Cold fusion - Wikipedia. Diagram of an open- type calorimeter used at the New Hydrogen Energy Institute in Japan. Cold fusion is a hypothesized type of nuclear reaction that would occur at, or near, room temperature. This is compared with the . There is currently no accepted theoretical model that would allow cold fusion to occur. In 1. 98. 9 Martin Fleischmann (then one of the world's leading electrochemists) and Stanley Pons reported that their apparatus had produced anomalous heat (. The reported results received wide media attention, and raised hopes of a cheap and abundant source of energy. Many scientists tried to replicate the experiment with the few details available. Hopes faded due to the large number of negative replications, the withdrawal of many reported positive replications, the discovery of flaws and sources of experimental error in the original experiment, and finally the discovery that Fleischmann and Pons had not actually detected nuclear reaction byproducts. A second DOE review in 2. DOE funding of cold fusion. Since the 1. 92. 0s, there has been speculation that nuclear fusion might be possible at much lower temperatures by catalytically fusing hydrogen absorbed in a metal catalyst. In 1. 98. 9, a claim by Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann (then one of the world's leading electrochemists) that such cold fusion had been observed caused a brief media sensation before the majority of scientists criticized their claim as incorrect after many found they could not replicate the excess heat. Since the initial announcement, cold fusion research has continued by a small community of researchers who believe that such reactions happen and hope to gain wider recognition for their experimental evidence. Early research. The ability of palladium to absorb hydrogen was recognized as early as the nineteenth century by Thomas Graham. However, the authors later retracted that report, saying that the helium they measured was due to background from the air. In 1. 92. 7 Swedish scientist John Tandberg reported that he had fused hydrogen into helium in an electrolytic cell with palladium electrodes. On the basis of his work, he applied for a Swedish patent for . Due to Paneth and Peters's retraction and his inability to explain the physical process, his patent application was denied. The final experiments made by Tandberg with heavy water were similar to the original experiment by Fleischmann and Pons. In his original paper on this subject with Clinton Van Siclen, submitted in 1. Jones had coined the term . After a brief period of interest by the wider scientific community, their reports were called into question by nuclear physicists. Pons and Fleischmann never retracted their claims, but moved their research program to France after the controversy erupted. Events preceding announcement. Electrolysis cell schematic. Martin Fleischmann of the University of Southampton and Stanley Pons of the University of Utah hypothesized that the high compression ratio and mobility of deuterium that could be achieved within palladium metal using electrolysis might result in nuclear fusion. To investigate, they conducted electrolysis experiments using a palladium cathode and heavy water within a calorimeter, an insulated vessel designed to measure process heat. Current was applied continuously for many weeks, with the heavy water being renewed at intervals. Some deuterium was thought to be accumulating within the cathode, but most was allowed to bubble out of the cell, joining oxygen produced at the anode. But then, at some point (in some of the experiments), the temperature rose suddenly to about 5. These high temperature phases would last for two days or more and would repeat several times in any given experiment once they had occurred. The calculated power leaving the cell was significantly higher than the input power during these high temperature phases. Eventually the high temperature phases would no longer occur within a particular cell. Cold Fusion – Solo Ski Holidays & Singles Snowboard Holidays. At Cold Fusion, we offer a family and child-free environment in all of our ski chalets. We guarantee you will be with other single skiers and solo snowboarders on. Up to this point they had been funding their experiments using a small device built with $1. The grant proposal was turned over for peer review, and one of the reviewers was Steven Jones of Brigham Young University. Jones had worked for some time on muon- catalyzed fusion, a known method of inducing nuclear fusion without high temperatures, and had written an article on the topic entitled . Fleischmann and Pons and co- workers met with Jones and co- workers on occasion in Utah to share research and techniques. During this time, Fleischmann and Pons described their experiments as generating considerable . Jones, however, was measuring neutron flux, which was not of commercial interest.
Fleischmann and Pons, however, pressured by the University of Utah, which wanted to establish priority on the discovery. Jones, upset, faxed in his paper to Nature after the press conference. Our friends at the Martin Fleischmann Memorial Project (MFMP) have put an intriguing statement on their Facebook Page. Here it is: “What if you had a document that Fleischmann and Pons' announcement drew wide media attention. Its discovery 3. 0 years earlier had also been unexpected, though it was quickly replicated and explained within the existing physics framework. The announcement of a new purported clean source of energy came at a crucial time: adults still remembered the 1. Exxon Valdez oil spill, which happened the day after the announcement. Peterson, Fleischmann and Pons, backed by the solidity of their scientific credentials, repeatedly assured the journalists that cold fusion would solve environmental problems, and would provide a limitless inexhaustible source of clean energy, using only seawater as fuel. In the accompanying press release Fleischmann was quoted saying: . The first paper submitted to Nature reproducing excess heat, although it passed peer- review, was rejected because most similar experiments were negative and there were no theories that could explain a positive result. Nathan Lewis, professor of chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, led one of the most ambitious validation efforts, trying many variations on the experiment without success. Even those reporting success had difficulty reproducing Fleischmann and Pons' results. On 1. 0 April 1. 98. Texas A& M University published results of excess heat and later that day a group at the Georgia Institute of Technology announced neutron production. On 1. 2 April Pons was acclaimed at an ACS meeting. But Georgia Tech retracted their announcement on 1. April, explaining that their neutron detectors gave false positives when exposed to heat. This paper notably showed a gamma peak without its corresponding Compton edge, which indicated they had made a mistake in claiming evidence of fusion byproducts. The University of Utah asked Congress to provide $2. Pons was scheduled to meet with representatives of President Bush in early May. On 3. 0 April 1. 98. New York Times. The Times called it a circus the same day, and the Boston Herald attacked cold fusion the following day. At the end of the session, eight of the nine leading speakers stated that they considered the initial Fleischmann and Pons claim dead, with the ninth, Johann Rafelski, abstaining. Steven E. Koonin of Caltech called the Utah report a result of . Morrison, a physicist representing CERN, was the first to call the episode an example of pathological science. Negative results were also published in several other scientific journals including Science, Physical Review Letters, and Physical Review C (nuclear physics). The panel issued its report in November 1. The panel noted the large number of failures to replicate excess heat and the greater inconsistency of reports of nuclear reaction byproducts expected by established conjecture. Nuclear fusion of the type postulated would be inconsistent with current understanding and, if verified, would require established conjecture, perhaps even theory itself, to be extended in an unexpected way. The panel was against special funding for cold fusion research, but supported modest funding of . By this point, however, academic consensus had moved decidedly toward labeling cold fusion as a kind of . Salamon, a Utah physicist, and nine co- authors reported negative results. University faculty were then . The lawyer later apologized; Fleischmann defended the threat as a legitimate reaction to alleged bias displayed by cold- fusion critics. An A& M cold fusion review panel found that the tritium evidence was not convincing and that, while they couldn't rule out spiking, contamination and measurements problems were more likely explanations. In 1. 99. 2, Pons and Fleischman resumed research with Toyota Motor Corporation's IMRA lab in France. Fleischmann left for England in 1. Pons was not renewed in 1. The IMRA laboratory stopped cold fusion research in 1. Pons has made no public declarations since, and only Fleischmann continued giving talks and publishing papers. Mostly in the 1. 99. After 1. 99. 1, cold fusion research only continued in relative obscurity, conducted by groups that had increasing difficulty securing public funding and keeping programs open. These small but committed groups of cold fusion researchers have continued to conduct experiments using Fleischmann and Pons electrolysis set- ups in spite of the rejection by the mainstream community. The Boston Globe estimated in 2. Since the main controversy over Pons and Fleischmann had ended, cold fusion research has been funded by private and small governmental scientific investment funds in the United States, Italy, Japan, and India. Current research. Cold fusion research continues today in a few specific venues, but the wider scientific community has generally marginalized the research being done and researchers have had difficulty publishing in mainstream journals. The new names avoid making bold implications, like implying that fusion is actually occurring. University researchers are often unwilling to investigate cold fusion because they would be ridiculed by their colleagues and their professional careers would be at risk. Between cold fusion and respectable science there is virtually no communication at all.
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