygen are accounted for. The magnitude of the effect in "heat after death" experiments would indicate much more energy storage than the chemistry could handle.

And doesn't explain the huge isotope effect everybody reports. Which for reasons above, cannot be chemistry, unless there's some VERY brand-new chemistry here with the largest chemical isotope effect of any chemical experiment ever. By many orders of magnitude.

(3) Hydrino theory: the heat is the heat of hydrino formation. This hypothesis, of course, is more revolutionary than low energy nuclear reactions! It also wouldn't seem to explain the extremely high energy density found in some experiments. Palladium metal, immersed in heavy water is, on a very small scale, melted and vaporized. Tricky to explain that with anything other than nuclear.

Hydrino = collapsed H atom. Doesn't explain He production. Worse still, you have to modify quantum mechanics all out of recognizability, to permit it (the uncertainty principle must go, or else the value of Planck's constant, or both). And where are these hydrinos in other real fusion experiments, where we should have noticed them a long time ago (by energy being bled off into some channel and product we can't see). Pauli inferred the neutrino that way 25 years or so before it was seen. And we've come a long way from Pauli.

Because there are other observed phenomena, most notably helium levels detected that correlate with the excess energy measured, there is validation of three things: the calorimetry and the helium measurements, on the one hand, because the usual explanations (calorimetry error for the heat, sloppy handling for the helium) don't explain the consistent correlation at about the right Q-value for d-d fusion. (That doesn't prove d-d fusion, there are other possible nuclear reactions that would do the same), and, on the other, since if helium is appearing where it didn't exist before, nuclear reaction is a strong conclusion.

Not really! We don't have anything near the known product production for D-D fusion, so you have to postulate that our physics is predicting the energy but not the reaction. That's cherry picking of the highest order. Extraordinary claims (nearly neutron-free D+D fusion) have to be backed by extraordinary evidence. And BTW the idea of a quadruple D collision is really off the wall. Nature needs to work. Hoyle predicted the rare triple He collision in supernovae but realized there needed to be an unknown C-12 energy resonance to support it. This was found. You now suggest a QUADRUPLE H-2 collision to Be-8 with NO such resonanane to capture and support it. Meh. Unlikeliness piled on unlikeliness.

But, back to the first question here: what is the mainstream view of low energy nuclear reactions? How would we know? I'll wait for an answer to the questions and issues I raised about "mainstream."

The mainstream view is "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." There's a several kV potential barrier to cross. Where's the energy? It's not that the mainsteam wasn't willinig to believe in anything but hot fusion: they believed in cold bubble fusion until not long ago. Now, THAT has come into disrepute. If you can't repeat your findings all the time in science, you're in trouble. You can whinge about impure palladium and deuterium contamination, only for so long. Then people expect you to be serious and produce something reproduceable and dramatic, or else zip it till you do.

[Moulton]

If you can't repeat your findings all the time in science, you're in trouble. You can whinge about impure palladium and deuterium contamination, only for so long. Then people expect you to be serious and produce something reproduceable and dramatic, or else zip it till you do.

Well said.

[Abd]

But, back to the first question here: what is the mainstream view of low energy nuclear reactions? How would we know? I'll wait for an answer to the questions and issues I raised about "mainstream."

Well, Abd, you won't find any arguments for me on what I think is your premise, that it is EXTREMELY difficult to quantify what is 'mainstream' view on any given subject that claims to be 'scientific'.

Actually, my tentative conclusion is that we don't need to know, because, even if we know, it will warp our presentation of what is in the sources. If we present what is in reliable source, particularly reliable source of basic high quality (in a science article, peer-reviewed papers, non-fringe journal -- not "non-fringe author" or "non-fringe topic"), the article will show a reasonable approximation of mainstream opinion.

("Fringe journal") in this case means a journal dedicated to a field that is suspected of being fringe, such as the Condensed Matter Nuclear Science journal. The publisher is readily suspected of bias. But the American Chemical Society LENR Sourcebook, Oxford Universtiy Press, is p-r RS.

Even 'mainstream' as a concept is full of problems, as is the way 'fringe' is used on wikipedia (usually to mean 'lunatic fringe', or even 'extremist'). These are abstract, social and ideologically informed constructs, and therefore need to be avoided, unless their meaning is absolutely clear. But try telling Wikipedians that.

Been there, did that.

The trump games that ensue on Wikipedia even around which is the allegedly more 'respected' or 'reputable' peer-reviewed journal, and therefore 'the truth', is excrutiating to watch.

Where there is contradiction, this could be appropriate, to a degree. However, what I've seen is that the game gets played when there is no contradiction, but editors with a POV synthesize one. So, for example, if an RS from 2002 says that there are only ad-hoc theories, that shouldn't contradict later RS describing a theory that isn't "ad-hoc," whatever that means, especially if there is no reason to think that the earlier author was aware of the later-published theory.

The so-called 'science' people on WP seem so unaware of these epistemological problems, or may be deliberately refusing to consider them, that it is highly frustrating to watch.

Yes, indeed. It's refreshing to hear a cogent explanation of what I'd tried to explain, many times, perhaps not so clearly.

These are most obvious in areas where there is disagreement within the academic or professional communites, or where lay people have cause to disagree with the positions of some academics or professionals.

So- to answer your question, I have no idea what is the 'mainstream' view of cold fusion. I don't know who exactly is 'the mainstream'. Do you think you do? (honest question, bearing in mind my caveat about the term being an unstable metaphysical construct!)

My view has been that the term "mainstream" is of questionable application. To be at all accurate and verifiable, the meaning must be specified. And there is little high-quality source that actually examines the issue, but there is some source of medium quality that allows us to make some assessments, plus there are clues as to how scientists are receiving "cold fusion." But mostly I don't think we need to know, and making statements on it is an open door for synthesis and original research under the guise of being sensible. After all, don't we all, (as scientifically literate people, right?), know that cold fusion is pathological science, completely rejected?

I'm personally convinced that *most* scientists -- undefined -- think cold fusion is bogus. But if we define it more closely, I suspect that among chemists the question right now would be of indeterminate answer. Most might think there is possibly something to it. Ask nuclear physicists, though, I'm almost certain that most would be attached to "bogus." But there are plenty of exceptions, and what gets interesting is that the exceptions seem to be, at least usually, those who are actually aware of the continuing research. The ones who strongly reject seem to be those who dismissed the field long ago and don't want to waste time studying it. And it's complex, very complex.

Again- in light of the dearth of knowledge about these issues (some of which are addressed in social science, ironically) it would be better if WP wrote the shortest articles possible about subjects on which there is strong disagreement. I can't see that happening, for all sorts of crazy reasons, some of which are to do with control of knowledge and its power effects. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unhappy.gif)

I can see the point, but I disagree. We should write thorough articles, meticulously negotiated for maximum consensus. It's known how to do it, and the problem is essentially arrogant laziness. I.e., "I know you are wrong, so I'm going to resist what you want to the bitter end, so go away, I don't want to waste time discussing this."

If we are seeking consensus, nobody gets excluded, most especially not the average editor! Nor, for that matter, the experts. Of all kinds.

[Abd]

If there is this large isotope effect between deuterium and protium (H-2 vs. H-1) in the heat produced, as claimed, it can hardly be anything other than a nuclear effect. If it were chemical it would imply one-step complete electrochemical separation of the isotopes, which has never been seen in any other system. Yes, the isotopes do differ chemically, but the effects are subtle (polymerization of macromolecules in eukaryotes) and not gross, such as the idea that there is a system where one might freely participate in a highly exothermic chemical reaction releasing great free-energy, and other isotope, not at all. If that were so, one could use palladium disks as a one-shot production route to making heavy water. Or purifying out the last light water remnants in already purifed heavy water.

Perhaps everyone has their sights too high? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)

Yeah, you noticed.

Generally, in most experiments, use of light water as a control reduces the effect by more than three orders of magnitude. (Which, by the way, testifies to the sensitivity of the calorimetry....) Pons and Fleischmann, early on, were asked if they had done light water control experiments, and they were evasive. Later, they explained that they had done such experiments, and did not get the clean baseline they had expected. In the SPAWAR CR-39 detection of charged particle radiation, co-deposition shows charged particle radiation, at the far lower level, with light water, they speculate that this is due to the normal concentration of deuterium in light water.

Well, D-depeted light water (less than 1% background) is freely available at prices far below the rest of the budget for this stuff, so why are these SPAWAR CR-39 people speculating about a control experiment they should already have done? Again I have this feeling I'm being bullshitted, just as 20 years ago when P&F would not discuss light water controls.

They do report light water results, just not depleted water, AFAIK. They have twenty years of published work in this field, and you would be welcome to perform that experiment, and it's quite possible someone has. It's a trivial and cheap variation (cost of maybe 25 ml of deuterium-depleted light water) on the kits we will be making, and would nail this particular question down, but in a field where there are so many serious unanswered questions, it's like complaining about an explorer who discovered America, because he failed to sail up the Hudson.

Alternatives to "nuclear"? Let's start with the obvious:

(1) The calorimetry is bad. [...]

Okay, this amounts to suggesting 20 years of experimental error. Sigh.

Right. Not a very likely hypothesis.

(2) Unexpected deuterium/oxygen recombination. (And this might be Shanahan's effect.) Again, this wouldn't explain that the effect still is found where all the deuterium and oxygen are accounted for. The magnitude of the effect in "heat after death" experiments would indicate much more energy storage than the chemistry could handle.

And doesn't explain the huge isotope effect everybody reports. Which for reasons above, cannot be chemistry, unless there's some VERY brand-new chemistry here with the largest chemical isotope effect of any chemical experiment ever. By many orders of magnitude.

Indeed.

(3) Hydrino theory: the heat is the heat of hydrino formation. This hypothesis, of course, is more revolutionary than low energy nuclear reactions! It also wouldn't seem to explain the extremely high energy density found in some experiments. Palladium metal, immersed in heavy water is, on a very small scale, melted and vaporized. Tricky to explain that with anything other than nuclear.

Hydrino = collapsed H atom. Doesn't explain He production. Worse still, you have to modify quantum mechanics all out of recognizability, to permit it (the uncertainty principle must go, or else the value of Planck's constant, or both). And where are these hydrinos in other real fusion experiments, where we should have noticed them a long time ago (by energy being bled off into some channel and product we can't see). Pauli inferred the neutrino that way 25 years or so before it was seen. And we've come a long way from Pauli.

Look, Mills is way out there. He is indeed proposing a whole new version of quantum mechanics. If he's right, we'll know soon, because he's funded, and is claiming working prototypes, with some level of replication. There is some support for his theories, and plenty of reason, as you note, to be highly skeptical. Hydrinos, or, more accurately, deuterinos, could explain LENR effects by shadowing the Coulomb barrier as do muons. So it would explain helium, perhaps. I'm not terribly fond of trading one mystery for one that is even more mysterious, I'd rather wait to see what BlackLight Power comes up with. So far, confirmation has been way too narrow. From what I'm seeing from those with more knowledge on this than I, who are abundant, detecting hydrinos in a CF experiment would be very difficult, even if they exist.

Because there are other observed phenomena, most notably helium levels detected that correlate with the excess energy measured, there is validation of three things: the calorimetry and the helium measurements, on the one hand, because the usual explanations (calorimetry error for the heat, sloppy handling for the helium) don't explain the consistent correlation at about the right Q-value for d-d fusion. (That doesn't prove d-d fusion, there are other possible nuclear reactions that would do the same), and, on the other, since if helium is appearing where it didn't exist before, nuclear reaction is a strong conclusion.

Not really! We don't have anything near the known product production for D-D fusion, so you have to postulate that our physics is predicting the energy but not the reaction. That's cherry picking of the highest order. Extraordinary claims (nearly neutron-free D+D fusion) have to be backed by extraordinary evidence.

Example of possible reaction that produces no neutrons but takes in deuterium and produces helium: Takahashi's Tetrahedral Symmetric Condensate theory. Lattice confinement increases the probability of two deuterium molecules (present at or very near the surface of the lattice) assuming a tetrahedral arrangement (the four deuterons are in a tetrahedron. Takahashi's published a quantum field theory analysis showing that if the TSC forms, it collapses and fuses immediately (femtosecond) and the resulting Be-8 is very unstable and immediately decays into two alpha particles, 23.8 MeV each. Also, the experimental Q value for excess heat/helium is 25 +/- 5 MeV/He-4 (Storms). Suffice it to say that the Q value with helium makes it look like the reaction takes in deuterium and leaves helium ash, but what happens in the middle is unknown. Absolutely, if it were ordinary d-d fusion, the normal branching ratio would be way off, there are a series of problems, there would be fatal levels of neutrons given the excess heat reported. Nevertheless, some theorists do propose d-d fusion, with some mechanism causing preferred branching to helium (normally a tiny branch), and with the normal gamma ray being replaced by some direct coupling to the lattice, a la Mossbauer effect. And, yes, I know why that is unlikely. But when one has a blatantly anomalous effect, we may have to start looking at things that seem unlikely. My favorite unlikely is multibody fusion, and it looks like a number of peer reviewers are at least willing to pass this for publication (Takahashi, Kim, plus papers mentioning the theory include Mosier-Boss and others)

And BTW the idea of a quadruple D collision is really off the wall.

Plasma physics thinking. Not a "collision" through random motion in free space. Confinement in a lattice. That's like saying three marbles are insanely unlikely to collide because two marbles, rolling around a flat table, are very unlikely to collide. Put some grooves in the table, and the whole situation changes. A metal lattice is a complex set of grooves. Takahashi originally showed experimentally that lattice confinement greatly enhanced the cross-section for fusion, with multibody fusion being in evidence. (This was with energetic deuteron bombardment.) Apparently this led him to his TSC theory. What's involved isn't four independent particles, but two molecules. What configurations can two molecules assume in the lattice?

Nature needs to work. Hoyle predicted the rare triple He collision in supernovae but realized there needed to be an unknown C-12 energy resonance to support it. This was found. You now suggest a QUADRUPLE H-2 collision to Be-8 with NO such resonanane to capture and support it. Meh. Unlikeliness pilled on unlikeliness.

Please examine your logic. These are not deuterons in a plasma, they are in an environment that very tightly confines them. Further, deuterons themselves in a plasma are ionized, they purely repel, but in the molecular form, they have their electrons, and the shared electrons of the molecule may shield the repulsion to a degree. I think that "Condensate" is referring to Bose-Einstein condensate, and there is another paper published a couple of months ago on BEC theory and LENR, in Naturwissenschaften. Serious physicists are taking this seriously.

But, back to the first question here: what is the mainstream view of low energy nuclear reactions? How would we know? I'll wait for an answer to the questions and issues I raised about "mainstream."

The mainstream view is "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." There's a several kV potential barrier to cross. Where's the energy?

Following the plasma physicists, you are assuming brute force; further, you are assuming fusion. Remember, it may well not be fusion. I'll get to that below. The energy necessary, if Takahashi is correct, is the energy to cram two deuterium molecules into cubic confinement. That's tight, all right, but it doesn't have to happen very often and it only need last a femtosecond. Here is the real rarity: start with one deuterium molecule in the cube. That's unstable, it can't last long. What happens normally when deuterium enters the lattice is that it dissociates into individual deuterons, and the electrons become part of the whole cloud in the lattice. But the molecule may exist for a short time at or near the surface. And if another one comes along with enough energy, not to fuse with the other molecule, but to fit into the cube in the most efficient packing (tetrahedral), it might go Bang! The TSC forms and, if Takahashi has done the math correctly, it collapses and fuses and then fissions. I have lots of questions about this theory, and so do others, but it's notable, both peer-review published (primary source) and covered in secondary source (academic and peer-reviewed).

It's not that the mainsteam wasn't willing to believe in anything but hot fusion: they believed in cold bubble fusion until not long ago. Now, THAT has come into disrepute. If you can't repeat your findings all the time in science, you're in trouble. You can whinge about impure palladium and deuterium contamination, only for so long. Then people expect you to be serious and produce something reproduceable and dramatic, or else zip it till you do.

From what I've seen, the story of bubble fusion isn't over, but I know much less about it. It's not "cold," it's hot fusion. The temperature in the bubble, if the researchers were correct, is normal fusion temperature. But there is a similarity. It appears that there may also be hot fusion taking place in the palladium; that is theorized to be the source of the neutrons Mosier-Boss reported in 2008, in a very solid report that got wide attention. Very low levels of neutrons. Mosier-Boss theorizes classical fusion as a secondary reaction, and cites Takahashi as predicting hot alpha particles; and her own group's evidence, confirming others, is massive for extensive charged particle radiation, probably alpha particles, from the cathode; if they are 23.8 MeV to start, they would rapidly lose energy, only penetrating a very short distance, and sometimes they would collide with other nuclei and cause secondary reactions.

You mentioned "whinging" about impure palladium, but if I were inclined to "whing," I'd complain about two things: the British spelling for whine, which has long driven me nuts, and the lack of attention to detail. Not "impure palladium," that was largely a red herring, but simply palladium fabricated with microcracks that prevent adequate loading. In the 1990s, they figured out how to fabricate electrodes that work more often than not, but F-P electrolysis still produces highly variable effects even with the best electrodes, AFAIK. I think it's reached the point where they almost always get some effect, but the quantity is all over the map. Still, with correlation with helium, for example, that actually isn't a problem. Except for people looking for a practical application, where variability is a killer. And then there are the meltdowns. "WARNING! Your Ajax Home Cold Fusion Hot Water Heater usually works well, and will save you between $25 - $100 per month, depending on unidentified conditions, but sometimes when you turn the thing off, it melts. Sorry for the inconvenience. But it's cheap heat! That doesn't happen often!" Co-deposition completely avoids this problem, the lattice is created preloaded and apparently takes very little extra work to "overdrive" it into nuclear active environment. These are highly reproducible experiments. It's the original P-F technique that was seriously difficult. Co-dep is being reproduced both by amateurs and experts. You just have to know how to do it, and there is a fairly detailed published protocol that's been used, which is why I'm confident in the success of the kit project. It isn't new science at all. It's an experimental effect, Milton, not a theory. It just happens that the results are, as you have acknowledged, difficult to explain without expanding our thinking. Takahashi's theory actually isn't new physics, if I'm correct (I am utterly unqualified to critique Takahashi's math; I asked Mathsci and he didn't reply), but it seems to be standard quantum field theory applied to the condensed matter environment, where the simplified equations of ordinary quantum mechanics break down. (QM is based on a reduction of the situation to a two-body problem, which vastly simplifies the math.)

I promised an alternative to fusion. I personally think it is a bit of a quibble, but Krivit is very strong on not calling this "cold fusion," because there are theories which involve neutron capture and other nuclear phenomena which we wouldn't call "fusion." I won't go into it, it's been said that the problem with cold fusion isn't that there are no theories, but that there are too many.

But this is diverting us from the question of how cold fusion is seen today, and what balance an article on cold fusion should show. I'm claiming, in fact, that Wikipedia should simply report what is in the reliable sources, especially, for "science," peer-reviewed secondary sources, creating related articles as necessary. Until and unless it appears in reliable secondary source, we don't state what the "mainstream" believes. We allow the sources to speak. We should be careful about extrapolating from old sources to the present state, so we would report old sources as applying to the condition known to them, the state of the "mainstream" when they were writing (actually, the state a bit earlier, the latest skeptical tertiary source I've seen is from 2006, an off-hand mention, and not aware, AFAIK, of the details of the 2004 DoE report). There is tons of source for detailed history, for example, and history isn't science, there are different standards. Cold fusion has been called the "scientific fiasco of the twentieth century," and I agree, and the extent of the fiasco impeaches, in a sense, all sides.

Nobody, in fact, disagrees that there was a massive rejection of cold fusion in 1989-1990, and we would continue to report what we have from reliable source on that. But peer-reviewed secondary source on the rejection is notably absent, as far as I've seen.... The rejection is history, not exactly science. If I'm wrong, surely someone will provide counterexamples, I've been known to change my mind on occasion! Sometimes even with mere argument!

[Abd]

It would be better if WP wrote the shortest articles possible about subjects on which there is strong disagreement.

Indeed. But NPOV operates to increase the verbiage on both sides, since each side perceives that the other side has more than their fair share of coverage.

A tug-of-war that is in perfect balance can be said to be "neutral" even as the tension on the rope increases on both sides of the dividing line.

A tug-of-war is absolutely not consensus, it is unstable and will typically see-saw. In genuine, full consensus process, every side signs off on every decision, being in agreement with it. To bring it here, cold fusion "believers" will readily accept a statement that "cold fusion was broadly rejected by physicists in 1989-1990, ..." and, I'm sure, they will accept more than that. They will certainly accept attributed statements where problems with the author can also be shown. Such as what Park has written about cold fusion. (If ever there was a fanatic, on a crusade to ruin the career and reputation of everyone who dares to advocate cold fusion research, all the while bragging about it, it would be Park, at least as to his past behavior, there are signs of some softening, and I could prove both.)

What actually happens is that POV-pushers want the article to represent their view, and they want opposing views suppressed or weakened; typically they do not trust the reader to be able to understand accurate text. I'm not pretending that consensus process is easy, and it does, indeed, take a lot of discussion, but most discussion currently is wasted, comments are salvos in battles, not attempts to seek consensus. Where I was able to set up facilitated discussion between two editors in conflict, it generally worked to create partnerships between them.

Consensus is crucial to NPOV, that was a principle I proposed in RfAr/Abd-William M. Connolley, and it was, in fact, surprising to me how vehemently this was rejected. Unfairly, perhaps, I will assert the opposition as being "We know what NPOV is, and those POV-pushers are wrong, and we don't want to give them any excuse to argue with us, it will waste our time." Basically, this is standard hardened dispute, typical in communities where consensus process is unknown or unused. I clarified my meaning as resting on the assumption that NPOV is not intrinsic to text, such that any individual can confidently assert, based on knowledge, that a particular text is NPOV. It's actually easy to craft true text, that is, verifiable, provable text, but NPOV also requires that we avoid cherry-picking; it's easy to mislead with the truth, if you can exclude or confuse contrary evidence. And our own inevitable POV can easily cause us to overlook non-neutral implications that someone with different POV will spot quickly.

No, NPOV is a quality we measure by the degree of consensus it enjoys. We can only be completely confident that text is NPOV if everyone agrees that it is fair and balanced. Everyone. For practical reasons, when the scale is very large, full confidence may not be possible, because some editors will be unreasonable to the end, and I tried to explain this, and was more or less shouted down, as if I were proposing that "unreasonable editors" should be excluded. My actual point was the opposite, and that it is more possible than we usually assume, and I've seen plenty of actual practice where consensus process is used. The vast majority of people will not continue to stand for a truly unreasonable position when the basis for it has been exposed, it's humiliating, and a person gains far more by showing reason. "Ah, now I see what you were saying! Couldn't you have explained that better." (And a sensible former opponent will say, "After our conversation, I'm sure!" But we bypass the process that would take us there.

When the goal becomes true consensus, to be approached as closely as possiible, Wikipedia will change. To me, the question resolves to how to negotiate broad consensus efficiently. It is obvious that having dozens of people taking positions in a battle, as a spectator sport, with some possibly uninvolved editors -- or arbitrators -- judging who wins, isn't going to find consensus. It finds winners by defining losers, which is very different from consensus. It buries disagreements for a time, but does not resolve them. Remember, "uninvolved" is often a synonym for "ignorant." It isn't enough to be neutral, knowledge is also necessary, and once people have knowledge, they are no longer neutral, with exceptions being extraordinarily rare.

[Moulton]

In contentious areas, the probability of consensus is vanishingly small. Conversely, the likelihood of non-terminating escalating verbiage is a virtual certainty, eventually requiring ArbCom to put a lid on it.

Whereupon the non-terminating verbiage migrates to blogs and W-R.

[EricBarbour]

If only we gave out barnstars here. Abd would have earned a barnstar for obsessive dedication to convincing the wrong people of his thesis. He should be ranting at physicists, not WR users......