Talk:Cold fusion

This article was the subject of mediation during 2009 at User_talk:Cryptic C62/Cold fusion.

I propose a new section "Mainstream Science Cold Fusion/LENR"

LENR hob nobs with leading nuclear scientists. LENR scientists end the conference with this wonderful presentation of Cold Fusion Technology.

Presented at the "Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space 2012 Topical Meeting" [1] which includes the following (and more):

The Lunar and Planetary Institute – 43rd Lunar And Planetary Science Conference

ANST – Aerospace Nuclear Science and Technology

USRA - Universities Space Research Association

ANS – American Nuclear Society

NASA

"A Game-Changing Power Source Based on Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENRs)" Xiaoling Yang and George H. Miley, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801 (104 S Wright Street, 216 Talbot Laboratory, Urbana, IL 61801 [2] --Gregory Goble (talk) 21:10, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Many attended the NETS topical meeting and heard the following presentation of theory developing from LENR science, which was delightfully billed as:

"Advanced Concepts: LENR, Anti-Matter, and New Physics" [3]

"CRYOGENIC IGNITION OF DEUTERON FUSION IN MICRO/NANO-SCALE METAL PARTICLES" Y. E. Kim, Department of Physics, Purdue University

Physics Building, West Lafayette IN 47907. [4]

Being the final presentation on the Friday of this three day meeting infers significant weight to the attendees.

Cold Fusion/LENR is peer reviewed by the best and brightest, hence its' advancement.--Gregory Goble (talk) 23:34, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

LENR scientists are welcome in the most revered hallowed halls of physics. This is so worthy of posting in this section. Yea!!!

CERN Colloquium in Geneva, Switzerland

Overview of Theoretical and Experimental Progress in Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) [5]

Chaired by Francesco Celani with a presentation by Yogendra Srivastava Thursday, March 22, 2012 from 16:30 to 18:00 (Europe/Zurich) at CERN ( 500-1-001 - Main Auditorium )

Two Parts

ONE

“Overview of LENT Theory: Low Energy Nuclear Transmutations” [6] (LENR) by Yogendra Srivastava, Professor of Physics. INFN & Department of Physics University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy

Summary clearly states that LENR is replicable science, “Theoretical know how and technology for LENT already exist.” [7] (See pg. 40)

TWO

“Overview of Theoretical and Experimental Progress in Low Energy Nuclear Reactions(LENR)” [8] Francesco CELANI - National Institute of Nuclear Physics, Frascati National Laboratories. Vice-President of International Society for Condensed Matter Nuclear Science.

Encyclopedic works concerning science need be reflective of the present state of the art of the environmental, experimental, or observational element of science over the theoretical state of the art.

If you and others really really really see something that does not fit theory… theories change while all physical phenomenon are real.

The present state of the art for LENR/ Cold Fusion environments is explained in this presentation… “The use of nano material (powder and thin wires) makes evident the importance of increasing the surface exposed to the gas environment to enhance the effect. Arata (experiment) fully replicated by Mc Kubre (SRII- USA). Nano-dimensionality important by itself, as claimed by Y. Arata and B. Ahern?” [9] (from pg 11)

As this CERN presentation shows, “the quality of experiments worldwide performed is so high and the results obtained so widespread/reproduced” [10] (pg 32) we see the science has indeed advanced since the emergence of nano technology.

This litany of Cold Fusion/LENR Condensed Matter Scientific Works has been entered into the record of CERN. Both presentations were peer reviewed and approved months in advance and are now undergoing a more intense peer review as all published scientific works do. Everything in these presentations is WIKI WORTHY if presented in the proper light.

This article still has a bad bad time relevance and censorship problem compared to all of the recently published encyclopedias I just read. OH well what the ##### love keeps on going and going and going. We eventually figure it out.

With warm regards and electrifying anticipation.

So much of the WIKI article on cold fusion is focused way back in time because of the 10 year heavy edit battle.

We wonder (socialcencorshiporcorporate?hmmmm); private investigators are looking into this now. Grist for the film industry; now tracking all editor sources.

--Gregory Goble (talk) 04:54, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Proposed section header: "Cold Fusion- Mainstream Science"

Proposed text:

Cold Fusion/LENR LENT is peer reviewed by mainstream science. "Advanced Concepts: LENR, Anti-Matter, and New Physics" [11] "A Game-Changing Power Source Based on Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENRs)" [10] "Cryogenic Ignition of Deuteron Fusion In Micro/Nano-Scale Metal Particles" [12] Presented at the "Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space 2012 Topical Meeting and concurrent 43rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference" [9]

Peer review at CERN cold fusion Colloquium, 
”Overview of Theoretical and Experimental Progress in Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR)(LENT)” [13] “Overview of LENT Theory: Low Energy Nuclear Transmutations” [14] 
Summarizes that LENT (LENR) is replicable science, “Theoretical know how and technology for LENT already exist.” [15] (See pg. 40) “Overview of Theoretical and Experimental Progress in Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR)” [16] Here the description of state of the art LENR/ Cold Fusion environments is, “The use of nano material (powder and thin wires) makes evident the importance of increasing the surface exposed to the gas environment to enhance the effect. Arata (experiment) fully replicated by Mc Kubre (SRII- USA). Nano-dimensionality important by itself, as claimed by Y. Arata and B. Ahern?” [17] (from pg 11) and, “the quality of experiments worldwide performed is so high and the results obtained so widespread/reproduced”, [18] (pg 32) the art of this science has advanced since the emergence of nano technology.

End text So that's it so far. I will clear up the links (all are in the upper body of this section) and await delightful discourse and suggestions or objections. With warm regards and electrifying anticipation. --Gregory Goble (talk) 19:27, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

This proposal would give far too much weight to those talks. We should be very careful about using any sources which are not from mainstream news outlets or nuclear science journals. Olorinish (talk) 23:39, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Excuse me Olorinish... "not from news outlets or scientific journals". What are you, completely unaware that CERN is AND NETS are both leaders in nuclear science peer reviewed presentations and publications. Clearly Wiki Worthy. Tell me why you think they are not or quit commenting on this subject. Thank you for obfuscation. --Gregory Goble (talk) 12:04, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Why only nuclear science journals ? Any respected science journal is appropriate. The SPAWAR papers (long list) are published in several journals like Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Physics Letters A, Fusion Technology, Naturwissenschaften, European Physics Journal of Applied Physics, Radiation Measurements. Yeong E. Kim's papers are in journals Few-Body Systems, Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, Naturwissenschaften, Physics Letters A, Physical Review A. I could go on and on. There are summary papers published in such journals too.

"Too much weight" is an argument used here to artificially put weight on mainstream science view. There is a significant number of scientific peer-reviewed papers supportive of the minority view. In comparison, rebuttals to these papers are non existent. Based on number of published papers on the subject the WEIGHT in this article must be totally on the minority side. The fact that some journals blatantly refuse publishing anything related to the field and the fact that there is very limited funding for research in the field is not at all an argument for WP-editors to decide where to put the WEIGHT in our article. And you cannot only rely on outdated 20 year old books by biased authors to decide where to put the WEIGHT.

When I use a source from a peer reviewed paper from a science journal, I get an avalanche of "I don't like it" arguments why it cannot be used: "it's a primary source", "it's a fringe author", "it's a non reliable source", "it's too much weight". Your argument that only "nuclear science journals" should be used is just one of them.

--POVbrigand (talk) 07:24, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Hey POVbrigand slow down. I understand your frustration. Just go to the local library and you can find very good encyclopedic information about present day LENR science,--Gregory Goble (talk) 12:04, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

The mainstream secondary sources (many of them being quite recent) leave very clear what is the mainstream view. Also, giving lots of undue weight to conference talks. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:08, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

(ec) The scientific work from these researchers is completely underrepresented in our article. None of the secondary sources in your collection - even the quite recent ones - mentions the current scientific work, they each spend at most half a page of several hundred pages thick volumes merely restating 20 year old views. Is that really all you have to show ?

The minority view on the other hand is represented by numerous peer reviewed papers in respected journals. And as informed observers of the field have mentioned, the minority view is getting increasing exposure at mainstream science venues.[11]

From Wikipedia:Reliable_sources_and_undue_weight: "Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them—Wikipedia is not paper. But on such pages, though a view may be spelled out in great detail, it should not be represented as the truth."

From Wikipedia:WEIGHT#Undue_weight: "In articles specifically about a minority viewpoint, such views may receive more attention and space. However, these pages should still make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant and must not represent content strictly from the perspective of the minority view."

• Currently the minority view is not spelled out in great detail in our article.

From Wikipedia:Fringe#Peer_reviewed_sources: "One important bellwether for determining the notability and level of acceptance of fringe ideas related to science, history or other academic pursuits is the presence or absence of peer reviewed research on the subject." ... "Peer review is an important feature of reliable sources that discuss scientific, historical or other academic ideas, but it is not the same as acceptance by the scientific community. It is important that original hypotheses that have gone through peer review do not get presented in Wikipedia as representing scientific consensus or fact."

• The minority view is the minority view, we don't have to argue on that. But constantly editing the article to reduce the minority view or talk page arguing to deny additional details of the minority view is completely uncalled for.

--POVbrigand (talk) 12:50, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Enric_Naval I Can not understand you. Could you please elucidate further? Thank you for your obfuscation. I apologize for my inability to "GET" what you are saying. Please forgive me. Thank you very much, from the bottom of my heart,. I needed to painfully dredge that one up. Hack Hack.--Gregory Goble (talk) 12:04, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I now plead for a moderator to step in before I post this section to the article. A two day grace period is gladly given for substantative discourse. LOVE LOVE LOVE the ridiculousness of the ?Wiki? ?editorial? ?process? which I do not comprehend. In this context I might prevail... trust me on this one... or not. Hackers may be following this closely, or not. I do not know.--Gregory Goble (talk) 12:04, 27 March 2012 (UTC) It would be refreshingly refreshing if an honest idiot chimed in now with an innocent query seeking understanding for encyclopedic information on COLD FUSION and found Wiki sorely lacking on such. WHY? GUESS? this is undergoing deep obervational consideration.... trust me... us... them... OR NOT!--Gregory Goble (talk) 12:18, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Is there a real secondary source in there somewhere, or is it all just more poster session presentations? LeadSongDog come howl! 13:49, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

LeadDogSong> I sing of secondary praises contained in this submission for consideration, Comprende?--Gregory Goble (talk) 12:23, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

The list of presentations:

• Miley - NASA LENR Innovation Forum Workshop at Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio - September 22, 2011
• Miley - World Green Energy Symposium in Philadelphia, PA - October 19-21, 2011.
• Miley - Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space in The Woodlands, TX - March 21-23, 2012

-> peer reviewed paper in preparation

• Kim - Asia Pacific conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics in Seoul - August 22-26, 2011

-> peer reviewed paper "Nuclear Reactions in Micro/Nano-Scale Metal Particles" published in Few-Body Systems journal

• Kim - Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space in The Woodlands, TX - March 21-23, 2012

• Celani - World Sustainable Energy Conference in Geneva - January 10-12, 2012
• Celani - CERN LENR colloquium in Geneva - March 22, 2012

• Srivastava - CERN LENR colloquium in Geneva - March 22, 2012

We do not need a secondary source to validate that these presentation have taken place.

We do not need a secondary source to establish notability of these presentation (Notability guidelines do not limit content within an article)

We have a secondary source Wired that has highlighted some of these presentations

We should mention that these LENR presentations have recently taken place in mainstream venues (8 presentations in 6 months time by 4 different speakers).

--POVbrigand (talk) 09:18, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't see alot of agrument against what you are proposing POV Brigand, nor should there be, wikipedia is not a democracy, these presentations and their speekers can stand on thier own feet as reliable sources, write somthing up about all these talks and include it. I am personally shocked at how old all of the information in this article is, reading it is almost as if no new research at all has been done in the last 25 years... it's disgraceful. As an example: This line "However, they cannot explain these observations and have not demonstrated reliable replication of the effects" in the introduction seems to be a direct contradiction of the current claims of LENR scientists, (CERN coloquium and others, Widom-Larsden), specifically explainations that explain nearly all of the effects observed are discussed in Cern Talks, and it is also noted that a very high degree of reproducability is observed, this scentence is outdated... can it be removed and replaced with somthing more appropriately epresenting hat LENR Scientists currently claim?118.93.15.111 (talk) 10:54, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

The presentations themselves aren't reliable sources for anything. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:20, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

IRWolfie I hope you go into the office of production of these presentations and get pie in your face for saying such a thing. You should be ashamed and never show your sorry face here again. Thanks for nothing and worthlessness stuffing head or give me something of substance to chew on. Sorry peace that I am. Get it?--Gregory Goble (talk) 12:42, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

If nuclei really are reacting, then it will only be a short time until news organizations and fusion experts make statements that contradict that sentence in the introduction. We should be conservative and wait until that happens before changing the introduction too much. Adding one sentence in the "Conferences" section which describes post-2009 presentations would probably be enough. Olorinish (talk) 11:28, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Olorinish, can you make a proposal of what you would think is acceptable ? --POVbrigand (talk) 19:41, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

It would probably be good to change the introduction sentence "A small community[quantify] of researchers continues to investigate cold fusion..." to something like "Some researchers continue to investigate cold fusion, reporting on their work in journals and at conferences [SPAWAR, Biberian, ICCF, CERN links]..." A sentence in the "Conferences" section could mention the post-2009 presentations. Olorinish (talk) 11:50, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Reminder that I like Olorinish's proposal, but I haven't gotten to it yet. :-) --POVbrigand (talk) 11:43, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I have learned from what Iggy Dalrymple says, "In true science, theory always surrenders to the primacy of evidence. If observations are made that, after careful verification and theoretical analysis, are found to be inconsistent with a theory, than that theory has to go – no matter how aesthetically pleasing it is, how much mathematical elegance it contains, how prestigious its supporters are, or how many billions of dollars a certain industry has bet on it."--Gregory Goble (talk) 12:23, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

HEY WAIT A SEC HERE. This is about LENR being mainstream science and not "pathological" science or "quackery". Quit obfuscating the thrust of my work here. MY WIKI WORKS. Does yours help to improve this article? LENR now enters mainstream science so list this now or shut the ? up. Quackery or controlled obfuscation... ASK CERN and the NETS organizors.--Gregory Goble (talk) 12:32, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

MAINSTREAM SCIENCE COLD FUSION LENR is a section for such as CERN and NETS. This section can provide readers with similiar information as found in other encyclopedias. Wiki works for the discerning mind and should present current as well as historical perspectives. Thank you for considering this while analyzing the value of including this section.--Gregory Goble (talk) 13:06, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Everything here ... all source... all contributions are being carefully (hack hack) considered for future clarification. Public record.--Gregory Goble (talk) 13:23, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Some consider the presumption of the superiority of consensus to be sheer idiocy. You can quote me as the source of this "saying from antiquity". How many lives old am I? As many as all of us. Thanks to the ancestors found in all <ROCK> and <ROLL>--Gregory Goble (talk) 13:57, 28 March 2012 (UTC) You might riddle that rock is solid and immoveable while roll is movement: which is in actuality only a vibration through the lattice of my poetic imaginings.--Gregory Goble (talk) 14:19, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Everything and all aside; consider the time relevance problem. In the past CERN pooh poohed cold fusion while NETS is comprised of leading nuclear energy physicists and has never embraced cold fusion; yet now both do. This section is a Wiki Worthy place for encyclopedic information from these organizations. --Gregory Goble (talk) 14:44, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Gregory, please familiarize yourself with the contents of wp:PSTS, wp:RS and wp:TPG before posting again. LeadSongDog come howl! 16:57, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

• Gregory, the mainstream view on cold fusion (still) is that it was debunked in the early 1990s. I agree with you that after the recent presentations at mainstream science venues, the phrase "cold fusion is only crackpot" has clearly become laughable ignorant. We could say that there are signs that the mainstream view might be changing. However, I do not think that it is conducive to try to persuade the other editors here that the mainstream view on cold fusion has already changed.

I think that the minority view is still the minority view, but that mainstream science is more and more willing to listen to that view. That process started in 2006 with the ACS having cold fusion session in their annual meetings. Currently more mainstream science venues are willing to invite cold fusion speakers. We can say that mainstream science has accepted cold fusion as a topic, but mainstream science has not yet accepted cold fusion as a scientific fact.

In the mean time I believe that it is warranted and fully in line with WP policy to describe the minority view in greater detail in our article.

--POVbrigand (talk) 20:11, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

It's fun to read recently published encyclopedias for insight into writing a cold fusion science article. We could all work together on improving this one. Cold Fusion LENR Science. Not Quackery. Not Pathological. These researchers are not about to lose their jobs for doing this research. The cold fusion journals that publish their papers are peer reviewed and recognized as such by other scientists. The state of the art of the environment for LENR has advanced far beyond the first experiments setup with Nano and Quantum science, wave theory, string theory, new physics. While here we have a heavily censored Wiki article that does not want to allow the admission that this is good science. Go to a library grab a new encyclopedia and see what I'm talking about. With warm regards and electrifying anticipation. --Gregory Goble (talk) 04:14, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Can you share the title (or ISBN) of the recently published encyclopedias go we can all go and have a look ourselves ?

No. Best to go to the university library in your region that has a strong physics and chemistry program. Nuclear and physics science encyclopedias are best, 2008 or newer. This I can share though regarding the history of cold fusion as pathological science, "One of Park's other frequent targets is Eugene Mallove the former chief science writer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who wrote the first articles revealing MIT's reliance on doctored data in its key study that discredited the original Pons-Fleischmann cold-fusion findings." This is from, "Cold Fusion Rides Again - Science magazine publishes more evidence of tabletop nuclear reactions" - Hal Plotkin, SF Gate Monday, March 25, 2002 [12] Every moderator and editor here might be advised to read this article to understand the dynamics behind this Wiki battlefield article. No wonder it's so sloppy and bucks improvement. With warm regards and electrifying anticipation, your big money honey. We can improve this article with science. Takes time. Thank you for source code contributions... hacking wiki works... my following... handle warm regards and electrifying anticipation. --Gregory Goble (talk) 10:20, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

That article is mainly about Bubble fusion --POVbrigand (talk) 11:22, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Regarding "crackpot", "quackery" and "pathological", mainstream scientists may have used these phrases in the past to describe the topic. Ignorant commentators (incl scientists) may still use them, but they simply don't have a clue what they are talking about and what has happened in the field the last 23 years. Many of the Rossi aficionados also don't have a clue and may believe that Miley, McKubre, Hagelstein, Celani, et al have just started their work recently after Rossi "showed them that it is possible".

Our article is full of content relying on 20 year old books that are good to describes the traditional view, but surely these sources should not be used to comment on developments from say the last 6 years.

Good content additions describing the minority view in detail have often been and still are deleted citing WP-policies or essays in most inappropriate ways like fringe, weight, npov, redflag, or, primary, recentism, synth, rs, notcrystalball, notnewspaper, notability. Frequently it looks like anything is thrown at it just to keep the minority view from being explained in greater detail. For instance, sometimes it is claimed that as long as a detail of the minority view is not discussed in a peer reviewed paper it should not be in wikipedia, but when a peer reviewed paper discussing that detail is added to the article it gets deleted because it is a primary source adding too much weight. This does of course not mean that all minority view additions are always good edits, some of the edits are indeed violating one of the above policies.

Unfortunately, some editors solidly believe that wikipedia should exclusively present the mainstream view, that "WP articles should not expound fringe theories", that any source "promoting" the minority view is an unreliable source, that authors of books or peer reviewed papers "promoting" the minority view are "adherents of fringe" and thus unreliable and that journals publishing peer reviewed papers about cold fusion/LENR are unreliable journals.

Editors who add details of the minority view are at risk of being denounced as a fringe POV pusher and crackpot promoter who deserve to be blocked or banned.

Please keep in mind that you are not here to convince other editors of "the truth", you are here to edit an article that will be read by many readers who expect a NPOV explanation of the topic.

Let the mainstream view be the mainstream view and the minority view be the minority view. But let's explain the minority view in greater detail, so that the WP-reader can understand the past and current developments better.

--POVbrigand (talk) 09:33, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

VERY nicely done, you help me realize the gist of it. The assumption must be that the Wiki reader is a discerning reader and not that we must discerne (censor) for the Wiki reader. Problematic is that here there is now the censoring of good science, CERN, NETS, and the premier peer reviewed scientific journal of Cold Fusion LENR science. This tragisty is certainly not Wiki Worthy; or is it all you wiki experts? With a lot of W.R. and E. A. --Gregory Goble (talk) 10:20, 29 March 2012 (UTC) Upon further reflection I applaud this as an a diamond cutting through to improving our article. Our article is full of content relying on 20 year old books that are good to describes the traditional view, but surely these sources should not be used to comment on developments from say the last 6 years. This bit of clarity from POV made smile and nod. I agree that this article has a bad bad bad time relevence problem. --Gregory Goble (talk) 11:02, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Can you share the title (or ISBN) of the recently published encyclopedias you mentioned previously so we can all go and have a look ourselves ? --POVbrigand (talk) 10:46, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

NOPE. Will Wiki pay the publisher to replace this article with theirs? NOPE. You like footwork anyways so why worry... libraries are awesome. I don't know... maybe Wiki would! Propositionally W.R. and E. A. --Gregory Goble (talk) 11:04, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

If you won't or can't tell us which encyclopedias you have found that represent the existence of cold fusion / LENR as being the mainstream science view then you should not complain when the editors here conclude that the mainstream science view has not changed yet. --POVbrigand (talk) 11:22, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I apologize for my stubborness on this one. Wiki is a harmful competitor of traditional quality ecyclopedic publications whose editorial teams have done a better job on cold fusion than this Wiki "team?". You have misunderstood me it seems so I will clarify... my complaint is that the "mainstream view" is a bunch of old ambiguous opinions, many are opinions of 'hot fusion only' POV pushers, given undue weight in this Wiki article by some editors here. "Factual" statements in this article should not be based on opinions and opinions should not be peppered throughout an article giving it the flavor of a rag. I am not responsible for other editors shortcomings. I will continue making suggestions. I never stated cold fusion works. Facts state Cold Fusion/LENR is science, being done by respected scientists, in prestigious institutions. using increasingly sophisticated instumentation, working in increasingly improved environments, accurately recording and publishing their work, reviewing and improving each others work, following strict scientific method... CERN thinks so and so does the American Nuclear Society. Eventually this article will reflect this truth.--Gregory Goble (talk) 19:16, 29 March 2012 (UTC) Esteemed Professor Francesco Celani - National Institute of Nuclear Physics, Frascati National Laboratories. Vice-President of International Society for Condensed Matter Nuclear Science, not only just presented LENR science at CERN he also organizes conferences where cold fusion "crackpots flourish". Papers from these conferences are sadly not Wiki Worthy because Wiki thinks these conferences are filled with POV pushers... OH MY what a crock pot of crackpot slanderous statements. --Gregory Goble (talk) 19:53, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

WOW there is must be great data here (hack hack)of which I have no knowledge. The discourse is extremely interesting and contains useful information to include in the proposed suggestion. I will work on a revised title and proposed text to post here in a coupla days. Fellow editors may have a revision to propose as well. Suggestions to title and text of this proposed section are appropriate at this time. Two or three versions would be helpful. As a team we could glean from these that which would best improve the article with fact. With warm regards and electrifying anticipation.--Gregory Goble (talk) 23:06, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Which of these presentations are considered secondary source by discerning Wiki experts and why? Thanks for the material POVbrigand The list of presentations:

• Miley - NASA LENR Innovation Forum Workshop at Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio - September 22, 2011
• Miley - World Green Energy Symposium in Philadelphia, PA - October 19-21, 2011.
• Miley - Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space in The Woodlands, TX - March 21-23, 2012

-> peer reviewed paper in preparation

• Kim - Asia Pacific conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics in Seoul - August 22-26, 2011

-> peer reviewed paper "Nuclear Reactions in Micro/Nano-Scale Metal Particles" published in Few-Body Systems journal

• Kim - Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space in The Woodlands, TX - March 21-23, 2012

• Celani - World Sustainable Energy Conference in Geneva - January 10-12, 2012
• Celani - CERN LENR colloquium in Geneva - March 22, 2012

• Srivastava - CERN LENR colloquium in Geneva - March 22, 2012

--Gregory Goble (talk) 03:24, 30 March 2012 (UTC)Anyone care to suggest other recent peer reviewed Cold Fusion/LENR works that have been entered into the record of recognized institutions of mainstream science?--Gregory Goble (talk) 03:38, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Of course, CERN colloquiums are just "Non-technical talk[s] of general interest addressed to all people at CERN from all departments." [13], it's one of many "public seminars taking place at CERN"[14], and they can be about any science topic. --Enric Naval (talk) 09:47, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

The intense peer review process at CERN ensures that quality science is found in all "Non-technical talk[s] of general interest addressed to all people at CERN from all departments." CERN has a strong reputation to stand on and MAINTAIN; does the editorial process here as well?--Gregory Goble (talk) 12:54, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Please point out where it says that these colloquiums pass a peer-review process. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:09, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

And there is no such thing as a "CENR LENR colloquium", what you have is two "CERN colloquiums" that happen to be about LENR. Only because someone proposed to make a seminar about LENR, and the organizer accepted. There have been many seminars in CERN about many topics, and it doesn't mean that CERN endorses every one of those topics. --Enric Naval (talk) 09:47, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Intense obfuscation or not by Mr. E.N.... I counter that every thing, and I do mean everything, entered into the CERN record first undergoes intense peer review. Cold Fusion/LENR science has new information entered into the CERN record for further scientific review. The fact that Cold Fusion/LENR is science you may dispute Enric Naval (YOU certainly are not CERN caliber nor am I); yet you can not reasonably dispute that Cold Fusion/LENR Science has passed the muster of CERN. OR DO YOU argue that CERN beds Crackpots, Pseudoscience, or BAD science? I do not bed bad editors.--Gregory Goble (talk) 12:54, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Please point out where is CERN saying as an official position/statement that "Cold Fusion/LENR Science has passed the muster of CERN". --Enric Naval (talk) 15:09, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Distorting the importance of seminars is not helping your point. --Enric Naval (talk) 09:47, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Enric Naval for not distorting my point here. Topics at CERN colloquiums "can be about any science topic", the CERN review process shuns Quackery, Pseudo-Science, Bad Science or Garbage. Using this to argue that LENR/Cold Fusion is not science is not helping your point. (compost) My point is that Cold Fusion/LENR Research is Science; now bearing fruit of a deeper understanding of these misunderstood/little-understood phenomenon and the environments in which they occur. CERN reviewed, approved of, and allowed a presentation of such (Cold Fusion/LENR Science) to be entered into the record of CERN for further scientific review. Science not quackery. Can I speak Duck? Quack Quack.--Gregory Goble (talk) 12:54, 31 March 2012 (UTC) With warm regards and electrifying anticipation thanks for the source code. --Gregory Goble (talk) 13:02, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Think about it. If someone holds a seminar in an institution, inside a cycle of assorted seminars, does it mean automatically that the institution endorses a certain position about the topic of that seminar? Are you saying that the official position of CERN has to fully endorse the topics in every and all of those seminars, only because it was held inside CERN? --Enric Naval (talk) 15:09, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Obfuscatingly thinking about it. Are you saying that CERN "endorses" like NIKE? I will tell you this Mr. Enric Naval, CERN is meticulously professional when carefully reviewing publications that carry its' letterhead. Silly laugh do you?--Gregory Goble (talk) 14:03, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I have looked at that CERN colloquium page and I don't see any indication that colloquiums are carefully reviewed or that CERN endorses its contents in any manner. If you want to claim those things, you will have to provide some sort of proof. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:19, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

E. N. You can email this to folks at CERN for clarification, or call as I did. Sir, These presentations recently appeared at CERN. What review process by CERN, if any, did these works undergo before being presented? Do you know if a subsequent review of these works has been published? Please comment in regards to the state of the art of this science, if possible. “Overview of Theoretical and Experimental Progress in Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR)” Francesco Celani, National Institute of Nuclear Physics, Frascati National Laboratories. Vice-President of International Society for Condensed Matter Nuclear Science - CERN Colloquium - Geneva, March 22nd, 2012 http://indico.cern.ch/getFile.py/access?resId=3&materialId=slides&confId=177379 “Overview of LENT Theory Low Energy Nuclear Transmutations” Yogendra Srivastava, Professor of Physics INFN & Department of Physics, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy. CERN Colloquium - Geneva, March 22nd, 2012 http://indico.cern.ch/getFile.py/access?resId=1&materialId=slides&confId=177379 Thank you, (a Wikipedia editor) You may get good answers. With warm regards and electrifying anticipation.--Gregory Goble (talk) 07:41, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

CERN papers and presentations of science are reviewed for publication to any chosen media. In this respect CERN “endorses” LENR research as good science. Be sure to understand the meaning; never was it inferred that CERN “believes” in cold fusion. Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist at CERN, invented the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1989. [15] Info.cern.ch was the address of the world's first-ever web site and web server, running on a NeXT computer at CERN.[16] This important explanation helps one to understand how science is percieved at CERN Science:

A Subatomic Venture

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

These were the words of the famous physicist Albert Einstein, who went on to say that "Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."

If you venture into the subatomic world in an attempt to unveil its inner workings, possession of all the knowledge in the world is not enough. Instead, invite your imagination to serve as a guide, because many rules as we know them no longer apply. Just like the story of Alice In Wonderland, this new world may look familiar but it is not fully comprehensible. Scales shift and matter transforms. Transitory twins appear and extra dimensions hide.

Nature has the ability to throw us the biggest surprises, so expect dramatic twists and unexpected turns; many before you have dreamed up mind–blowing theories and crazy concepts. Some of these have prevailed against the tests of time and armies of knowledgeable critics – thus far.

Someone, sometime, somewhere, may succeed in completing these unfinished mysteries, or even rewrite the chapters entirely. The book is by no means finished.[17]

This shows how CERN remains a leading science organization. The reputation of high quality science content at CERN is only maintained by its’ strong professional review process. I am in correspondence concerning the review of LENR prior to CERN publication. Logic dictates CERN didn’t just allow LENR publications wily nilly with only whimsical lackadaisical conCERN. You most likely would not Mr. Enric Naval and certainly not I. Now for proof… one moment please. W/WR and EA.--Gregory Goble (talk) 02:39, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Allow a prose wax second. Now is the time to solve this horrendous bad time relevance cold fusion problem. I am drawing a line here now. You are on one side or the other, no quarters or eighths drawn. The line drawn, the sands of time are ringing 2009. Thanks for the discourse and suggestions that have helped bring about this defining moment. Seriously, the article could be improved by this section. Revised proposal to the suggested Section title “Mainstream Science Cold Fusion/LENR” is as follows: “Cold Fusion/LENR - 2009” Nothing prior to 2009 is to be allowed in this section. This will help solve the time peppered problem that make the Wiki presentation of cold fusion/lenr so hard to read and understand. W/WR and EA --Gregory Goble (talk) 09:02, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Nonsense, pure WP:SYN. "Cern is important"+"Cern does serious research"+"Cern held a colloquium on Cold fusion" => "Cold fusion is mainstream". Several problems here: Colloquiums at Cern does not equate mainstream (citation required for refutation). Implied here is also "Cern is mainstream" (which is wrong, since Cern does do non-mainstream research (example: Cosmic ray influence clouds?) - and that is their own research, not presentation of external res.). Sorry, but you are simply advocating your own interpretation. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 14:09, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Excuse me... CERN is not important? CERN research? ie. Your question was passed on to me. This (LENR presentation) was part of CERN's very wide ranging colloquium programme that allows our scientists to keep abreast of developments across a wide range of physics. We carry out no research in this area, and so can not comment on the state of the art in this field. Dr James Gillies

Head, Communication Group CERN 1211 Geneva 23 Switzerland, Regards, James Gillies.

Non-mainstream research? Mainstream is the best? Or what?Cold FusionLENR LENT is otherwise known as cutting edge or 'fringe' science which is much much different than pathological or 'bad' science. One you lose your reputation over; the other obliterates concepts and gains fame, like Einstein. I advocate that CERN publications undergo intense professional scientific review; which is much much different than a pre-publication review(aspects of abuse thru censorship). Cold Fusion LENR LENT is and has always been about good science, never pathological... not bad... definately cutting edge... certainly recently fringe... soon to be? CERN has no pre-publication review process (disallowing CERN research). WHY? CERN has a strong professional scientific review of all publications by \\\\\\ WHO? Lovingly your scientific community. Lovingly your Wiki editors. Two different animals. Even you are not pureWP:SYNCERN is both cutting edge and mainstream silly and stupidness to think otherwise. Of course CERN has an awesome membership of which you are? or not? me? KimDabelsteinPetersonWho (hackhack) With warm regards and electrifying anticipation. Thank you for this clue. I often am clueless.--Gregory Goble (talk) 13:55, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Mainstream LENR presentations undergo scientific review at the American Physical Society. Session Y33: Cold Fusion APS Physics March Meeting 201, Volume 56, Number 1 Monday–Friday, March 21–25, 2011; Dallas, Texas. Justifying Condensed Matter Nuclear Phenomena Using Hot Fusion Data, Xing Zhong Li. Dimensional Symmetry Catalysts for A-Z Gas Loading Fusion, Talbot Chubb. Comparison of Calorimetry: MIT and Fleischmann-Pons Systems, Melvin H. Miles , Peter Hagelstein. Can LENR Energy Gains Exceed 1000?, David J. Nagel. Lattice Assisted Nuclear Reactions From Nanostructured Metamaterials Electrically Driven at Their Optimal Operating Point, Mitchell R. Swartz. The Use of SSNTD's in the Pd-D Co-deposition Experiment, Francis Tanzella , Michael M.C.H. McKubre. LENR BEC Clusters on and below Wires through Cavitation and Related Techniques, Roger Stringham , Julie Stringham. Use of Helium Production to Screen Glow Discharges for Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR), Thomas O. Passell. Conventional Physics can Explain Excess Heat in the Fleischmann-Pons Cold Fusion Effect, Scott Chubb. Electrochemical and Electron Probe Microanalysis Measurements on Nanostructured Palladium, Jan Marwan, Vanessa Rackwitz.[18] Good 'undead' science.--Gregory Goble (talk) 08:33, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

MAINSTREAM COLD FUSION/LENR RESEARCH Such as found in the Journal of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science

Cutting edge science always has those who are in the forefront of state of the art research and advancement of theory. Little known or misunderstood by many scientists without direct involvement, leading cutting edge scientists are in the mainstream of their art. I expect papers published in this journal that are a review of works to date in the art of cold fusion as well as papers that are scientific review (secondary replication) of an experiment are source worthy for this section, Wikipedia Cold Fusion - Post 2009. The Journal of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science follows a well established peer review process, "PEER REVIEW PROCESS - Submitted papers will be forwarded to an Editor who will supervise the peer review process, and contact the authors in the course of the review process. Papers submitted to Condensed Matter Nuclear Science will be reviewed under the rules and guidelines associated with the review and appeals process adopted by the American Physical Review journals." [19] Papers from this journal are reverenced in quite a few other journals' papers. We could list all or some of these as well. With warm regards and electrifying anticipation. Tell me if you disagree, we'll discuss before I post. --Gregory Goble (talk) 02:11, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

LENR has acquired respectability

The Hindu Business Line writes that LENR is accepted by mainstream science: "Now that LENR and LENT are regarded as feasible propositions and have acquired respectability in the eyes of the research fraternity around the world, India's scientific and research establishments should take it up with full vigour so as to catch up with the advances made elsewhere." This is a reliable source, a mainstream newspaper, so we can use this in our article. We should clearly attribute the quote to the newspaper, because other newspapers might have a different opinion. --POVbrigand (talk) 16:49, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Problems I see in the source:

• Using a business newspaper as source for the opinion of the scientific community.
• Ignoring all the scholar/technological books and textbooks that contradict this claim
• painting this is the official position of the newspaper, when it's just the opinion of the reporter

• same source has recently published articles negative about LENR in its Industry & Economy section[20] and says "Ever since, the world has been cold towards ‘cold fusion', or nuclear fusion at room temperatures. Last week, Nobel laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, in a speech in Chennai — in the context of making a point that science is not infallible, but is self-correcting — described the Fleishmann-Pons fiasco, and this was reported in Business Line." in reference to ‘CERN experiment will be proved wrong'. It quotes a reply by Brian Josephson, followed by "Clearly, cold fusion has its supporters.".

• source contains gross distortions of facts: "It is currently the rage of research institutions all over the world":
  • someone fed the author a load of bullshit about many US institutions officially backing up LENR. As discussed in the lasts months: SPAWAR only has a small budget, the ACS only gave them space in their annual meetings and CERN only has a couple of colloquiums that were given among hundreds of public seminars on other topics[21].
  • While it's nice that Mitsubishi and Osaka University dedicate modest amounts to researching LENR, they have not been able to convince the Japanese government to budget a single yen for LENR since the failed $20 million program in 1992-1997, or to convince any other universities and companies. In particular, Yoshiaki Arata from Osaka Univ. claimed in 2008 to have a working LENR generator but he has never allowed anyone to make an independent test (I think).
• no sources are cited or quoted for the claim, neither scientists nor scientific institutions, not even Indian ones.
• source acknowledges that Indian scientific community has zero interest in LENR, but says that it's for some unexplainable reason, and doesn't ask any Indian scientist or institution about their actual reasons.
• opinion article. Author doesn't appear to have any expertise in science, philosophy of science, or science reporting [22]

--Enric Naval (talk) 18:16, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

• Funny, your first point is that the source is a business newspaper and you think it cannot comment on science. However, in your huge collection you have this source "2006 unknown author (2006), "unknown title", The Economist 378 (8467-8470): pp. 72, "Their work, however, was discredited and the field is now a no-go area for most physicists."" listed as proof.
• Furthermore the other recently published article you mention Cold is back as hot topic on the non-conventional energy front is not at all negative about LENR: "It look likely", "seems to be coming back". --POVbrigand (talk) 19:51, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• "Gross distortion of facts": that might be just your OR. Do you have current sources that contradict this source. And I don't mean 20 year old books or the recent ones that borrow from them. The author did not express that those institutions officially backed LENR, that is your interpretation.
• What you think about Arata's LENR experiment is based on your long list of books that state outdated claims as fact. Arata's LENR experiment was replicated and the results published in the peer reviewed journal Physics Letters A. None of the recent (post 2009) sources in your long list choose to mention this, therefore they are all clearly unreliable on the topic and are proof only of the ignorance and incompetence of its authors.

I do not see problems to use this source. --POVbrigand (talk) 19:51, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Please see the texts I quoted above. You are making a big jump from "cold fusion seems to be coming back" to "scientific consensus has changed and says that LENR is respectable". As for your article, it is still just the opinion of a columnist with no experience in science who had been fed distorted facts that have already been discussed here. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:25, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Aside from the problems with the source itself, there's also the question of cherrypicking. Why, for instance, would we favour the above "...have acquired respectability in the eyes of the research fraternity around the world..." over "Apparently, the initial interest shown by the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, the BARC and the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research has since died down" which is perhaps the one snippet in the article that its author is best positioned to directly verify?LeadSongDog come howl! 23:26, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Time for each to submit a statement of intent.. I am here to improve this article by... Obfuscation is best. For encyclopedic info on cold fusion go to your local library... Time relevance is properly sorted elswhere... not yet yet soon here. End Wiki abuse. Spotlighting responsible parties is fun and easy (hackhack)--Gregory Goble (talk) 13:55, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

@Enric, it is the opinion of an outside observer. I am not making a big jump, I am only referring to what the authors of the articles have written, without putting a tremendous dose of mainstream science interpretation over it. "distorted facts" are your words clinging on to the mainstream science world order and "no experience in science" is in fact very arrogant, you know that ?

@LeadSongDog, don't accuse me of cherrypicking. Read the article and convince yourself that the author expresses his opinion in that LENR has acquired respectability, and that he urges the Indian Institutes to restart LENR research pronto. --POVbrigand (talk) 22:45, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

"Read the article"? I did. Where else did you think the quote came from? What it convinced me of was that the author had little understanding of the topic. A quick google check for his publication history argues that his writings are general commentary, with no sign of anything to suggest any expertise on his topic. Is there some evidence to the contrary? LeadSongDog come howl! 05:12, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

"the author has little understanding of the topic" seems to imply that you think you are knowledgeable of the topic. That is the rhetorical fallacy many editors resort to when faced with a source in favor of LENR: The author is either a fringe adherent or ignorant, in either case not reliable. That is a perversion of wikipedia policy. There does not exist a "knowledgable" post-assessment of minortiy view sources' reliability by editors who are mostly ignorant of the minority view (see Enric's comment above of what he "thinks" about Arata).

I assume you might be knowledgeable on the mainstream science view on LENR, but that is as far as your view on this topic goes.

As the author of the article relates in the first paragraph the has spoken to well informed sources "comprising reputed experts and professionals in various fields of activity, with special focus on the ever expanding frontiers of science and technology.", he is a columnist reporting about that in his column.

All I hear from Enric and you are arguments denying the article's first paragraph and adding a load of OR in order to dismiss this source. --POVbrigand (talk) 19:37, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

No, the burden of proof is on you. You have provided no evidence that the author has any expertise in any of the relevant fields. (We could look at his original sources, but "Friends On Similar Wave Length (FOSWL)" has exactly zero hits on google apart from mirrors of his article.)

You cannot just wildly claim that according to your view a source is unreliable and that therefore I must prove to you that it isn't unreliable. By your standard many of the authors (ie, most of the journalists) of sources currently in use in this article have a questionable expertise in the relevant field. All of the authors of your long list of mainstream view books have no expertise whatsoever on the minority view of the field in question. The article's author has at least the same amount of trustability and expertise that Mark Gibbs from Forbes has. It is laughable that this source is questioned merely because it holds a different point of view than you do.

The burden of proof for the line that: "B.S.RAGHAVAN, columnist of the Hindu Business Line, concludes in his column that LENR has acquired respectability in the eyes of mainstream science" is satisfied by the article.

btw, I do think there is a difference between LENR research being respected by mainstream science community and LENR being accepted as mainstream science.

For Arata, one team has claimed replication and published a paper, find the secondary sources saying that the replication is believable to other scientists and that it has been proven that Arata's generator works. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:02, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

That is not required by wikipedia policy, it is an ad hoc demand by you just to keep this from the article. The peer reviewed paper is sufficient to add a line saying: "In a peer reviewed paper by Kitamura et al. the researchers presented experimental results of a successful replication of the Arata experiment". Above you admitted that you didn't know anything about Arata's experiment & its replication and when I present you one you demand a secondary sources that says other scientists think it's believable. This is not about what other scientists think is believable and it is certainly not about what YOU think is believable, this is about the verifiable & reliable fact that scientists have published a peer reviewed paper in a well respected scientific journal describing a replication of the experiment. I think you have a misconception about the Arata "generator". The Arata "generator" doens't exist, it is not a machine like Rossi's ecat. It is a scientific experimental setup and other scientists have repeated that experiment and published it in a peer reviewed paper in a scientific journal.

I believe that even if I would present a secondary source discussing the replication, y'all would start arguing that the author "has no expertise" or that the source is unreliable for some other arbitrary reason.

It is truly sad that you seem to desperately cling to your collected stash of mainstream publications that merely restate 20 year old views and omit to mention anything about "recent" reports in the field like the Arata experiment and its replication. --POVbrigand (talk) 14:23, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

The burden of proof is still on you, and you haven't provided any of the required proof yet. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:53, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

No the burden of proof is not on me. You have a serious misconception about "the burden of proof". --POVbrigand (talk) 19:07, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Time to reread wp:BURDEN. LeadSongDog come howl! 13:49, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Can you explain how this applies here ? The policy states that: "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable published source using an inline citation" and that is what I proposed to do. Read the policy carefully, it does not state that the editor has the burden to satisfy arbitrary demands by co-editors. As I have explained before there are many authors of sources that could also be dismissed as having "no expertise", like for instance Randy Alfred or Mark Gibbs from Forbes. It is not a question of whether these journalists have a degree in nuclear science, it is a question if quotations can be verifiably attributed to them. WP-policy does not burden me with showing you that these authors "have expertise" of nuclear science. It is visible from the article that the author has spoken to knowledgeable scientists. A columnist for a major Indian newspaper is an opinion that can be used in our article to illustrate that mainstream science is starting to accept LENR as an emerging science. --POVbrigand (talk) 15:11, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It sounds as if there's something malconfigured on your browser. That link should have take you to the specific section of wp:V entitled "Burden of evidence". Instead, you describe the nutshell at the top of the page.LeadSongDog come howl! 18:05, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

"Burden" is a sub point of "When_a_reliable_source_is_required" of which I quoted. Whatever it is that you think "burden" is about, the policy is actually very clear: the burden of evidence is about verifiability in the form of inline citation. Not about whatever arbitrary evidence you think you need to sustain your feeling of happiness. --POVbrigand (talk) 19:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

What you seem not to grasp is that wp:BURDEN assigns the burden of responsibility for providing that evidentiary citation to the editor who adds or re-adds content. There is no corresponding burden on the removing editor. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:23, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The burden is on the editor who adds, that's clear. But what is this burden about ? That is something you fail to understand. The burden is to provide citation of the quotation. The burden is NOT about providing scientific credentials of the author. Therefore the "demand" that I have to provide proof of the expertise of the author is moot, it is not at all what WP:BURDEN is about. WP:BURDEN is not a stopgap to deny content into the article by demanding arbitrary "evidence" of the editor. For instance, I could think of other silly demands for evidence: that the author has the Indian nationality, that he is married, is over 18 years old, wears glasses, is not a convicted criminal, has done CF experiments himself, or has not done CF experiments himself, that he has published of the subject, or that he has no COI on the subject. These would all be absolutely insane demands that have nothing to do with WP:BURDEN and the demand for evidence of "expertise" is one of those too, see WP:SHRUBBERY. The only evidence that I must provide is that this columnist for a respected Indian newspaper has actually wrote what he wrote. That evidence is in the article.

I think it is interesting that some editors seem to completely misunderstand some of the main policies of WP. --POVbrigand (talk) 08:40, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

A group of MIT researchers answered "questions about fusion power" in slashdot.org[23]. This is the only mention of cold fusion: "The (hot) fusion community is still living with the aftermath of the cold fusion scandal from a quarter century ago - so it’s very important for the proponents of these alternate concepts to push the researchers to publish their results in peer-reviewed journals." (emphasis in the original). --Enric Naval (talk) 16:53, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

You know very well that LENR researchers actually do publish their results in peer-reviewed journals. This is proof of the fact that hot plasma fusion scientists are completely unaware of what is going on and thus have no expertise on the subject of LENR. Thanks for providing this insightful information. --POVbrigand (talk) 19:07, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Of course it proves no such thing. It is at most weak evidence, in an unreliable source (although better than the usual slashdot content), that a few such PF researchers (the ones responding) state their opinion that too few of the CF researchers are publishing in peer-reviewed journals. LeadSongDog come howl! 18:18, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I think your reasoning is more original than mine. I wonder why Enric wanted to share this information with us. --POVbrigand (talk) 19:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, I did engage in a little synthesis, but we have leeway for that here on a talkpage, not in articlespace. What I should have said is that "It is at most weak evidence for your assertion. It is in published on Slashdot. Slashdot is an open blog. Blogs are considered to be unreliable sources. My personal assessment of this particular blog post is that it is better than the usual Slashdot content. That assessment was confirmed by many of the other comments to that blog post. The PF researchers responding in that blog state the opinion that too few of the CF researchers are publishing in peer-reviewed journals. We should not generalize from the specific responding PF researchers to 'hot plasma fusion scientists'". But then again, I wouldn't want to be pedantic.LeadSongDog come howl! 21:49, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Slashdot is normally not RS, I agree. But this is an interview of MIT scientists, it is fair to assume that the answers of the MIT scientists are represented correctly by slashdot. Thus this text becomes RS for what the scientists answered to the questions. Please note that the answers were given jointly by Dr. Martin Greenwald, Prof. Ian Hutchinson, Asst. Prof. Anne White, Prof. Dennis Whyte, Nathan Howard, and Geoff Olynyk, all from MIT. It is fair to assume that, to a certain extend, their answer reflects the general understanding of cold fusion by hot plasma fusion scientists. I think that this piece of text clearly shows that these hot fusion scientist are completely ignorant regarding developments in cold fusion/LENR. --POVbrigand (talk) 08:40, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the rich source code found thruout the edit history of Wiki Cold Fusion (hack hack) Transactions of Fusion Science and Technology. Cold Fusion LENR science ANS.--Gregory Goble (talk) 05:25, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Mainstream LENR presentations undergo scientific review at the American Physical Society. (redacted copyvio-LeadSongDog come howl! 04:51, 18 April 2012 (UTC)) Read this good 'undead' science. Session Y33: Cold Fusion APS Physics March Meeting 201 Volume 56, Number 1 Monday–Friday, March 21–25, 2011; Dallas, Texas. --Gregory Goble (talk) 04:19, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Hey Mister Lead Dog Song slow down your edit of my posts. I listed titles of presentations and authors that are publically posted. Listing titles and authors is a copywrite violation? Since when? Please don't erase it again... it's just more mainstream LENR science. Anyway I meant to post this under the LENR mainstream science section... which I will now... while this mistakenly posted here could be boxed up and discarded if ya want to.--Gregory Goble (talk) 08:26, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Claims of working devices

The experimental LENR scientists all have "working devices" of some sort, Arata is just one of them, Kitamura who replicated Arata also has "a working device" see his peer reviewed paper in Physics Letters A Vol 373 issue 35. McKubre also has "working devices", same for Storms, Miley, Celani, Di Ninno, Oriani, the SPAWAR / Navy scientists like Mosier-Boss, Nagel. The list goes on and on. Most of these have published their experiments in peer reviewed papers in scientific journals.

All references to "Pathological" or COLD FUSION "Discredited" Science is better placed in a "Historical Footnotes Section". This is a relentless constant attempt to improve the readabiity of this article.--Gregory Goble (talk) 06:56, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I do not think that these experimental setups are the same kind of "working devices" that Andrea Rossi is claiming to have. It is not neutral point of view to describe both of these in this way in one section. The scientific experimental setups should not be mixed with the claimed commercial machines. --POVbrigand (talk) 19:16, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, OK, we should definitely separate "experimental setup" from "commercial-ready generator". Arata claims only 1 degree of difference maintained over 300 hours. Maybe move Arata to replication section?

And change "working devices" to "commercial devices" or something? --Enric Naval (talk) 14:54, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I renamed the section to "commercial devices" a while ago, but it was reverted back. I think Arata should just go into the "ongoing" section, he was not really presenting a "working device", but much more showing the results of his ongoing research. --POVbrigand (talk) 15:21, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I separated them, I also added some easily verifiable fact (but without citation) about commercial devices not being available on the market.

It is actually important for the story of cold fusion that the scientific setups only produced tiny amounts of excess energy and that very unreliably. I think I read somewhere that this was one of the reasons the early funded research programs were stopped. Viable commercial grade devices were not "in sight". --POVbrigand (talk) 20:29, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Please reference recent mainstream science presentations on the science of LENR and the associated theoretical ponderings. Such science.--Gregory Goble (talk) 07:02, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

The distinction between scientific experiments and commercial viable devices was exactly what Joe Zawodny from NASA was talking about in his blog commenting on the NASA video. He said: "There has been a lot of work done in the past 20+ years. When considered in aggregate I believe excess power has been demonstrated. I did not say, reliable, useful, commercially viable, or controllable." and "Furthermore, I am unaware of any clear and convincing demonstrations of any viable commercial device producing useful amounts of net energy.".

The status of cold fusion/LENR is that scientists working in field (incl Zawodny) are convinced that there is more than sufficient experimental evidence to conclude that phenomenon is real, while scientists not working in the field have never looked at this evidence (for various reasons, mostly not malice) and thus are led to believe that nothing has changed after 1990 when they last heard about it.

Lately there are indication that "scientists not working in the field" (ie mainstream scientists) are starting to have a look at the evidence, which does not mean LENR has advanced to mainstream science yet. It only means that mainstream science has stopped completely ignoring LENR.

But even if the scientific evidence demonstrates that the phenomenon is real this does not mean that there is scientific evidence that this phenomenon can ever be used to generate useful amounts of energy. Commercially viable (useful energy generating) devices have so far no published (peer reviewed) scientific evidence whatsoever, it is only hearsay and (mostly weak) claims. However, you cannot dismiss these on grounds that the claimed physics behind is proven to be impossible, you must see these claims in the light that there is currently simply no scientific evidence of a LENR experiment that is "reliable, useful, commercially viable, or controllable", which is again exactly what Zawodny said in his blog.

The WP-article of cold fusion / LENR is very difficult to work on with so many different beliefs on the topic. IMHO, fruitful cooperation on this article begins with the distinction between evidence of scientific experiments published in peer reviewed journals by credible scientists (working on low budgets) representing a minority view on the one hand and claims of commercially viable devices with lacking scientific evidence on the other.

--POVbrigand (talk) 09:27, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

This article seems incomplete with respect to recent events and reports on LENR. Brillouin Energy has given an extensive interview on commercial plans, complemented by a paper with a theoretical explanation of the "Quantum Fusion" mechanism. Recently LENR has been demonstrated by Peter Hagelstein in his class at MIT (http://www.iscmns.org/work10/HagelsteinPdemonstra.pdf). He has invited the public to see his device in action. Is there a suitable way these new developments can be referenced? I think it's intriguing to know what types of experiments and commercialization plans are going on. The degree of confirmation could certainly be spelled out in the Wikipedia article to maintain objectivity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.16.140.184 (talk) 20:13, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Nope. Recent reports are just as bogus as past reports. This article will not be a litany of press releases promoting cold fusion. Commercial plans are not helped by theoretical explanations if said commercial plans do not yield a commercial product. Objectivity is served by keeping trivial and unimportant stuff down. Binksternet (talk) 02:04, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Wrong. What report is bogus or not is not for Binksternet to decide (see WP:OR). Mentioning press releases in a NPOV way is not equal to promoting cold fusion. Please stop using this "promotion" argument, it is a red herring. Objectivity is served by NPOV and not by WP:OR defining things as trivial and unimportant. Be careful not to call the kettle black. --POVbrigand (talk) 11:35, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Should we split this article?

(Note: I have added a {{split-apart}} template to the top of the article).

This article is way too long (per WP:SIZESPLIT) - so I think we're long overdue for a split. It also seems to me that we have two increasingly separate topics emerging in this article - suggesting that a split would be a good idea regardless of WP:SIZESPLIT:

• The classic (and more or less completely discredited) Fleischmann-Pons work and it's immediate consequences in terms of efforts to reproduce, etc.
• The more recent "LENR" efforts that may have been inspired by Fleischmann-Pons - but are heading off in different directions that are perhaps not totally discredited and maybe even gaining some mainstream traction.

This article was originally about the former - and was largely a discussion of the history of this - and the implications for the scientific method, peer review systems and so forth. However, the addition of the LENR stuff is definitely clouding the waters here - and I think this is largely to blame for the loss of FA (and even GA!) status for this article.

We have the difficult task of clearly stating that Fleischmann-Pons is discredited while maintaining NPOV for the more recent work. This results in a highly ambiguous story for our poor readers and a bunch of unnecessary contention here in the talk page.

So I wonder if it is time to split the article?

1. Called Cold fusion, discussing only Fleischmann-Pons and the immediate reactions to it and ultimate discrediting...with a brief intro into the LENR work of today.
2. Called Low energy nuclear reactions (perhaps) discussing the modern efforts to produce clear results (and controversies resulting) - with a brief "History" section referring to Fleischmann-Pons.

This article is now up around 60kbytes in length - right at the ">60kb - Probably should be divided" recommendation of WP:SIZESPLIT. That means that the article should be split - it's just a matter of deciding how. I submit that my proposal is probably the most fitting way to manage it since it looks like it would result in two article of almost equal length and clearly separate content.

Thoughts? SteveBaker (talk) 14:16, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I think perhaps you counted all the citation data in that 130k, which we don't normally do. The text alone is 60k characters including spaces. So far as the fork goes, it appears to legitimize POV terminology. Is there anyone other than the true believers who refer to LENR, except to do so in quotations? LeadSongDog come howl! 20:00, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Argh! You're right - I did count the citations. Sorry! (I've fixed my proposal, above, to reflect this correction).

But even so, WP:SIZESPLIT says that at 60k: "Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading time)". The article ain't getting any smaller - so a split is going to be needed sooner or later.

I don't see my proposed fork as legitimizing anything - and I would certainly consider alternative titles for the resulting two articles (eg Cold fusion (Fleischmann-Pons) and just Cold fusion or something) - but I think there is a clear line to be drawn between the Fleischmann-Pons debacle and everything that's happened since using different experimental techniques. I don't know whether modern "LENR" stuff is true or bullshit (although I suspect the latter). But I do believe that it's genuinely a separate topic. The proposed Fleischmann-Pons article would be essentially historical - and this should reduce the number and complexity of edits to almost zero - giving us a shot at getting the thing back up to FA status. The proposed article about more recent efforts to demonstrate cold fusion is where the controversy always seems to be - and that's not going to end, but it doesn't have to drag down the Fleischmann-Pons stuff. SteveBaker (talk)

As usual, the issue is coming up with reliable, non-fringe sources that predominantly regard it as a distinct topic. From what few modern sources I've seen, they will usually refer to the terms as synonyms, perhaps also noting that the current seekers prefer the term LENR. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:28, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

LENR is not a sufficiently distinct subject that it deserves its own article. A better approach would be to create an article called "History of cold fusion" which would include the 1989 announcements and the recent work. The "Cold fusion" article would have a summary version of the history, and the technical discussion. Olorinish (talk) 00:10, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd support a "History of..." article for the Fleischmann-Pons stuff and leaving everything about modern work where it is now. SteveBaker (talk) 13:36, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd also support splitting it into "Cold Fusion" and "History of Cold Fusion". IRWolfie- (talk) 13:41, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I very much support SteveBaker on this issue and I also agree with LeadSongDog's and Olorinish's arguments. Cold Fusion and LENR are synonyms or completely different things depending on the view of the scientist. If we want to split the article, then before bothering about the correct title, we should get consensus on what the two different articles should be about. The secondary sources Huizenga, Taubes and Close only discuss Fleischmann Pons Cold Fusion and the immediate time after, including the response (=rebuttal) of mainstream science. The "later phase" LENR has several secondary sources by authors within the LENR community, but lacks any awareness of mainstream science. Maybe an evaluation of what the available sources tell us can shed some light on the content bounderies of the possible articles. --POVbrigand (talk) 10:48, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

How cold fusion is viewed by others or by mainstream scientists places undue importance on opinions. It's my opinion that the early cold fusion media fiasco was a social phenomenon that rushed the experimental verification process and led to a social environment hostile to science and easily affected by opinions. All said I agree the article is long and cumbersome. Almost everywhere there are references to someones' opinion. An example is the section In Popular Culture... nothing but opinions. Early cold fusion is science and continued works in this art show advancements in understanding physics. I think there should be one article Cold Fusion/LNR Science and a section History Cold Fusion the Sociological Phenomenon. The early works of cold fusion by Fleischmann and Pons has been instrumental to the advancement of this science and should not be seperated to a different article. Here is an example of what might be a time relevant point to split the article at: Cold Fusion/LENR Post 2009 The Journal of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science follows a well established peer review process, "PEER REVIEW PROCESS - Submitted papers will be forwarded to an Editor who will supervise the peer review process, and contact the authors in the course of the review process. Papers submitted to Condensed Matter Nuclear Science will be reviewed under the rules and guidelines associated with the review and appeals process adopted by the American Physical Review journals." [24] This cold fusion/LERN journal is a source for papers published that are a review of works to date in the art of this science as well as papers that are scientific review (secondary replication) of previously published experimental research and theory. Cold Fusion/LENR science, "Advanced Concepts: LENR, Anti-Matter, and New Physics", March 23, 2012 at 3:30pm. Presented at the "Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space 2012 Topical Meeting and The Lunar and Planetary Institute – 43rd Lunar And Planetary Science Conference” Organized by ANST Aerospace Nuclear Science and Technology, USRA Universities Space Research Association, ANS American Nuclear Society, and NASA. [25] "A Game-Changing Power Source Based on Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENRs)" Xiaoling Yang and George H. Miley, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801 (104 S Wright Street, 216 Talbot Laboratory, Urbana, IL 61801 [26] "CRYOGENIC IGNITION OF DEUTERON FUSION IN MICRO/NANO-SCALE METAL PARTICLES" Y. E. Kim, Department of Physics, Purdue University Physics Building, West Lafayette IN 47907. [27] Cold Fusion/LENR peer reviewed papers are presented for scientific review at the American Physical Society. Session Y33: Cold Fusion APS Physics March Meeting 201, Volume 56, Number 1 Monday–Friday, March 21–25, 2011; Dallas, Texas. [28] --Gregory Goble (talk) 18:37, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Leopoldo Pirelli school

Binksternet and GFHandel deleted the mentioning of the Leopoldo Pirelli school.

• The announcement on the mainpage of the school's website is not equal to a blog ! - GFHandel's edit comment is not a valid reason for reverting.
• The entry on the schools website explicitely links to several mainstream news articles on the announcement: Repubblica, Corriere della sera, Radio Citta del Capo, DiRegiovani. The announcement is referenced by reliable sources.
• Whether this is an unimportant announcement which deserves no mentioning is something that would need consensus and not by decision of one editor.

I think it is remarkable enough that a school announces experimental success where mainstream scientists are not even aware of recent developments. --POVbrigand (talk) 09:42, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

The information I reverted was based on the following URL: http://coldfusion3.com/blog/italian-high-school-students-build-cold-fusion-device. I hope you can appreciate how I came to believe that address to be a "blog"? Has this article really got to the point of reproducing untested, and unproven claims from a school (which publishes its untested and unproven claims via a "blog" URL)? GFHandel ♬  09:52, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

"coldfusion3.com" is not a reliable source. The school's website however is a reliable source for the claim. --POVb

Sorry, I missed that. Your revert was indeed valid at that time. I agree that the school's claims are "unproven", but I have different thoughts about what "unproven" means. Fleischmann-Pons in 1989 claimed to show excess heat, it was rebutted by mainstream scientists. It has subsequently been replicated by many other high profile scientists who have published about it in peer reviewed papers. The excess heat effect has been replicated with different experimental setups over the years, and replications of those replications. For each of these experimental successes, again and again a replication "for proof" is demanded. So, with each new replication a new demand for proof rises for that replication and this goes on and on. It has become Unproven Ad infinitum and therefore "unproven" will always be true for every claim of cold fusion until the day that cold fusion becomes mainstream science. So "unproven" is a bit problematic as a reason for reverting. --POVbrigand (talk) 10:21, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes I agree the first revert of my Pirelli entry is reasonable since a blog was cited. However the second revert is more questionable, since as mentioned I did put the main high school website there to improve the links. So who is to decide if it is "unimportant" or "firm"? I think it's enough to know that this is out there and hopefully further investigation of this development will ensue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.29.45.251 (talk) 14:26, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

If you need secondary sources, I remember that I read the news on La Repubblica and on Il Corriere della Sera.

Just a moment... a quick search on the internet...

Here:

Corriere della Sera (PDF):

http://www.leopoldopirelli.it/documenti/articolo%20corrire%20della%20sera.pdf

La Repubblica (PDF):

http://www.leopoldopirelli.it/documenti/articolo%20repubblica.pdf

Corriere della Sera (from the newspaper's website):

http://archiviostorico.corriere.it/2012/aprile/20/Fusione_fredda_Acceso_reattore_fatto_co_10_120420106.shtml

La Repubblica (from the newspaper's website):

http://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2012/04/20/istituto-pirelli-crea-un-reattore-ecco-energia.html

ps

Primary source: this is the news from the website of the school: http://www.leopoldopirelli.it/index.php?menu=1&cont=1000

--NUMB3RN7NE (talk) 16:24, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the secondary sources. I made a go of adding back to the article just the Pirelli High School section with three references so far. Please feel free to add to this if you think more would help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.29.45.251 (talk) 17:17, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Fixed.--NUMB3RN7NE (talk) 08:14, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

So, the students at an Italian technology-oriented high school claim to have built a working cold fusion reactor. And it's currently powering the school's interactive blackboards ("con l'energia prodotta a scuola alimenteranno le lavagne interattive"[29]). And they want to patent it. And it hasn't been tested by any outside group. And the articles appear to be placed in the sections reserved for Roma's local news. Am I missing something? --Enric Naval (talk) 11:37, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Ah ah ah ! ! ! Last week I was reading La Repubblica, and in a small piece it was written "...and a school in Rome activated a cold fusion reactor..." I almost crumbled from my chair!

I just want to add some information: according to the school, the patent was filed only to prevent others to do it, ie in case a company would file a patent to put the reactor on the market. Therefore, independent reproduction of the reactor is fully allowed. Here the scheme of the reactor: http://www.22passi.it/downloads/athanor/pdf%20athanor.pdf

It is in Italian but on the internet someone has already translated it into English.

The school affirms they are ready to show the reactor while working (as they did to the journalists) and they are ready to allow independent calorimetric measurements.

They claim to reach and go beyond COP 4. They named the reactor "Athanor".

I hope to know more about it in the near future.--NUMB3RN7NE (talk) 12:08, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

ps

Photo gallery: http://roma.repubblica.it/cronaca/2012/04/19/foto/il_reattore_costruito_dagli_studenti-33583028/1/

--NUMB3RN7NE (talk) 12:42, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Do we really need to report on a high school project?! --Enric Naval (talk) 12:52, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Has this report been confirmed by anybody? The chance that high school students and teachers have succeeded when thousands of researchers around the world have failed is pretty low, lower than the other cold fusion claims in the article. Since this is an encyclopedia, we should be very conservative about claims like this. If it is real, someone else will confirm it soon and we can base the edits on those reports. Olorinish (talk) 13:10, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Many, many scientists have claimed succesful excess heat experiments over the years. Who are the thousands of researchers around the world that have failed ? Can you provide recent sources for that notion please, not the 20 year old ones. --POVbrigand (talk) 14:19, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

"Who are the thousands of researchers around the world that have failed ?" ALL OF THEM!!! All have failed to convince fusion experts that they have produced fusion. Olorinish (talk) 01:30, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

While I think the claim is funny I think adding this would essentially be ridiculing cold fusion further than necessary. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:06, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

The claim is very interesting to show that a school level science project can replicate the effect. I don't think it is ridiculing anything, but certainly not cold fusion scientists, because many of those are making the same or similar claims. As far as I understood the school's experiment is based on previous scientific glow discharge experiments done by Ohmori and Mizuno. btw none of that is mentioned in our article, so I can't blame anyone for not being aware. --POVbrigand (talk) 14:19, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

one of the sources said it was based on the Fleischmann–Pons experiment. IRWolfie- (talk) 14:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Based on Fleischmann-Pons in that it also produces excess heat ? --POVbrigand (talk) 07:36, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

To Enric Naval:

Well, let's assume for a moment that in the past the first working nuclear reactor or the first working aircraft were developed during a "high school project": in this case the information needed to be reported.--NUMB3RN7NE (talk) 13:12, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

So, once again, we're wasting our time discussing whether an unsubstantiated claim needs to be discussed on WP. We have wp:NODEADLINE, we can wait for substantiation of their results to appear in wp:RS.LeadSongDog come howl! 16:31, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Also, WP:CRYSTALBALL. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:43, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

CRYSTALBALL does not apply here. We are not talking about the possibility that maybe or maybe not Pirelli high school is going to post a claim on their website and that maybe or maybe not news outlets will report on it. It is all fact based on reliable sources that it actually happened. Pirelli high school just did post a claim. And that is remarkable in a field which was so thought to be solidly debunked that virtually no nuclear physicist ever bothered to look into it. It would be CRYSTALBALL if we would now start implying things in the article based on this fact. We are not doing that, we are just stating verifiable facts. CRYSTALBALL does not apply suddenly because of a failing confirmation of the experiment. Even if a confirmation will appear you will just question that and you'll demand a confirmation again, repeat ad inf. From the article it is clear that a cross functional team of teachers has worked on this experiment. It is fair to give those professionals and their students some credit and I assume they are very confident of their claim to post it on their website. --POVbrigand (talk) 18:14, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

You are speculating that the reactor works, that the work is important for the field, and that it will be confirmed one day. Otherwise, why mention a high school project that has appeared in the local section of newspapers? --Enric Naval (talk) 22:40, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

WP:KETTLE. You are speculating that the reactor cannot possibly work, that the work is irrelevant for the field, and that it will never be confirmed. I already explained why a claim from a high school is relevant for the article. NPOV is not equal to pushing mainstream science view beyond all reasonability. --POVbrigand (talk) 07:47, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree. These claims have not been evaluated or independently verified by any reliable scientific process. Just uncritically including these unverified claims in this article is simply unwarranted, especially since this research area is littered with so many failures and false starts from academic research centres, let alone high-schools. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 23:04, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

The first independent verification "by any reliable scientific process" will be questioned again, maybe not by you, but by another editor. There will always be a reason to delete content when it comes to pushing the mainstream science view. This is NOT about the experiment working or not, but about the high school making claims of success in a field that simply doesn't exist by the supposed mainstream science "standards". Claims of replication will always be questioned that's the nature of fringe science, we could delete the whole article because the whole subject is "not independently verified" in the eyes of mainstream science. Your reasoning doens't really work. --POVbrigand (talk) 08:08, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't disagree when you say: The first independent verification "by any reliable scientific process" will be questioned again, maybe not by you, but by another editor. But at least the higher-grade verification has intrinsically more scientific value and currency/respectability than a mere high-school project. IMO, the level of article discourse needs to be maintained at some cutoff high enough as to at least be respectable. For the sake of everyone. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 12:20, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, and I support the removal of the information. I will add that I find it suspicious that an editor (NUMB3RN7NE) pops up here for the first time with "sources", is supported by an IP, and then adds the information to the article. Is there enough evidence to request a sock-puppet investigation? GFHandel ♬  23:26, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think so. Connecting IPs and usernames doesn't normally happen and in this case it may not be so disruptive as to warrant an SPI. But that's just my opinion. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 03:07, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

That's absurd. NUMB3RN7NE has edited on Energy Catalyzer before, my best guess is that the editor is from Italy, thus capable of reading Italian secondary sources and has the courtesy to inform the english WP-readership of what those reliable sources state. Stop waiving baseless SPI threats around, stay civil. --POVbrigand (talk) 08:08, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I am from Italy, and I am a usual contributor on Wikipedia (especially on the Italian Wikipedia). And yes, I know Italian. And I did not know that a Leopoldo Pirelli High School existed until I read the news on La Repubblica last week. I was unsure to edit the page, I just wanted to give the requested references (because they were in Italian I imagined that they were a bit hard to find and interpret for a non-Italian reader). I want to specify that I have no intention to push for the information. I felt obliged to edit the article just because the anonymous IP inserted the information in a "unfit" place. So, I reworded and moved that part.

For what I can understand, the cell/reactor is very similar to the one built by Tadahiko Mizuno (but Muzuno cell exploded), with the notable difference that in the Pirelli "Athanor" the metal is tungsten in a nanopowder form (like nickel in the E-Cat of Rossi and Focardi).

I hope to find more valuable references soon, because it seems that independent replicas of the "Athanor" are already being constructed.--NUMB3RN7NE (talk) 09:16, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I just want to add that an independent calorimetric measurement of the apparatus should be easy to perform, because the proponents claim a COP 4. I mean, this is not a COP 1.1 or 1.2 like in the past, therefore energy production should be easy to detect and measure.--NUMB3RN7NE (talk) 09:24, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

NUMB3RN7NE has edited on/about Energy Catalyzer since 31 October 2011 when his first edit was to do with the discussion about the article's deletion. So for the first 7.5 months of the article's existence, NUMB3RN7NE made no edit to it (or to any similar article or talk page to do with energy), and then appeared on the scene to resist the article's deletion? Sorry, but that doesn't exactly help to dispel my fears and concerns.

I only raised the notion of socks (and by the way, if you feel the need to attribute a descriptor to my actions, it's "waving") because I feel it's worth a gentle reminder that here (as for all talk pages), intellectual honesty must be practised by adhering to the policy of: one editor equals one !vote/comment (and there are relatively new editors here—who may not be aware of the policy). This is of course primarily to help protect and support the majority of editors here who are obviously doing the right thing.

Anyhow, I've said my peace, and I'm happy to move on. GFHandel ♬  21:22, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

@NUMB3RN7NE, unfortunately next to nobody around here knows who Mizuno is, nor that he has published peer reviewed papers on cold fusion and also on non-fringe science topics, nor that he has published a book on nuclear transmutations in japanese published by Kougakasha, which was translated by Jed Rothwell.

@GFHandel, thanks for the waiving :-) You mentioned intellectual honesty. I think that knowing at least the names and the sources is the first step toward intellectual honesty on this topic. So a gentle reminder from my side to many editors here: The topic gets more interesting by the number of sources one reads and it would greatly reduce the length of pointless discussions on this talk page. To you personally I hope "moving on" for you means "reading up on". --POVbrigand (talk) 10:24, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Defense Intelligence Agency report 2009

In the April 18th issue of their news publication MizzouWeekly, the University of Missouri - which has recently received 5.5 Million to research LENR - mentions the 2009 Defense Intelligence Agency's report

.

I think our article should also mention this report.

--POVbrigand (talk) 13:31, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

This is the U. of Missouri giving legitimacy to its own research (not an independent source), using an unpublished statement made by a group of scientists inside DIA that don't represent the agency's official statement. Still no replicated experiments, just more claims.

This is the network of cold fusion researchers, citing each other to build up legitimacy for their statements. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:58, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

"network of cold fusion researchers" are you implying a conspiracy ? Many "regular" scientists who were skeptic at first, became convinced after they performed successful experiments themselves. Robert Duncan from Missouri University is one of those, he was introduced to cold fusion/LENR in 2009 because of the 60 minutes piece. He was a mainstream scientist until 2009 and became convinced based on the provided evidence that there is something to look into for which his university has recently received funding. And now YOU denounce HIM as one "of the network". You never will see a "non-believer" announcing that the effect is real, because once he does that he has suddenly become a "fringe adherent" in your eyes. Don't you see the logical fallacy you constantly fall for ? --POVbrigand (talk) 18:37, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Duncan's one of the "bend over backwards to demonstrate we gave it a fair hearing" school. He's also got irons in the far more mainstream Thorium cycle fire.[30] So far I don't see anything that says he is convinced there's actual fusion going on in these CF devices, but I may have missed it. But "network" does not imply "conspiracy". It only reflects the walled garden problem of self-referential publishing. To be taken seriously, CF publishing needs to happen routinely in mainstream physics journals. LeadSongDog come howl! 20:08, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Most LENR scientists are not really sure what it is that's going on in these devices. Duncan is not giving it just a "fair hearing", he was recently quoted saying Some scientists still scoff; others even get emotional about it, Duncan said. To them, he says: “Get over it.”[31].

You may not be aware that for instance George Miley also has "irons" in other forms of nuclear fusion processes. Your "revelation" here doesn't imply what you think it does.

You may also not be aware that LENR papers are indeed published routinely in mainstream physics journals. I think your walled garded is only due to the Idée fixe in the heads of the "I know all about this" ignorant pseudo skeptic pathological deniers. --POVbrigand (talk) 22:16, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

We had an earlier discussion about them being published, where it was noted that the volume has decreased massively since 1989. IRWolfie- (talk) 12:21, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Sure and a reliable source calls it "the normal publication rate in a small field that has found its natural niche." But you probably haven't read any source, so you wouldn't know. "normal" == ""routinely".

Here is my observation of the chain of argumentation which is passed around between some of the editors:

• If there is a claim of a working experiment, demand a replication.
• If there is a claim of a replication, demand a peer reviewed paper.
• If there is a peer reviewed paper, denounce the author, the journal, the notability, whatever. Foremost demand a secondary source.
• If there is a secondary source, denounce the author, the magazine, the notability, whatever.
• If the seconday source is solid, argue with WP:UNDUE, with WP:FRINGE, not promotion, not news, not now, go away, "you're a POV-pusher", "I have a scientific education", imply sock-puppeting.
• Highlight often that adding content describing the minority view is POV-pushing and fringe promotion and illegal on wikipedia.

I assume good faith for this unfortunate chain of argumentation. It happens again and again. I got used to it. The article is not improving. This is not a personal attack. --POVbrigand (talk) 09:53, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

@POVBrigand, that sentence is a paraphrase written by a wikipedia editor, the source is page 181 of Simon's Undead Science: "Data like these have lent support to the claims of the skeptics. Here we do not see life after death, just the dying gasps of the few remaining scientists blindly holding on to their belief in cold fusion. From another point of view, however, the publication data indicate not death or even life after death but rather research settling into a rather normal pattern for a small field. In terms of the overall ecology of science, CF research is simply finding its niche, with a few journals publishing a couple of dozen peer-reviewed papers a years. From this perspective the high rates of the early 90s become the anomaly. (...) Even though it is too soon to make a judgement about this, the publication rate may support the idea that some normalization of CF research has taken place. The cold fusion articles that appear tend to be published by a small cluster of specialized journals."[32] --Enric Naval (talk) 13:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I know, page 181, the paraphrasing is done very well I think. You are one of the few who actually reads (and knows) some of the sources: Huizenga, Taubes and Close (and Park?) for the anti-CF view and Simon for the pro-ish view. I suppose you haven't read Mallove. Have you read any of the more recent sources: Mizuno, Storms, Beaudette, Krivit, Marwan, Kozima ? --POVbrigand (talk) 21:16, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

You say it's "not a personal attack" but it appears to be an assertion that you view other editors who disagree with you in bad faith and you still have the battlefield mentality. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:48, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I wrote that I assume good faith for this unfortunate chain of argumentation. I do not attribute to bad faith what can be attributed to sheer ... misfortune. --POVbrigand (talk) 20:38, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Article section

I suggest that following article subsection be changed from:

"Claims of commercial devices

In January 2011 inventor Andrea Rossi together with researcher Sergio Focardi from the University of Bologna claimed to have successfully demonstrated commercially viable cold fusion in a device called an Energy Catalyzer. Other inventors have made similar claims in the past, however commercial devices are not available on the market."

to:

"Claims of commercial devices

In 2011 there were a number of claims of success with Low Energy Nuclear Reaction devices and declarations of intention to produce commercial products. These came from Andrea Rossi's ECAT company with his energy catalyzer device, Defkalion Green Technologies company with their Hyperion device, scientist Francesco Piantelli's Nichenergy company and finally scientist Francesco Celani's Cold Fusion Energy Inc. In 2012 similar claims were made by scientist George H. Miley's Lenuco company and Ugo Abundo of the Leopoldo Pirelli School and his open source device. At this stage no commercial devices are on the market. ECAT and Defkalion have made claims their devices will be available this year. The Pirelli School is making details of their technology available to the public."

My reasoning: Sergio Focardi is not involved directly with ECAT by all indications and should be removed. Being specific as to scientists and the companies they have set up makes the reader more aware that it is not just Andrea Rossi making claims here - additional scientists have begun to make concrete claims and stated that they have set up companies and intend to have commercial products available. These groups generally describe their work as LENR not cold fusion. The names of the companies should be mentioned as this enables readers to do follow up in a controversial field.

As an aside, I would think the Energy Catalyzer page should be moved to this page, but given the unending flame wars between sceptics and proselytizers on that site nothing is going to happen until a commercial product appears on sale. I do not think that the name of a company product should be a Wikipedia page myself.

Thoughts anyone? A good idea?

Star A Star (talk) 06:39, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I made an altered version of the above. I kept the reference to Focardi (he's a nice chap). I deleted the Pirelli School as I saw objections to it above. I linked George Miley to his Wikipedia article. Lenuco was announced by Miley recently. Piantelli had patents prior to Rossi. The Focardi article "Anomalous heat production in Ni-H systems" states that at the end of 1989, after Fleischmann and Pons, and dissatisfied with testing relating to cold fusion, it was Piantelli that made the initial guess. "[O]ne of us (FP[Piantelli])... suspected an irregular production of the heat involved" in their experiment involving low-temperature calorimetry (about 200K) on deuterated organic compounds in hydrogen. Over months they came to think this was due to the nickel support on which the organic material had been deposited.

I remain convinced that it is important to mention the names of respected scientists who have claimed concrete experimental results in real devices and the intention to begin commercial production. This shows that it is not just an inventor (Rossi) with some support from a scientist (Focardi) but a number of scientists: Piantelli, Celani and Miley: plus another commercial entity, Defkalion.

I hope these changes can be seen as relatively neutral. It is really important that readers understand that this is wider than just Andrea Rossi. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Star A Star (talk • contribs) 07:18, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

This seems an original synthesis Synthesis on your part and not consistent with what reliable sources say. There have been numerous claimed commercial devices throughout the years. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:19, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. Well, someone removed my edit. The Miley device is I believe technically somewhat different. However, Piantelli (who has worked with Focardi, as I mentioned above, before Focardi assisted Rossi) and Celani have worked on nickel-hydrogen systems. Professor Francesco Piantelli is at the University of Siena. His company website http://www.nichenergy.com/ has no information on it as yet. It co-sponsored the recent 10th International Workshop on Anomalies in Hydrogen Loaded Metals on 10-14 April 2012. http://www.iscmns.org/work10/

Dr Francesco Celani works as a senior researcher at the Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati (part of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics, Italy) http://www.lnf.infn.it/public/ Cold Fusion Energy Inc is in fact not Celani's company, although he is involved in it. http://cfeis.com/ So he has no company, though he is claiming to have a device with results equivalent to Piantelli and Rossi.

Defkalion has a website, you can look it up on a search engine, and it has been discussed endless times. At its press conference on 23 June 2011 among the 150 persons present was the then Greek Minister of Industry and Energy Mr Xinidis, for example.

If you don't want to include the Pirelli School, fine, it's too early perhaps. Celani too, fine, he has no official website or company. But Piantelli? Focardi claims Piantelli is the one who accidentally DISCOVERED nickel-hydrogen LENR (as I mentioned above). He has a company and plans for it and has claimed a working device though he has no active website yet.

I think you are being pedantic not including these claims, especially Piantelli and Celani, whose work relates to nickel-hydrogen: but fine. However, not including Defkalion (also nickel-hydrogen) is counterfactual. They have a website, office, staff, plans and press releases. They have generated (like Rossi) enough press to sink an encyclopedia.

LENR directs to Cold Fusion as an article: but the key current players doing work focussing on nickel-hydrogen LENR are omitted. Huh? Why is Rossi there but not them? Are they not academics? Do they not work in reputable institutions? They can't even get a sentence? The key thing being their common use of nickel-hydrogen.

All these major players know one another - look at Cold Fusion Inc - it includes Michael McKubre, Francesco Piantelli, Edmund Storms, Francesco Celani, Peter Hagelstein and George Miley. Some of these people have Wikipedia articles.

Come on, be serious! Yes, Wikipedia is not a newspaper. Yes, information needs to be verified, and it's unfortunate that Italian scientists love blogs so much and make their announcements at Italian scientific conferences and don't write in English. But if nothing else I really think you can't include Rossi without mentioning Defkalion. And there should be a mention of those researchers claiming advances in nickel-hydrogen systems including Piantelli and Celani.

My apologies for thinking Celani had a personal company - I should have triple checked. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Star A Star (talk • contribs) 12:05, 1 May 2012 (UTC) Star A Star (talk) 12:10, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

About Deflakion, I think they have not released any product yet. Rossi and Deflakion have some sort of complicated relationship. That level of detail would belong to article Energy Catalyzer.

About all those companies, Wikipedia is not a catalog of every company in a field. There are other websites more oriented to giving lots of details. (Right now I can only think of peswiki[33]) --Enric Naval (talk) 12:41, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Poor sourcing on DARPA wild goose chase

DARPA is a fairly huge funding agency arm of the US Defense Department which has funded all manner of out there and not so out there projects. It is unsurprising that cold fusion fans dug around and began trumpeting its "quiet" funding of LENR. The inserted prose was like this:

Darpa, the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has been "quietly pursuing LENR for some years." and for 2012 plans to continue their collaboration with the Italian Department of Energy to "Establish scalability and scaling parameters in excess heat generation processes"

I removed this for two reasons: 1) The sourcing leaves much to be desired. Wired.co.uk is not a good source for what funding and collaboration is happening nor is there a good indication for the scale on which DARPA is involved (it seems to be minimal at best). The second source is a 300+ page document listing ALL the funding that DARPA gives. This doesn't so much support the claim of relevance to the parent topic of COLD FUSION as it does show that someone can use a search algorithm. 2) There doesn't seem to have been an editorial weighting of how important this DARPA funding has or has not been to cold fusion research. In any case, this is unimpressive and poorly vetted text.

Please workshop this before reinserting.

24.215.188.24 (talk) 02:41, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I think you are a sockpuppet of SA / VanishedUser314159. You are banned from Wikipedia. --POVbrigand (talk) 21:06, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not a sockpuppet. 24.215.188.24 (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I think these two apply:

Wikipedia:Tendentious_editing#One_who_disputes_the_reliability_of_apparently_good_sources

Wikipedia:Tendentious_editing#One_who_deletes_the_cited_additions_of_others

--POVbrigand (talk) 08:38, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

The sources' reliability is not being disputed and the "cited additions" are clearly explained as to why they are no good.

If have a substantive critique of the analysis above, please offer it.

24.215.188.24 (talk) 12:26, 7 May 2012 (UTC)