Lack of Professionalism in Dealing with Fleischmann & Pons
Joseph Nathan Hall
>...
>I say YES! The repugnant behavior of physicists, and apparently physicists
>alone, has entered a new even more repugnant phase. These guys have a lot
>to lose monetarily if F&P are right, but do they have to lose their self
>respect as well?
I agree wholeheartedly. I don't know whether cold fusion actually took
place in Utah or anywhere else, but I have found the public comments of
"heavyweights" at Priceton, Harvard, MIT and elsewhere repulsive. Scorn
and belittlement have no place in academic society.
I was particularly disgusted by the comment from a fusion physicist who
appeared on CNN's science segment today, who asserted in his most
authoritative and condescending tone that this is what comes from doing
"science in a box." Science in a box may come back and bite him in the
ass one fine day.
--
v v sssss|| joseph hall || 201-1D Hampton Lee Court
v v s s || j...@ece-csc.ncsu.edu (Internet) || Cary, NC 27511
v sss || jos...@ece007.ncsu.edu (Try this one first)
-----------|| Standard disclaimers and all that . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Roger D Nelson
dismay over the reports, including recorded quotes from speakers, of the
American Physical Society meeting in Baltimore. It was disturbing to
hear the tones of litany in the speakers' entertainments and their
fellow scientists' eager resopnses. The posting to which I am responding
says elegantly most of what needs to be said, but because science is the
best means we have of exploring the unknown, I want to add
encouragement to the independent voices raised at the APS meeting, and
elsewhere, counseling respectful attention and decrying the arrogance
that alone can underlie such grating derision and laughter as was
heard in Baltimore. The only other time I heard the like was a few
years back at a AAAS meeting when The Amazing Randi -- a fine entertainer,
but no scientist -- spoke at a session on the frontiers of science. I
guess those frontiers do need to be defended.
Roger Nelson rdne...@phoenix.princeton.edu
Dave Skinner
byproduct of Fleischmann and Pons. I am no physicist, and I am no chemist.
In fact, I have absolutely no connection with either the chemical or the
energy industies. So, I don't have any axes to grind (at least not on
this subject).
I always felt that physcists (like all scientists) were, or at least should
be, careful to give their colleagues the benefit of the doubt on any
scientific claim that their colleagues might make until after the verdict
was in. Even then, scientists would usually let the stigma of going public
and being wrong be sufficient punishment for the guilty. This is because
the researchers suffer not only the embarrassment of the moment, but are
undoubtedly haunted by their mistake throughout the remainder of their
careers. All of this seems fitting and proper; the punishment fits the
crime, so to speak.
So, the response of some physicists (and I will attempt to show that this
behavior appears limited to physicists) to the announcement by Fleischmann
& Pons (F&P) of the discovery of a means of producing cold fusion has
repeatedly tarnished this professionalism with blatant attempts to
question the competence and integrity of F&P, as well as to call them
outright liars. Furthermore, all of this is going on while the verdict is
still out. Skepticism is one thing; publically implying that F&P are
incompetent, immoral, and foolish is another.
In the second week after the 23 March announcement (on 6 April to be exact),
physics professor H. W. Lewis of the University of California at Santa
Barbara wrote in the Los Angeles Times:
Did the Utah team acheive cold fusion? No.
Followed by:
If the Utah scientists had actually produced cold fusion at
any substantial level, they would have been bathed in a
deadly beam of neutrons that [would have] fried them to a
crisp.
And:
If they had produced as much as a watt of power through
fusion, there would have been a trillion neutrons per second,
which would be lethal in a very short time. That they lived
to hold their press conference is clear and unambiguous proof
that they did not produce any noticeable amount of power
through cold fusion.
I would say that Lewis is describing F&P as both incompetent and foolish!
Worse than that, Lewis did not wait for any of the attempts to recreate the
F&P experiment to be completed before writing this commentary.
At appearance after appearance, F&P have been met not only with skepticism, but
with only slightly muffled anger and hostility. Reports of problems of this
kind were reported at the Fleischmann appearance in Italy, and at the Pons
appearance at the American Chemical Society meeting in Dallas during the second
week in April.
In describing the congressional hearing on cold fusion that occurred last week,
Larry Brader (of Tektronix) said that:
Furth and others were sarcastic and somewhat abrasive to the
UU group.
Why? What ax does Furth, a physicist from Princeton, have to grind? (sarcasm)
There appears to be both bad blood between physicists and chemists in general,
as well as vested interests, like congressional funding, at stake in particular.
It is totally unprofessional to air "dirty laundry" in public. Yet, that is
exactly what the physicists are doing!
Then there are the seminars being given by cold fusion researchers throughout
academia. For example, there is the belittling of F&P at Yale:
Gai displayed data showing that during this time [last seven
hours of the experiment] detector #1 counted a grand total of
2 neutrons, which the group named "Fleischmann" and "Pons".
The Yale seminar discussed the unsuccessful attempts by Yale and Brookhaven to
replicate the F&P results. By being one of the many research efforts that
probably used drawn, rather than cast palladium, Yale was unable to get the
excessive heat seen by F&P at the University of Utah. By the time the seminar
was held late last week (there were actually two seminars on 28 and 29 April),
the Yale researchers should have been aware of this problem. Yet Gai, who is
an associate professor of physics at Yale, carefully omitted this fact during
his presentation, because he knew it relegated all of the Yale-Brookhaven
results to merely control experiments, while at least eight other universities
worldwide had not fallen into the drawn-versus-cast palladium trap, namely
Texas A&M, Stanford, the University of Florida, Moscow University in the Soviet
Union, Sao Paulo University in Brazil, as well as universities in Poland,
Czechoslovakia, and China. Instead, Gai resorted to reporting the absence of
neutrons in an experiment which had obviously failed as if the failure was a
success; the absence of neutrons was reported as significant despite the fact
that the experiment showed no signs of heat, and despite the presence of
chemists from Brrokhaven, no heat measurements were performed. It was the
reporting on the "significant" absence of neutrons which led to the ridicule
of F&P mentioned above.
Then yesterday, the Boston Gloge quotes Ron Parker and Ron Ballinger, two
physicists from MIT as saying that F&P are guilty of:
misrepresentation and maybe fraud
Ron Parker is (or has been) the director of MIT's Plasma Fusion Lab and their
Alcator-C tokamak research project according to David A Honig on the net.
These physicists have an obvious ax to grind.
Meanwhile at the American Physical Society conference in Baltimore last night,
Caltech physicists claimed that they had repeated the F&P experiment, saw no
neutrons, did not say they saw heat (apparently because like all of the efforts
by physicists since the F&P announcement, they have not performed any
calorimetry), but did say they could explain away any heat that F&P did see
without resorting to fusion as an explanation. According to the Los Angeles
Times, "cheers" were heard as the physicists in the room obviously took the
announcement to be proof that F&P are wrong.
Cheers were heard indeed! This kind of behavior is ridiculous. I have been
appalled by the sporadic childish behavior of physicists since the original
F&P announcement, and things seem to be getting worse instead of better.
This latest barrage of jealousy appears to be linked to the appearance of
F&P at congressional hearings last week, which only underscores that money,
rather than common sense, is directing the mouths of these physicists. To
Paul F. Dietz who asks:
Is it my imagination, or did the critics' kid gloves come
off after Pons and Fleischmann asked congress for $25 M
(which would come from the hot fusion program)?
I say YES! The repugnant behavior of physicists, and apparently physicists
alone, has entered a new even more repugnant phase. These guys have a lot
to lose monetarily if F&P are right, but do they have to lose their self
respect as well?
How many physicists will have to "eat crow" if cold fusion (with energy levels
in excess of breakeven) is actually occurring like F&P claim? More important,
how much damage will be done in the mean time to the reputation of all
physicists in the eyes of John Q. Public, in the eyes of their funding sources
(usually the U. S. Government), and in the eyes of the rest of the science
community if this behavior continues?
I personally think that physicists should *keep their mouths shut* when it
comes to saying that F&P results are "impossible" until all the pertinent
facts are known. I personally think that announcing the absence of results
as either de facto proof that F&P are wrong "like we thought all along", or as
attempts to belittle and ridicule F&P ahould be curtailed immediately. As for
the latest tactic of calling them liars, well that doesn't even deserve a
response.
For the record, I was never fond of chemistry. When I was an aerospace
engineering student in the 1970s, I was glad when my chemistry requirements
had been met. By comparison, I have great admiration for and find great
elegance, as well as utility, in the physics.
In fact, the point of this entire commentary is to cause these unnecessary
negative comments and actions by physicists to cease for the sake of physics.
Such negative comments by physicists places physics in the same category as
common politics, where the people involved show no more maturity than the
average two-year-old. My comments are meant to keep physics at the proper
stature in the eyes of everyone.
Dave Skinner
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
da...@kirdu.jpl.nasa.gov
128.149.16.12
Michael Zehr
>Then yesterday, the Boston Gloge quotes Ron Parker and Ron Ballinger, two
>
>
> misrepresentation and maybe fraud
>
>
>Ron Parker is (or has been) the director of MIT's Plasma Fusion Lab and their
>Alcator-C tokamak research project according to David A Honig on the net.
>These physicists have an obvious ax to grind.
It was the Boston Herald (not the Globe), which is generally considered
as a sensationalist newspaper. Furthermore, as reported in the Boston
Globe today (May 2) (quoted without permission):
Ronald R. Parker, director of MIT's Plasma Fusion center, said
at a news conference, "Our conclusion is that the claim of
neutron detection is without foundation."
[mention and quote of herald article]
Parker and the MIT news office issued a statement yesterday
saying the article had "seriously misquoted" Perker and had
given a "largely incorrect view" of his statements.
Certainly some of the blame lies with the media.
-michael j zehr
(i'm not associated in any way with the plasma fusion center at MIT, or
with Parker, the Globe, or the Herald)
Tim Priddy
>F & P's errors are so grotesque that they are either incompetent (for
>not realizing it) or unprofessional (for misrepresenting their
>results). If I, as a computer scientist, could spot some of the
>errors, why couldn't they, experimental chemists, do likewise?
>F & P have caused many man-years of effort to be wasted. Scorn is
>an appropriate response. So is pity.
Tim Priddy (a computer scientist) responds:
Wasted man-years? F&P has not been proven wrong. You are merely
speculating (possibly just influenced by others' speculation).
Fact: Neutrons from "fusion in a jar" has been verified by more
than one team.
What are F&P's errors? That there're too few neutrons coming out
for the measured heat output to be explained by your understanding of fusion?
Do you maintain that it's just a chemical reaction? Hey, I've got
news for ya. A chemical reaction that liberates energy from nuclear bonds,
transmuting one element into another is fusion (period).
I know that there is no hard evidence of elemental transmutation,
but the neutrons imply a nuclear reaction. There's energy output that
chemistry doesn't explain. If it's not physics, and it's not chemistry, I
guess we need another discipline. Bring on the alchemists!
Tim Priddy (Oakland Coliseum, Sec: 123, row: 3, seat: 13)
internet: tpr...@homrun.intel.com
uucp: ...!{decwrl|hplabs!oliveb}!intelca!mipos3!tpriddy
Jorge Stolfi
Dave Skinner deplores "the repugnant behavior of [some] physicists"
>
> I always felt that physcists (like all scientists) were, or at
> least should be, careful to give their colleagues the benefit
> of the doubt on any scientific claim that their colleagues
> might make until after the verdict was in. Even then,
> scientists would usually let the stigma of going public and
> being wrong be sufficient punishment for the guilty.
> This is because the researchers suffer not only the
> embarrassment of the moment, but are undoubtedly haunted by
> their mistake throughout the remainder of their careers.
> All of this seems fitting and proper; the punishment fits the
> crime, so to speak.
That is fine as long as the "crime" is limited to journals,
conferences, and lab benches, and the only thing that is in jeopardy is
the reputation of the scientists making the claim.
However, when a dubious claim threatens to disrupt the life and work of
hundreds of thousands of people and cause huge piles of money
(public and private) to change hands, then I think scientists who
disbelieve the claim have not only the right to voice their opinion,
but indeed the DUTY to do so, without regard for academic comraderie.
Paul F Dietz asks:
>
> Is it my imagination, or did the critics' kid gloves come off
> after Pons and Fleischmann asked congress for $25 M (which
> would come from the hot fusion program)?
Yes, and what is wrong with that? If it is fine and proper for F&P and
UU to junk the rules of scientific debate in order to maximize their
slice of the pie, then why is it wrong for hot fusion scientists to
fight their jobs and lifetime work by stating their opinion
loud and clear? Or should they just sit there and watch, while their
research programs are cut and their money is diverted to UU, just
because two guys there *said* they got this fantastic result, that is
inconsistent with the physics that they know?
Dave Skinner writes:
>
> The repugnant behavior of physicists, and apparently physicists
> alone, has entered a new even more repugnant phase.
> These guys have a lot to lose monetarily if F&P are right, but
> do they have to lose their self respect as well? [...]
>
> How many physicists will have to "eat crow" if cold fusion
> (with energy levels in excess of breakeven) is actually
> occurring like F&P claim? More important, how much damage will
> be done in the mean time to the reputation of all physicists in
> the eyes of John Q. Public, in the eyes of their funding
> sources (usually the U. S. Government), and in the eyes of
> the rest of the science community if this behavior continues?
*IF* F&P's claims are actually true, any damage caused by the physicists'
skepticism will fall (very hard) mostly on the physicists themselves.
Why does this possibility bother you so much? Wouldn't you consider
it a fitting punishment?
If anything, those physicists should be admired for their courage in
stating their disbelief loud and clear, when it would be much smarter
for them to keep quiet or make some encouraging noises.
(Obviously, if cold fusion is real, no amount of disbelief will make it
go away.)
On the other hand, *IF* F&P's claims are false, the damage they have done
so far is already HUGE. For starters, there is the time wasted by
scientists around the world trying to replicat the experiment
(this item alone can easily be in the tens of millions of dollars).
Add to that the cost of equipment, lab space, phone and fax bills,
travel, media coverage, USENET traffic, etc. All this because the
physicists did exactly what good scientists are supposed to do: rushed
out to the lab and tried to replicate the claimed results.
I am neither a physicist nor a chemist, and the little I know about the
F&P claim comes mainly from reading their paper and the postings on these
newsgroups. From this limited perspective I got the impression that as
far as bad science is concerned, F&P are more guilty than the
physicists that criticize them. Their paper was quite obscure and
ambiguous, and over the past month they seem to have done precious little
to fill in its gaps, even on basic questions of measurement methods
and control experiments that couldn't possibly affect their patent
plans.
Of course, there is still the possibility that F&P are right.
Even if they are wrong, they may have had plenty of good excuses.
However, ther is no question that the ball is now on their court.
The physicists did their homework, much better (on the whole) than F&P
did theirs. Those who disbelieve F&P's claims and accuse them of
serious methodological errors seem to have very good reasons to do so.
Self-interest has certainly influenced the tone of the their comments,
but when Dave says that that "money, rather than common sense, is
directing the mouths of these physicists", he seems to be commiting the
same "repugnant" slandering that he so deplores, only multiplied a
thousandfold.
Why are F&P more respectable, honest, and incorruptible _a priori_ than
all their critics put together? Why should untold millions in
potential royalies leave a chemist cool and objective, whereas the
prospect of a mere principal investigator's salary is enough to make a
physicist lie and cheat?
Jorge Stolfi (sto...@src.dec.com, ...!decwrl!stolfi)
DISCLAIMER: The above opinions are not the sort of stuff my employer,
my teachers, my friends, or my mother would like to be associated with.
Paul Dietz
>I agree wholeheartedly. I don't know whether cold fusion actually took
>place in Utah or anywhere else, but I have found the public comments of
>"heavyweights" at Priceton, Harvard, MIT and elsewhere repulsive. Scorn
>and belittlement have no place in academic society.
Nonsense. There is a big difference between being open-minded and
empty-headed.
F & P's errors are so grotesque that they are either incompetent (for
not realizing it) or unprofessional (for misrepresenting their
results). If I, as a computer scientist, could spot some of the
errors, why couldn't they, experimental chemists, do likewise?
F & P have caused many man-years of effort to be wasted. Scorn is
an appropriate response. So is pity.
Paul F. Dietz
di...@cs.rochester.edu
Caption of S. Harris cartoon:
"I didn't even know there *was* a Nobel Booby Prize."
Paul Dietz
>Paul F Dietz asks:
>> Is it my imagination, or did the critics' kid gloves come off
>> after Pons and Fleischmann asked congress for $25 M (which
>> would come from the hot fusion program)?
>Yes, and what is wrong with that?
Absolutely nothing. F & P's congressional shenanigans were despicable.
I was not criticizing the critics.
Paul F. Dietz
di...@cs.rochester.edu
Doug Roberts
And who said physicists had a lock on arrogance?
--
===============================================================
Douglas Roberts
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Box 1663, MS F-602
Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545
(505)667-4569
dz...@lanl.gov
===============================================================
Robert K Shull
>
>>"heavyweights" at Priceton, Harvard, MIT and elsewhere repulsive. Scorn
>>and belittlement have no place in academic society.
>
>an appropriate response. So is pity.
Scorn and derision (especially in a public interview) are not appropriate
(or professional) responses. Unfortunately, I have noticed this kind of
attitude toward other disciplines (especially non-science disciplines) from
professional physicists. What about other fields? Is there the same kind of
"clannish" attitude?
Anyway, a lot of the interviews sounded more like hysteria than scorn.
Robert
--
Robert K. Shull
sun!texsun!uokmax!rob
David Gudeman
]In article <40...@ece-csc.UUCP> j...@ece-csc.UUCP (Joseph Nathan Hall) writes:
]>... I have found the public comments of
]>"heavyweights" at Priceton, Harvard, MIT and elsewhere repulsive. Scorn
]>and belittlement have no place in academic society.
]... F & P's errors are so grotesque that they are either incompetent (for
]not realizing it) or unprofessional (for misrepresenting their
]results). If I, as a computer scientist, could spot some of the
]errors, why couldn't they, experimental chemists, do likewise?
This is a perfect example of the non-professionalism described above,
and I'm embarassed that it came from another computer scientist. What
errors are you refering to pray tell? There has been a lot of
speculation about things they _might_ have done wrong, but it is only
speculation, and any open-minded person would wait a little longer
before making a decision about it. And considerably longer before
taking the serious step of calling someone incompetent.
All of this has confirmed an opinion that I have held for a long time,
that there is no such thing as an objective scientist. Science is
just as political as any other field, it's just that the political
wrangling is usually carried out at conferences instead of in the
newspapers. The only unusual constraint on physics over other
political endeavors is that there are real, verifiable events that any
political party (read "proponents of a theory") have to account for.
But as long as there is any possibility of constructing doubts about a
particular event, loyalists of parties who don't approve of the event
will do all they can to sabotage the party that uses the event as part
of its political platform. The whole thing is a little embarrassing.
--
David Gudeman
Department of Computer Science
The University of Arizona gud...@arizona.edu
Tucson, AZ 85721 {allegra,cmcl2,ihnp4,noao}!arizona!gudeman
Edward McClanahan
> ]not realizing it) or unprofessional (for misrepresenting their
> ]results). If I, as a computer scientist, could spot some of the
> ]errors, why couldn't they, experimental chemists, do likewise?
> This is a perfect example of the non-professionalism described above,
> and I'm embarassed that it came from another computer scientist.
> ...
> All of this has confirmed an opinion that I have held for a long time,
> that there is no such thing as an objective scientist. Science is
> just as political as any other field, it's just that the political
> wrangling is usually carried out at conferences instead of in the
> newspapers.
Hear - hear !!!
I must admit that I was dismayed by the accounts from the CalTech presentation
which were followed by resounding applause. Why is the implied failure of
a new discovery (so valuable to society) something to cheer about? Maybe
the applause was for the style and/or thoroughness of the presentation. I
hope that is all it was. For me, if F & P have somehow failed to discover
such a potentially beneficial effect (whether Fusion or not), I will be
VERY DISAPPOINTED - certainly not inclined to applaud.
Ed "are F & P glowing yet" McClanahan
Paul Dietz
>This is a perfect example of the non-professionalism described above,
>and I'm embarassed that it came from another computer scientist. What
>errors are you refering to pray tell?
First: (1) their nuclear technique, AS DESCRIBED IN THE PAPER, is
awful. You do not take background measurements by moving your detector
5, 10 or 50 meters away from the apparatus. (2) their helium
measurements are greatly suspect; I mentioned my concern about
the over-production of helium and the lack of checks for atmospheric
contamination, (3) the lack of control experiments.
At Baltimore, Koonin, Lewis, etc. presented many other serious
problems.
>There has been a lot of
>speculation about things they _might_ have done wrong, but it is only
>speculation, and any open-minded person would wait a little longer
>before making a decision about it.
I waited a long time. It exceeds my capacity for wishful thinking to
wait any longer. Every one of their purported positive results has
been effectively destroyed. The lack of a theory -- despite trying --
is also damning.
> And considerably longer before
> taking the serious step of calling someone incompetent.
I said they were either incompetent (for not recognizing the poor
quality of their claims) or unprofessional (for deliberately
misrepresenting the quality of their claims).
If you still wish to excuse P & F, consider this: at ANY TIME in the
last month they could have submitted a "used" cathode for analysis
for trapped helium. That they did not says something about their
confidence that it would pass the test.
Paul F. Dietz
di...@cs.rochester.edu
Donald Benson
practical energy levels, it probably would have been "classified". Now, if
a few labs can replicate it, there is no way to keep it hidden.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My radical ideas would never be accepted by a staid company like this.
DonB
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HOW...@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu
mention, and Gai is nothing like the F&P-basher you make him out to be.
The bit about the neutrons was *funny*! A joke! Get it? Geez, if you
can't see any humor in that, I'm sorry. Gai did not at any time act at
all maliciously towards F&P; rather, he was, I think, respectful of their
results. He made a *big point* of saying, over and over, that "we cannot
make any claim about the F&P experiment, and we cannot say that we
proved them wrong; all we say is that we did not achieve the same
results that they did." (I rather thought he went overboard in trying
not to comment on F&P, but apparently not...) As for the cast Palladium
bit, I think that Gai genuinely did not know that that could make a
difference, and when someone hinted at it during the Q&A period, he
did not seem to understand what they meant until it was explained after
the seminar. I do not think that Gai was actually trying to hide the
"fact" that his results were worthless (I certainly don't think they
were - they did get valid results for drawn Pd, at least). I think that
you are trying to interpret a general mood from a few statements taken
in the wrong context, and I think that you are wrong. Please keep the
humor detector on and be careful with your interpretations and consequent
accusations.
Sorry for the interruption; now back to the discussion.
The Space People will contact us when they | Greg Howard
can make money by doing so. - DAVID BYRNE | HOWGREJ at YALEVM
Dave Mack
>In article <10...@megaron.arizona.edu> gud...@arizona.edu (David Gudeman) writes:
>
>>This is a perfect example of the non-professionalism described above,
>>and I'm embarassed that it came from another computer scientist. What
>>errors are you refering to pray tell?
>
>First: (1) their nuclear technique, AS DESCRIBED IN THE PAPER, is
>awful. You do not take background measurements by moving your detector
>5, 10 or 50 meters away from the apparatus.
True.
> (2) their helium
>measurements are greatly suspect; I mentioned my concern about
>the over-production of helium and the lack of checks for atmospheric
>contamination,
I see no mention whatsoever of attempts to measure helium in the
F&P paper submitted to J. Electroanalyt. Chem. 3/20/89. What are
you talking about?
> (3) the lack of control experiments.
They didn't do the control experiments *you* wanted - they did do
control experiments using Pt cathodes to determine how they should
do their calorimetry calculations. But yes, they should have done
the test with H2O to ensure that it wasn't chemical. Of course,
in the course of five years of messing with this, they may have
eliminated that possibility early on, but I agree they should have
presented results.
>At Baltimore, Koonin, Lewis, etc. presented many other serious
>problems.
But failed to explain the heat production mechanism in the F&P,
Texas A&M and Stanford results, to mention only a few of the sites
that have observed excess heat production.
>>There has been a lot of
>>speculation about things they _might_ have done wrong, but it is only
>>speculation, and any open-minded person would wait a little longer
>>before making a decision about it.
>
>I waited a long time. It exceeds my capacity for wishful thinking to
>wait any longer. Every one of their purported positive results has
>been effectively destroyed.
Indeed? Including their calorimetry? Please cite the error in their
calorimetry measurements. Please include a reference.
> The lack of a theory -- despite trying --
>is also damning.
Please be serious. Compare the time between the Michaelson-Morley
experiment and the Special Theory of Relativity to the time since
F&P let their paper loose.
And of course, those four papers Hagelstein submitted are irrelevant.
>> And considerably longer before
>> taking the serious step of calling someone incompetent.
>
>I said they were either incompetent (for not recognizing the poor
>quality of their claims) or unprofessional (for deliberately
>misrepresenting the quality of their claims).
Bullshit. Are you claiming that every scientist who ever made a mistake
is incompetent? F&P's nuclear measurements are lousy by the standards
of those who do nuclear measurements for a living, but they were quite
probably the best they could afford to do and knew how to do. Agreed,
they should have brought in someone who did know the field better.
>If you still wish to excuse P & F, consider this: at ANY TIME in the
>last month they could have submitted a "used" cathode for analysis
>for trapped helium. That they did not says something about their
>confidence that it would pass the test.
Really? Are you aware that researchers rarely own the equipment they
use in experiments? That the U of U may have had some say in this matter?
Did anyone offer to assay one of their rods, to your knowledge? Seems
to me that damn near everyone rushed out to set up their own apparatus
using their own palladium.
And I suppose the same criticism should be directed at Jones et al at
BYU since they didn't rush out to have someone else assay their metals
either?
And finally, the fact that they *did* give one of their rods to a U of U
group for mass spec analysis and that group *did* find He-4 can be
ignored, right?
Cold fusion won't be ruled out until someone can come up with a full
explanation of the excess enthalpy generation (which has been observed at
at least a dozen sites to date) in D2O but not H2O (Huggins at Stanford)
which does not depend on a fusion reaction.
--
Dave Mack
James_J_...@cup.portal.com
>Nonsense. There is a big difference between being open-minded and
>empty-headed.
>
>F & P's errors are so grotesque that they are either incompetent (for
>not realizing it) or unprofessional (for misrepresenting their
>results). If I, as a computer scientist, could spot some of the
>errors, why couldn't they, experimental chemists, do likewise?
Ummm, did I miss something? I know of no errors, grotesque or otherwise,
by Pons and Fleischmann. All I have heard is a lot of pontificating
by biased Physicists.
I find it amazing that speakers at the APS held an entire session
best characterized as "Pons and Fleischmann bashing" with nothing more to
back up their claims than their own inability to reproduce the results.
Time will tell whether Pons and Fleischmann are correct, and if and when
it does, there are going to be a lot of "scientists" eating crow.
Meanwhile, Pons' research group continues to merrily conduct experiments,
and the U. of U. continues to file for patents.
Jim Kowalczyk
Matthew L. Ginsberg
...
>Time will tell whether Pons and Fleischmann are correct ...
There is indeed an article on cold fusion in Time this week. I wasn't
aware of it's making any such definitive statements, though ...
Matt Ginsberg
Woody Kellum
early press conferences. Pons hypothesized this relation from the results
of the experiments that followed those press conferences. My source
for this information is messsage <18...@cup.portal.com> from
Kowa...@chemistry.utah.edu (Jim Kowalczyk) who writes:
>Pons was quoted recently in the Deseret News (local newspaper in SLC)
>as saying that until all the recent failures around the country had
>led him to deduce the connection between cast Pd and success, and milled
>Pd and failure, many of their attempts would also mysteriously fail
>to generate excess heat. Now, he says, they can get working cells
>about "90% of the time". ...
Dan Offutt
off...@caen.engin.umich.edu
Woody Kellum
Victor D Roberts
>be, careful to give their colleagues the benefit of the doubt on any
>scientific claim that their colleagues might make until after the verdict
>was in.
>
>Meanwhile at the American Physical Society conference in Baltimore last night,
>Caltech physicists claimed that they had repeated the F&P experiment, saw no
>neutrons, did not say they saw heat (apparently because like all of the efforts
>by physicists since the F&P announcement, they have not performed any
>calorimetry), but did say they could explain away any heat that F&P did see
>without resorting to fusion as an explanation. According to the Los Angeles
>Times, "cheers" were heard as the physicists in the room obviously took the
>announcement to be proof that F&P are wrong.
>
>Cheers were heard indeed! This kind of behavior is ridiculous. I have been
>appalled by the sporadic childish behavior of physicists since the original
>F&P announcement, and things seem to be getting worse instead of better.
>I personally think that physicists should *keep their mouths shut* when it
>comes to saying that F&P results are "impossible" until all the pertinent
>facts are known. I personally think that announcing the absence of results
>as either de facto proof that F&P are wrong "like we thought all along", or as
>attempts to belittle and ridicule F&P ahould be curtailed immediately. As for
>the latest tactic of calling them liars, well that doesn't even deserve a
>response.
>
I was at the APS meeting Monday night. What I heard most of the speakers
say was that USING THE BEST INFORMATION AVAILABLE TO THEM THEY HAD REPLICATED
THE THE FLEISCHMANN AND PONS EXPERIMENTS AND HAD BEEN UNABLE TO REPRODUCE
THEIR RESULTS.
Most of the physicists are ANGRY that F&P have HIDDEN CRITICAL DETAILS of the
experiments from the scientific community, while claiming in their
press coferences that this is SO EASY that it can be done with equipment
found in any chemistry lab.
If the trick is cast palladium, this fact was certainly NOT revealed in
any of the early F&P press conferences, nor in their one paper. Also,
I doubt that the "typical" chemistry lab would have just the right type
of cast palladium.
I heard VERY FEW physicists say it COULD NOT BE DONE -EVER. I did hear
many say it could not be done according to the information provided to date
by F&P.
Vic Roberts
GE Research and Development Center, Schenectady, NY
rob...@crd.ge.com
James_J_...@cup.portal.com
>If you still wish to excuse P & F, consider this: at ANY TIME in the
>last month they could have submitted a "used" cathode for analysis
>for trapped helium. That they did not says something about their
>confidence that it would pass the test.
>
> Paul F. Dietz
> di...@cs.rochester.edu
Yes, this is a very good idea. I understand they will do just this
next week with Los Alamos. The delay is due to the patent lawyers
(unfortunately). The word I have is that Pons has been told by the
patent people to give out even fewer details unless cleared by them.
This is not how science is normally done in Universities, but it is
not uncommon in industry, and since Pons & Fleischmann are not getting
funding through the normal academic channels, they can afford to do it.
Jim Kowalczyk
Jorge Stolfi
>
> The cast-Pd/success relation was not known to F&P at the time of their
Ok, so here is *yet another* theory. Assumptions:
1. Hydrogen-saturated palladium is a poorer electrical conductor than pure Pd.
2. Deuterium-saturated Pd is a bit less conducting than H-saturated Pd.
3. Drawn/milled Pd absorbs far less hydrogen/deuterium than cast Pd.
4. F&P measured temperatures near the top of the cell.
In a fresh F&P cell, current flow, and hence ohmic heating, is evenly
distributed along the whole length of the cell. This continues to be
the case during the charging phase, as long as there is a core of
metallic Pd in the middle of the electrode. Once the Pd electrode gets
completely charged, its resistance suddenly increases, and the current
flow suddenly becomes concentrated towards the top part of the cell.
Bubble production in both electrodes also shifts to the top of the
cell, which reduces stirring. Substituting H for D gives a similar but
less pronounced effect. Drawn/milled Pd doesn't work because it cannot
absorb enough gas to lose its conductivity.
In addition, it is barely conceivable that F&P increased the voltage in
the "production" phase, in order to keep the current constant in spite
of increased resistance, and somehow failed to account properly for the
increased heating. (could this be what they mean by the "establishment
of negative overpotentials" attributed to huge internal pressure of the
absorbed hydrogen?)
Re chemists-know-best: 1. Some postings have characterized the APS
meeting as a "physicists vs chemists." To me the reports sound more
like "physiscists and chemists vs Fleischmann and Pons."
2. Surely many chemists know everything about calorimetry, and many
chemists know everything about electrolysis. Yet I wonder how many
chemists have ever attempted calorimetry on a live electrolysis cell?
Especially one with poorly characterized electrodes that change with
time? Given the obvious difficulties of distinguishing ohmic heating
from chemical heating in these circumstances, I bet that few if any
chemists ever considered carrying out such an experiment---unless
they were expecting something really dramatic, such as energy out >>
energy in. If so, physicists may indeed be at least as competent to
discuss this matter as chemists are.
Jorge Stolfi
Department of Cold Confusion
DEC Systems Research Center
sto...@src.dec.com, ...!decwrl!stolfi
John Moore
]
]1. Hydrogen-saturated palladium is a poorer electrical conductor than pure Pd.
]2. Deuterium-saturated Pd is a bit less conducting than H-saturated Pd.
]3. Drawn/milled Pd absorbs far less hydrogen/deuterium than cast Pd.
]4. F&P measured temperatures near the top of the cell.
]
]In a fresh F&P cell, current flow, and hence ohmic heating, is evenly
]distributed along the whole length of the cell. This continues to be
]the case during the charging phase, as long as there is a core of
]metallic Pd in the middle of the electrode. Once the Pd electrode gets
]completely charged, its resistance suddenly increases, and the current
]flow suddenly becomes concentrated towards the top part of the cell.
]Bubble production in both electrodes also shifts to the top of the
]cell, which reduces stirring. Substituting H for D gives a similar but
]less pronounced effect. Drawn/milled Pd doesn't work because it cannot
]absorb enough gas to lose its conductivity.
Sorry, but a few FACTS disprove this theory rather thoroughly:
(1) Resistance of D-Pd system is only slightly higher than that
of H-Pd at high concentrations: 1.75x10^-5 ohm-cm vs
1.42x10^-5 ohm-cm. Notice that both of these are extremely
low: resistance of the rod end-to-end (the worst case) at
4mmx10cm is: 1.3x10^-4 ohm. To get 26 watts from that
requires a current of 454 Amperes. To get a 26 watt difference
from light water requires 1046 Amperes. They were actually
running (after scaling) 6.43 Amperes.
(2) Drawn/Milled Pd has a HIGHER permeability to D2 and H2. It has
at least the occlusive capacity (capacity to absorb gas) as
cast Pd.
--
John Moore (NJ7E) mcdphx!anasaz!john asuvax!anasaz!john
(602) 861-7607 (day or eve) long palladium, short petroleum
The opinions expressed here are obviously not mine, so they must be
someone else's. :-)
Jim Frost
|go away.)
True, but rampant disbelief can destroy the scientist's life even if
he's correct, and delay scientific progress in addition. Recall
Copernicus.
jim frost
ma...@bu-it.bu.edu
Dave Mack
>Sorry, but a few FACTS disprove this theory rather thoroughly:
>
> (1) Resistance of D-Pd system is only slightly higher than that
> of H-Pd at high concentrations: 1.75x10^-5 ohm-cm vs
> 1.42x10^-5 ohm-cm. Notice that both of these are extremely
> low: resistance of the rod end-to-end (the worst case) at
> 4mmx10cm is: 1.3x10^-4 ohm. To get 26 watts from that
> requires a current of 454 Amperes. To get a 26 watt difference
> from light water requires 1046 Amperes. They were actually
> running (after scaling) 6.43 Amperes.
Oh my God, FACTS! Imminent Death of Usenet Predicted. :-)
Of course, you need to take the resistance of the entire system into
account in the energy balance, not just the cathode, not to mention
the energy used in hydrolyzing the D2O, the energy absorbed during
the alpha-beta transition of the Pd, and the heat balance relating
to D+ occlusion into the cathode.
> (2) Drawn/Milled Pd has a HIGHER permeability to D2 and H2. It has
> at least the occlusive capacity (capacity to absorb gas) as
> cast Pd.
Are you sure about this, John? If so, could you please cite a reference?
An earlier posting mentioned that D accumulates at crystalline boundaries.
Since either drawn or milled palladium should have massive amounts
of dislocation at the rod surface, it would seem that it should take a
much longer time for D+ to diffuse into such a rod. Indeed, I assumed
that this was the reason for the long chargeup time F&P say is necessary
to make the experiment work, even with cast rods, and why most of the
attempts to replicate the experiment have failed. The crystalline
structure of a cast palladium rod should depend strongly on how quickly
it cooled and how it was treated after removal from the mold, etc.
If bulk palladium (not foil) is actually *more* permeable when it has
dislocations, that shoots this idea straight to hell, doesn't it?
--
Dave Mack
John Moore
]In article <18...@anasaz.UUCP> jo...@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes:
]>Sorry, but a few FACTS disprove this theory rather thoroughly:
]>
]> (1) Resistance of D-Pd system is only slightly higher than that
]> of H-Pd at high concentrations: 1.75x10^-5 ohm-cm vs
]> 1.42x10^-5 ohm-cm. Notice that both of these are extremely
]> low: resistance of the rod end-to-end (the worst case) at
]> 4mmx10cm is: 1.3x10^-4 ohm. To get 26 watts from that
]> requires a current of 454 Amperes. To get a 26 watt difference
]> from light water requires 1046 Amperes. They were actually
]> running (after scaling) 6.43 Amperes.
]
]Oh my God, FACTS! Imminent Death of Usenet Predicted. :-)
References:
Electrical resistivity of Pd (no H or D present) :
Rare Metals Handbook, Clifford A Hampel, Reinhold Pub. Co.,
Lib of Cong 61-10449 (1961)
Variation of electrical resistance of Pd-D and Pd-H with
cathodic current density (and hence, at equilibrium, concentraction):
Hydrogen in Metals, Donald P. Smith, U of Chicago Press (1948)
]
]> (2) Drawn/Milled Pd has a HIGHER permeability to D2 and H2. It has
]> at least the occlusive capacity (capacity to absorb gas) as
]> cast Pd.
]
]Are you sure about this, John? If so, could you please cite a reference?
From Hydrogen in Metals (see above);
"3.1 General characteristics of (occlusive) metals--
[i.] Metal, in its ordinary state, is inert toward gaseous hydrogen,
at ordinary temperature and pressure.
[ii.] If gradually heated in hydrogen, the metal begins to occlude
[absorb hydrogen] at a (rather indefinite opening temperature.
[iii.] Occlusion is, in its earlier stages, self-accelerating (initial
opening).
[iv.] Metal, in its ordinary state, is penetrated by hydrogen at
extreme pressures and, when once thus opened, is thereafter
permeable at much lower pressure.
[v.] Metal in its ordinary state, although impermeable to gas of
atmospheric pressure, readily occludes hydrogen liberated
upon it electrolytically or by chemical displacement.
[vi.]Repeated absorption and evolution of hydrogen cause either much
diminished or much increased permeability, depending, apparently
upon the rapidity with which the gas is expelled.
[vii.]Metal which has been sujected to high heating is very intert to
the gas; and particularly pure metal, after such heating IN VACUO,
may be impervious even to cathodic hydrogen. [interesting when you
consider recent statements by confirming experimenters regarding
metal purity -- JRM]
[viii.] Permeability is increased by plastic deformation [i.e. cold work]
sometimes many fold.
[ix.] Increase of permeability, however produced, is accompanied by
increase of occlusive capacity."
....and later....
" It may be more directly seen....for palladium...it is clear that rate of
absorption at ordinary temperature increased with the degree of
foregoing cold-working."
...and...
" 1. Strained metal has, in general, both a higher rate of absorption and
a greater occlusive capacity than does the same metal in an annealed
condition.
2. There nevertheless exist indications that cold-working may, in certain
cases, produce an effect just opposite to that mentioned above (see 4.8a).
[---see below---]
3. The effect of annealing after foregoing strain, in diminishing both
rate and capacity, is greater, the higher the temperature of the anneal."
...and...
"4.8.a .... The chief study of such effects has been that of Tammann and
Schneider, 1928, from which several figures are shown in this chapter.
The results of this study with regard to palladium have been, in the
main, confirmed by Smith and Derge, 1934.II. In this later investigation
it was found, however, that the result of cold-working is not invariably
an increase of occlusive velocity, but that the opposite effect sometimes
results. Apparently, the state of the metal before working and the manner
of plastic deformation are co-operating factors, and the results
are not, thus far, in all respects predictable. There are some indications,
also, that the presence of small residual quantities of hydrogen in the
metal may affect this and many other permeability influences."
Notice how complex this subject of Hydrogen into Palladium is! I could
put a lot more quotes here about it, but won't. Suffice it to say that
almost anything you can think of effects the occlusion of H or D
in Palladium, sometimes in rather wierd ways.
Is it any wonder that there are questions over producing "identical"
experiments to confirm or refut P&F?
Amazing what you can find in a university library :-)
All quotes without permission, but worth quoting, don't you think?
Dave Mack
>In article <35...@alembic.UUCP> c...@alembic.UUCP (Dave Mack) writes:
>]
>]> at least the occlusive capacity (capacity to absorb gas) as
>]> cast Pd.
>]
>]Are you sure about this, John? If so, could you please cite a reference?
>
>From Hydrogen in Metals (see above);
[Interesting goodies about H in metals omitted]
>"4.8.a .... The chief study of such effects has been that of Tammann and
> Schneider, 1928, from which several figures are shown in this chapter.
> The results of this study with regard to palladium have been, in the
> main, confirmed by Smith and Derge, 1934.II. In this later investigation
> it was found, however, that the result of cold-working is not invariably
> an increase of occlusive velocity, but that the opposite effect sometimes
> results. Apparently, the state of the metal before working and the manner
> of plastic deformation are co-operating factors, and the results
> are not, thus far, in all respects predictable. There are some indications,
> also, that the presence of small residual quantities of hydrogen in the
> metal may affect this and many other permeability influences."
Weird. Extremely weird.
Question: does either F. A. Lewis (_The Palladium-Hydrogen System_) or
Smith (_Hydrogen in Metals_) specifically give an upper limit for
deuterium occlusivity in Pd? The number being quoted in general is
800 times the (initial?) volume of the Pd sample, but I believe this
is for H, not D. If the limit for H is in part due to Pauli exclusion,
then the limit for D (a boson) might be considerably higher. This
might explain the long "charging" times cited by FPH. In particular,
I wonder if there may be a gamma transition in the metal which can be
reached with deuterium but not hydrogen.
To start with, a few simple calculations give:
Number of conventional lattice cells/cc(Pd) = 1.699E22
(note that these are conventional, not primitive, cells. Also, the
the lattice spacing is for alpha-phase Pd.)
This implies that there are 3.165E-3*V H/D atoms per cell, where
V is the number of volumes of H/D occluded. I assume that a "volume"
means the amount of diatomic gas at STP occluded.
Volumes H/D Occluded H/D atoms/cell gm-(H/D)2O
-------------------- -------------- ----------
30 .095 0.026
315.96 1.0 0.282
631.9 2.0 0.564
800 2.53 0.714
According to John's earlier posting, the alpha-beta transition in Pd
occurs when about 30 volumes of H/D have been occluded. At this point,
the metal contains approximately 1 H/D atom for every 10 conventional
lattice cells. This strongly suggests that the alpha-beta transition
is a dynamic, not a static effect, i.e., due to H/D motion in the
metal rather than occupancy of lattice cells by H/D. In addition, the
fact that occlusivity depends on the previous occlusion history seems
to imply that there are hysteresis effects - the expanded lattice is
quasistable. It would be interesting to see if these effects appear
in single-crystal Pd.
The long charging times cited by FPH seem at odds with the amount of
D2O required to charge the cell to the cited maximum (800V). This is
what provoked the preceding speculation about a different upper limit
for D and/or the existence of a gamma transition.
For the moment, assume that such a gamma transition exists, that
the transition is "sudden", and that the reverse transition to beta
phase is also "sudden". The amount of occluded D must imply at least
3 D atoms per conventional cell.
If the cell charging characteristics are maintained at the right
rate, a large number of crystals in the sample may be undergoing
gamma-beta transitions, implying sudden compression of the D atoms
in the cell. During this compression phase, the fusion rate may be
significantly enhanced if the cell occupancy by D is sufficiently
high.
If the assumptions made above are valid, it would explain both
the FPH and the BYU/Frascati results. FPH have found the parameters
corresponding to the gamma-beta transition. If the sample is imperfect,
fusion may occur intermittently and only in some regions of the
sample, explaining the "burst" neutron emission seen by Scaramuzzi,
and the "flashes" reported by F&P at the ECS meeting. The meltdown
at UofU would correspond to the sample reaching gamma phase during
the night. This is also a reasonable speculation for the 5-micron
"crater" found in the U of Washington sample.
Of course, this is pure speculation. If no gamma phase exists, then
it doesn't exist and this is fantasy. And of course, it doesn't begin
to explain the absence of radiation from the fusion process.
--
Dave Mack