Physicist Claims First Real Demonstration of Cold Fusion

www.physorg.com ^ | 05/27/2008 | Staff

[Netheron]

Couldn’t say for sure without researching it in more detail. I agree that he had known more about it than me. On the other hand, there are currently a number of physicists that know more about it than he knew, especially ones that specialize in atoms embedded in metallic lattices. So far, they have seemed rather doubtful.

Schwinger’s contributions to phyiscs are considerable, but they are for doing QED mathematics in a vacuum. Adding an atomic lattice to the mix really complicates things. If anyone really knew what was going on in atomic lattices, we’d have room temperature superconductivity by now, or at least know that it was not possible.

[grey_whiskers]

Schwinger’s contributions to phyiscs are considerable, but they are for doing QED mathematics in a vacuum.

Yes, but the top physicists (e.g. Landau, Feynmann, you name it) seem to get their fingers into a little bit of everything.

What struck me is that he came up with a putative explanation for the lack of gamma-ray emissions, and a place for the excess heat "to be put":

At very low energies of relative motion, the proton and deuteron of the HD reaction are in an s-state, one of zero orbital angular momentum, and therefore of positive orbital parity. The intrinsic parities of proton, deuteron, and 3He are also positive. Then, the usually dominant electric dipole radiation—which requires a parity change—is forbidden...one must look for something that is characteristic of cold fusion, something that does not exist in the plasma regime of hot fusion. The obvious answer is the lattice in which the deuterium is confined.

Adding an atomic lattice to the mix really complicates things. If anyone really knew what was going on in atomic lattices, we’d have room temperature superconductivity by now, or at least know that it was not possible.

Agreed -- and it is also worthwhile at this juncture to point out that computational resources were *much* (orders of magnitude) less capable, thus compounding the problem. This may have been an *additional* reason people were unwilling to consider his suggestions.

Cheers!

[Kevmo]

Intrade opened up a contract on the replication of Dr. Arata’s experiment.

Dr Yoshiaki Arata’s Cold Fusion Experiment

Dr Arata’s experiment to be replicated in peer-reviewed scientific journal on/before 31 Dec 2008
M Trade - 9.0 - 0 0

http://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/common/c_cd.jsp?conDetailID=615448&z=1213211487203

[mysterio]

The peer review process alone would probably take longer than that.

If all the data for the experiment had been collected (which it probably hasn't,) and he started writing the paper right now, he would probably submit the paper by the middle of July. Peer review process would take place, requesting revisions. Especially with a project this controversial. If the paper were accepted in October, it might still not make the December issue.

So a peer reviewed paper being published before December is exceptionally unlikely unless all of the steps above have been initiated already.

[Kevmo]

Thanks for the heads up on the process.