Talk:Cold fusion

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New version of this article by E. Storms is available

Happy New Year everyone.

At the top of this article there is a notice: "This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject."

I think this is true. Fortunately, I was able to persuade Edmund Storms (Los Alamos, ret.) to write a revised version of this article. Storms is widely regarded as one of the world's leading experts in this field, and he has written a number of reviews including two peer-reviewed journal articles. Storms prepared a draft incorporating most of the statements and issues raised in the current article, except for the early history. It is shorter than the present article (4,300 words versus 7,800) and it is written in the style of a formal scientific paper or encyclopedia entry, much like the Wikipedia article on plasma fusion.

The draft is written in Microsoft Word, and the footnotes are in EndNote format. Before I upload it, I will have to convert these formats to the Wikipedia format. (Is this basically HTML?) This will take some time. I also have to insert some last-minute changes from the main article that people made after Storms began editing.

The skeptics may or may not be happy with this draft. I would not want to do all this work only to have them undo it. So before I upload, let me post it here. I am not sure how to proceed and I would appreciate advice, especially from the skeptics. I would also appreciate advice on how to deal with the footnotes. If the article is changed in the future we will have to manually renumber them. Is there some way to make them automatically numbered? Some of them can be hyperlinked to online papers, but most of these references are not on line.

If the skeptics object to this version, I suggest we split the article down the middle. The skeptics can write the first 3,200 words, then we insert Storms' 3,200 words, and then 1,100 in common, starting with "Cold fusion in fiction." I realize this is not how Wikipedia articles are formatted, but I see no reason why they all have to be formatted the same way. What harm would there be in making an exception for this subject?

In the first section, the skeptics would be welcome to delete all references to the literature, all of the rebuttals to their claims, quotes from Schwinger and so on, and they can say that the "vast majority of scientists" think that cold fusion is pseudoscience. They can even quote Robert Park, who says it is fraud.

Anyway, the unformatted draft is below.

--JedRothwell 16:51, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Storms draft

Introduction

The field and the name “cold Fusion” started in 1989 when chemists Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of the University of Southampton reported the production of excess heat in an electrolytic cell containing D2O "that could only be explained by a nuclear process."[1, 2] Their results were replicated by some laboratories and not by others. Nevertheless, several influential physicists rejected the claims because the nuclear signatures were not consistent with those known to occur from the claimed reaction. [3] This attitude was communicated to the general scientific profession and, even now, many professional chemists and physicists still do not believe this phenomenon exists. A few people even take the extreme position that this is an example of pseudoscience.

Conventionally initiated nuclear reactions involve the use of neutrons or application of high energy, sometimes using a plasma. When these conditions are applied to the deuterium fusion reaction, the process is called “hot fusion”. On the other hand, reactions initiated by the “cold fusion” process occur in a unique solid structure without significant energy being applied. “Hot fusion” results in equal quantities of tritium and neutrons. In contrast, “cold fusion” produces mainly helium with very few neutrons and occasional tritium. Both methods produce large amounts of energy as heat. Therefore, both methods have the potential to provide clean energy using an essentially infinite source of fuel, although the “cold fusion” energy is cleaner than that resulting from “hot fusion”. As of 2005, "hot fusion” has not achieved a controlled and sustained reaction even though over 15 billion dollars and 50 years have been applied. On the other hand, the “cold fusion” process is not yet sufficiently well understood to be completely reproducible after about 200 million dollars and 16 years have been applied to its study.

Although initial observations were made using an electrolytic cell in which the active material was palladium and the source of fuel was D2O, many other methods are now claimed to produce the same kind of nuclear reactions. In addition, the active material can be several other materials besides palladium, all of which need to have a unique structure and generally are present with nanosized dimensions. Evidence for a variety of nuclear processes have been presented including transmutation, fusion, and fission. For this reason, the terms "Low Energy Nuclear Reactions" (LENR), “Chemically Assisted Nuclear Reactions”(CANR), and "Condensed Matter Nuclear Science" (CMNS) are now used to describe work in this area. Many theories are being explored in order to identify a possible mechanism, although none have yet gained acceptance by conventional science. Unfortunately, the nature of the nuclear active environment has not yet been identified.

History

In the 1920s, two German scientists, Fritz Paneth and Kurt Peters, reported room-temperature transformation of hydrogen into helium by spontaneous nuclear catalysis involving finely-divided palladium. [4] Their claim was later retracted [5] as the authors acknowledged that the helium production they had measured was due to background from the air or the glassware they used.

In 1927, Swedish scientist John Tandberg said 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 "a method to produce helium and useful reaction energy," and continued his experiments with heavy water after deuterium was discovered in 1932. Due to Paneth and Peters' retraction, Tandberg's patent application was eventually denied.

On March 23, 1989, the chemists Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of the University of Southampton held a press conference and reported production of excess heat "that could only be explained by a nuclear process." This claim was particularly astonishing given the simplicity of the equipment, which was just a water electrolysis experiment consisting of a pair of electrodes connected to a battery and immersed in a jar of heavy water (D2O). The world’s press responded with front-page items in most newspapers around the world. The scientists were interviewed by many in the Media and by Congress. Everyone recognized the immense beneficial implications of the Utah experiments, if they were correct, which caused scientists around the world to attempt replication within hours of the announcement.

On April 10 a team at Texas A&M University announced results of excess heat and later that day a team at the Georgia Institute of Technology announced neutron production. [6] Both results were widely reported on in the press. Not so well reported was the fact that both teams soon withdrew their results for lack of evidence. For the next six weeks competing claims, counterclaims, and suggested explanations kept the topic on the front pages, and led to what writers have referred to as "fusion confusion." It should be noted that many positive results were not withdrawn including subsequent work at Texas A&M by the same team. [7, 8]

At the end of May the Energy Research Advisory Board (a standing advisory committee in the U.S. Department of Energy) formed a special panel to investigate cold fusion. The report of the panel after five months' study was that there was no convincing evidence for cold fusion, and that such an effect "would be contrary to all understanding gained of nuclear reactions in the last half century." It specifically recommended against any special funding for cold fusion research, but was "sympathetic toward modest support for carefully focused and cooperative experiments within the present funding system".[9] However, no submitted proposal was funded even though some met the guidelines.

Both critics and those attempting replications were frustrated by what they said was incomplete information released by the University of Utah. People speculated that Pons and Fleischmann withheld key details of the experiment, possibly as a prelude to obtaining a patent. In response, Fleischmann said at a meeting in April that all the necessary details had been given in the published paper. We now know that Pons and Fleischmann did not understand at that time what was needed to make the effect work so that successful replications, and there were a few, were largely the result of luck.

By the end of May much of the media attention had faded among the competing results and counterclaims. More significantly, the research effort decreased greatly. The skeptics claim that most attempts at replication failed and none produced definitive results. In fact, some experiments conducted by experienced electrochemists did produce positive results, and many of these results had a high signal to noise ratio.[10] Most of the people who had positive results at that time continued their studies and provided important insights that have improved reproducibility and the quality of supporting evidence. This is not the result of biased, true believers continuing to be deceived, but of trained scientists who trusted what they saw with their instruments after much skeptical evaluation. This approach is identical to how all new discoveries are treated by science.

A National Cold Fusion Institute was established in 1989 by the state of Utah, and eventually published a paper showing that cold fusion produces tritium, which is proof that it is a nuclear process. [11] At about the same time, tritium production was reported by workers at Los Alamos National Laboratory [12], at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in India [13], and at Texas A & M University [14]. Occasional tritium production has been detected by several laboratories since then. This radioactive element can only be produced by a nuclear reaction and it does not exist in nature at a sufficient concentration to explain the observations.

In September 1990, the National Institute published a tally of replications of cold fusion. It included data from 92 research groups in 10 countries, and it listed positive results in five categories: heat, tritium, neutrons, gamma rays and helium-3. Reports came from groups at Los Alamos NL, Oak Ridge NL, Brookhaven NL, Naval Systems San Diego, BARC India, U. Rome, Case Western U., Texas A&M U., Stanford U., U. Minnesota, U. Rome, Hokkaido U. and many other leading laboratories. These replications along with hundreds of others were later published in peer-reviewed journals. More complete reviews were published at about the same time by a worker at LANL[10] and by workers at Texas A&M[15].

The Fusion/Energy Council of Utah sponsored a careful, in-depth analysis Fleischmann and Pons' data, which was published in 1991. [16] This review and a subsequent one [17] concluded that excess heat reported in March 1989 is real.

Continuing efforts

Most disagreement over the validity of the results, that continue to the present day, ignores the fact that all of the demands by skeptics have been met. Nuclear products have been identified [18] and related to the amount of energy produced, errors in calorimetry have been identified [19] and reduced to insignificant levels, and the effect is now increasingly reproducible by people who understand the important variables. In addition, mechanisms have been identified that can explain aspects of the process. Ongoing work in 7 countries continues to strengthen each of these requirements, with companies being organized to commercialize some aspects of the phenomenon. Scientists continue to share their results at the International Conference on Cold Fusion, which has been held 12 times in various countries during the intervening 16 years.

ISSUES IN THE DEBATE

Excess heat production is an important characteristic of the effect that has created the most criticism. This is understandable because calorimetry is a difficult measurement and it is not understood by most scientists. In addition, the original measurements, as well as a few other studies, were based on complex and unconventional methods. Nevertheless, evidence is available that is based on well designed and well understood methods. For example, McKubre et al. [20] at SRI spent millions of dollars developing a state of the art flow calorimeter that was used to study many samples that showed production of significant anomalous energy. Over 30 similar studies [21] have observed the same general behavior as was reported by these workers. Of course, all of the positive results could be caused by various errors. This possibility has been explored in many papers, which have been reviewed and summarized by Storms[22]. Although a few of the suggested errors might have affected a few studies, no error has been identified that can explain all of the positive results, especially those using well designed methods. At this time, it is safe to conclude that anomalous energy is produced regardless of its source. This conclusion is important regardless of whether nuclear reactions are the source or not.

For a nuclear reaction to be proposed as the source of energy, it is necessary to show that the amount of energy is related to the amount of a nuclear product. Until the work of Miles et al. [23], various unexpected nuclear products had been detected but never in sufficient amounts. Miles et al. showed that the helium was generated when anomalous heat was measured and that the relationship between the two measurements was consistent with the amount of energy known to result from a d-d fusion reaction. Since then 5 other studies[18] have observed the same relationship. Of course, some of the detected helium could have resulted from helium known to be in normal air. Also, the heat measurements could be wrong in just the right amount every time the measurements were made. Even though these possibilities could have been used to explain one study, it is unlikely that such an advantageous combination of error can explain all of the results, especially when active efforts were made to reduce these errors. At the present time, people who follow this issue believe that heat and helium are related, but the source of the helium is still to be determined. In other words, the helium may not result from d-d fusion.

Besides helium, other nuclear products are detected in much smaller quantities. Early in the history, great effort was made to detect neutrons, an expected nuclear product from the d-d fusion reaction. Except for occasional bursts, the emission rate was found to be near the limit of detection or completely absent. This fact was used to reject the initial claim. It is now believed that the few neutrons are caused by a secondary nuclear reaction, possibility having nothing to do with the helium producing reaction. Tritium is another expected product of d-d fusion, which was sought. Too little tritium was detected so that once again the original claims were inconsistent with expectations. Nevertheless, the amount of tritium detected could not be explained by any prosaic process after all of the possibilities had been completely explored. The source of tritium is still unknown although it clearly result from a nuclear reaction that is initiated within the apparatus. Various nuclear products normally associated with d-d fusion also have been detected as energetic emissions, but at very low rates. Clearly, unusual nuclear processes are occurring in material where none should occur.

Finally, the presence of heavy elements having unnatural isotopic ratios and in unexpected large amounts are detected under some conditions. These are the so called transmutation products. Work in Japan [24-28] has opened an entirely new aspect to the phenomenon by showing that impurity elements in palladium, through which D2 is caused to pass, are converted to heavier elements to which 2D, 4D or 6D have been added. These very well done studies need to be read to be believed. The claims have been replicated in Japan and similar efforts are underway at NRL.

In spite of these well documented and replicated observations, a recent review of the topic by the United States Department of Energy (DoE) came to mixed and mainly negative conclusions about the reality of the claims. [29, 30] In keeping with this negative opinion, many journals including Nature do not accept submissions related to cold fusion, and Scientific American has often attacked the subject. In contrast, other prestigious journals such the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics continue to publish well done studies on the subject. The world is gradually splitting into two separate opinions based on which countries need the energy. The issue has left the realm of trivial skepticism and has now entered the process described by the historian and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn in his seminal work on scientific revolutions. [31] The stakes are now too high for trivial skepticism to operate. All of the world needs the energy and the country that finds the secret first will dominate for a long time.

The question has become, “Will a potentially useful source of energy be rejected because the observations are in conflict with conventional theory or will an acceptable explanation be sought instead of rejecting the observations”?

Cold fusion in fiction

* The Saint, a 1997 film starring Val Kilmer who plays a spy (Simon Templar) hired to steal a cold fusion formula.
* Final Exam, an Outer Limits episode.
* The Skylark of Space, a 1928 novel.
* Chain Reaction, a 1996 film starring Keanu Reeves
* Command & Conquer: Generals, a 2002 video game in which cold fusion reactors supply power to a mobile American military.
* In one episode of Stargate SG-1 (Prisoners) a woman on a prison planet uses what Carter thinks is cold fusion to power the gate for a manual dial-out.
* Starcraft A Sci-fi Strategy game that features the use of cold fusion in the transportation.
* Breaking Symmetry, a 1999 privately distributed, feature-length film written, produced and directed by former M.I.T Professor Keith Johnson (see www.breaksym.com).

Comments

Jed - first let me say this is very cool, I'd love to get this contribution in. It needs minimal formatting (headers etc), wikification, and a merge with some parts of the current text (especially web links). I think a few areas could be expanded a bit, and it needs some copyediting, but we can do that later. Do you happen to know which exact version of this page it was based on? (so we can merge later changes?) Some docs on Wikipedia formatting (which is not at all like HTML) are at Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page#Wiki_markup, and for formatting footnotes WP:CITET and Template:Ref/examples. I will be quite happy to handle those parts, if you don't mind. ObsidianOrder 10:57, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. regarding the "split it down the middle" idea, I don't think that's necessary (or usual practice). If there's anything notable that is missing, people can simply add it. I don't see this as an "us vs them", "supporters vs skeptics" kind of thing, and I sincerely hope other people don't either. We are all simply trying to make this a better article, and I think most editors will agree the Storms draft is hands down better than the current version. ObsidianOrder 11:01, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It would be unusual to split the article. Perhaps unprecedented. But I see no harm in doing it. If I were a skeptic, and I believed that the vast majority of scientists think that cold fusion is pathological science, and that cold fusion has never been replicated, I would not be satisfied by Storms' draft. I would want my views represented. It is difficult to integrate both views in the same stream of text, so why not separate them? Also, the skeptics may wish to preserve statements about the early history of cold fusion. Storms felt these were irrelevant. Perhaps they should be moved to a new encyclopedia article, "History of Cold Fusion"?

I sincerely wish to avoid squelching the skeptical point of view, or riling the skeptics, so I favor letting them have their say, but I cannot see how their views can be added to the Storms draft and still have the document make any sense. It would sound schizophrenic. I would like see Noren or some other skeptic here take the present article and delete everything he disagrees with. We can place that version first. I, for one, would promise not to touch it. --JedRothwell 16:51, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please see a first try at a formatted version at User:ObsidianOrder/Cold_fusion. Comments? I'm trying to decide whether it would be better to use Harvard style references in the text eg. (Bockris 1990) instead of [17]. ObsidianOrder 11:56, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That looks great, except that the footnotes are out of synch. There was a problem with the EndNote records and I think one of the DoE footnotes is missing. It is supposed to list the DoE summary + the DoE review panel members comments.

Ed has sent me some minor changes and patches. This version is based on a copy of the existing article made Dec. 30, 2005, so it is mostly up to date.

I can change the footnote formats to Harvard style by changing a parameter in EndNote. Either way is fine with me. After this is uploaded I will insert the hyperlinks to the footnoted documents that are available on line, such as the DoE document (at the DoE website). I have a master list of these.

--JedRothwell 16:37, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Jed - you probably don't need to re-export from EndNote, I think just change {{ref|Bockris1990}} to {{ref_harvard|Bockris1990|Bockris 1990|}} should work. I can run a script to do that en-masse. I changed the first footnote on User:ObsidianOrder/Cold_fusion to that style as a test, see if it works for you. ObsidianOrder 22:48, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is better than the current state of the article and does represent a great starting point to move forward. There are some problems, but overall I believe they're all reasonably easily fixable. Some are simple style problems such as the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article shouldn't give a historically derived explanation for a term, but an overview or definition of what it is currently considered to be. That's not an insurmountable problem. Overall it too many times states opinions of the writer as facts, even those that are later discussed to be disputed. An egregious example is "Most disagreement over the validity of the results, that continue to the present day, ignores the fact that all of the demands by skeptics have been met." Obviously they are not met to the satisfaction of many very prominent scientists or there wouldn't be a controversy. Instead of being stated as a fact, the debate must be characterized. That could more neutrally be written as "Cold fusion researchers [possibly including "such as foo and bar"] believe that all the demands...". There are similar examples, but I believe they are all fixable. Another problem that is carried over from the previous article is it is not made clear what we are talking about with cold fusion. Are we only accepting processes that involve excess heat or is muon catalyzed that doesn't involve excess heat counted? It still suffers from the obvious problem of being written from the perspective of a cold fusion proponent, but it's closer. Again this is an improvement and a better starting point. I suggest improving it in a temp page such as cold fusion/temp until there is a consensus that the version is better than what is in the current article. - Taxman ^Talk 18:09, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Taxman writes:

"Another problem that is carried over from the previous article is it is not made clear what we are talking about with cold fusion. Are we only accepting processes that involve excess heat or is muon catalyzed . . ."

In the interests of clarity, I think this article should be devoted to metal-deuteride cold fusion. Other Wikipedia articles (or "stubs") can be established to cover muon catalyzed fusion, sono-fusion and so on. Naturally these articles should include links to one-another.

"Overall it too many times states opinions of the writer as facts, even those that are later discussed to be disputed."

I figured you would feel that way. You can amend or delete these sections to make minor adjustments, but if you wish to make major changes, I urge you add a section to the beginning instead. (Call it a sort of "mini-split"). I have in mind something along these lines:

Skeptical Assertions [claims, views, opinions . . . or whatever you would like to call them]

Many skeptics do not believe that cold fusion exists. They make the following assertions:

The vast majority of scientists believe it does not exist.

The effect has never been replicated.

While the output power is higher than the input power during the power burst, the power balance over the whole experiment does not show significant imbalances. . . . A "power store" discovery would yield only a new, and very expensive, kind of storage battery, not a source of abundant cheap fusion power.

etc., etc. Make it as long as you feel necessary to express the views not covered by Storms, plus the views that you feel are his opinions. (You can be sure, however, that all cold researchers agree with him. He only included consensus views.) I am not recommending this in order to "segregate" views or invent a new Wikipedia standard, but only because the article is very difficult to follow when polar opposite views are mixed together in the same paragraph.

If Taxman agrees this is a good start, I think we should move it into the main article soon, so that we do not accidentally erase or overwrite recent changes.

--JedRothwell 19:34, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Taxman - I agree with your comments, I think there are quite a few places that could use editing precisely as you describe. I would like to see if I can come up with something which is both substantial and fair, but as you say I think we should start trying to get there from the Storms draft which is quite good in some respects. ObsidianOrder 22:19, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The draft has serious problems with POV. I really wish there were someone competent and willing to evenhandedly revise it. The sentence

Most disagreement over the validity of the results, that continue to the present day, ignores the fact that all of the demands by skeptics have been met.

is, as noted above, about as POV as you can get. If you look at the references, the work of Pons and Fleischmann occurred in 1989. If you look at the references, after 1991 the only peer reviewed papers referenced are [11] and [20], published in 1993 and 1994 in the Journal of Electroanalytic Chemistry, and [27], published in the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, in 2002. Where are publications in top flight journals, like the Physical Review, Nuclear Physics, Nature or Science? Or any of the fusion journals? Peer review is the scientific gold standard and it is outside the competence of Wikipedia to judge the status of cold fusion research outside of the publication record. Storms writes:

The issue has left the realm of trivial skepticism and has now entered the process described by the historian and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn in his seminal work on scientific revolutions. [31] The stakes are now too high for trivial skepticism to operate. All of the world needs the energy and the country that finds the secret first will dominate for a long time.

Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. Any historian, Kuhn amongst them, would agree that you cannot identify the stages in a historical event as they are happening. –Joke 19:19, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Joke writes:

Most disagreement over the validity of the results, that continue to the present day, ignores the fact that all of the demands by skeptics have been met. is, as noted above, about as POV as you can get.

It is the point of view of the researchers. If you assert that the demands of the skeptics have not been met, that would be the point of view of a skeptic. Your view is also "as POV as you can get" because you are saying all the experiments are ignored, and they should be ignored (presumably because they are all wrong). You are saying, for example, the autoradiograph from BARC and hundreds of others like it prove nothing because they are mistakes.

There is simply no reconciling these two views. The only thing we can do is clearly spell out both.

If you look at the references, after 1991 the only peer reviewed papers referenced are [11] and [20], published in 1993 and 1994 in the Journal of Electroanalytic Chemistry, and [27], published in the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, in 2002.

Those are only examples. There are hundreds of others. See the indexes at LENR-CANR.org.

Or any of the fusion journals?

See: Li, X.Z., et al., A Chinese View on Summary of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science. J. Fusion Energy, 2004. 23(3): p. 217-221. [1]

This paper confirms that cold fusion produces tritium, and it calls for additional funding for cold fusion research. I gather J. Fusion Energy is a major fusion journal, because it is edited by the plasma fusion lobbying group in Washington, DC, Fusion Power Associates [2]. They send experts to testify before Congress every year so I assume they represent the consensus views of plasma fusion researchers. I am delighted to see they now endorse cold fusion.

--JedRothwell 19:50, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

An article is not meant to be written from the point of view of proponents or skeptics. It is meant to be written from a neutral point of view, so that it represents the point of view of the majority and any significant minority points of view. Anyways, I tool a look at lenr-canr.org, and found that some papers were published in Phys. Lett. A in the 90's, one in Phys. Rev. C, one in J. Fusion Energy since 1990, one in JETP since 1993, three in Europhys. Lett., nothing in J. Appl. Phys. or Appl. Phys. Lett. or Rev. Sci. Inst. or Nucl. Phys. or Nucl. Fusion or Rev. Mod. Phys. nothing in Nature since 1990, nothing in Phys. Plasmas, Physics of Plasma (not that that's surprising) etc... In short, the recent publication record in prestigious, mainstream journals that physicists and (hot) fusion researchers publish in amounts to almost nothing. That is clear evidence to me that the majority scientific view is one of doubt and that this should clearly be presented as the majority point of view in the article. Storms' draft is cheerleading. –Joke 20:33, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Joke writes:

It is meant to be written from a neutral point of view, so that it represents the point of view of the majority and any significant minority points of view.

Well, as I pointed about previously, there has been no poll so we do not know what the majority view might be. The DoE review panel was split evenly, 7 No, 5 Yes, 7 maybe. However, if you are convinced this is the majority view, you should write a section or sections explaining this point of view. Put it in the front, as I said. You can make it as long as Storms, or longer.

This is your POV, and there is not a single cold fusion researcher who would agree with you. Just because you do not agree with them, that does not make your POV magically neutral. You have a bias just as strong as Storms and I do. Storms and I believe that hundreds of replicated, high sigma autoradiographs, calorimeters and mass spectrometer results are correct, and you think they are all mistakes. That is really all there is to it. Both are points of view and both should be represented.

NOTE: The article has been reverted to the previous, mainly skeptical point of view, so all you have to do is delete a few sentences that support cold fusion, delete all references to the experimental literature, and your version will be ready. Then we will slip in the Storms version and write a few paragraphs tying them together, as it were. Why is this such a problem? I will do it if you feel it is too much work, but I think a skeptic who agrees with the present, reverted, version can do a better job eliminating all traces of "pathological science." It is sometimes difficult for me to judge what it is that bothers the skeptics so much, and what exactly their point of view is. They seem to be on a campaign to eliminate the conservation of energy.

--JedRothwell 21:08, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your characterization of the DoE responses is unusual to say the least. Calling people that find some aspects to be convincing, but do not believe there is valid evidence for fusion to be yeses is outright bias. It does appear the DoE summary was a bit more negative than I would characterize the responses, but the DoE's summary is closer than your even split. Given that the DoE review did consider the most important and what proponents considered the best evidence for cold fusion, and found it wanting, that establishes where the NPOV policy has to emphasize and not. - Taxman ^Talk 22:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Taxman wrote:

Your characterization of the DoE responses is unusual to say the least.

Not that unusual. Most of the reviewers themselves agreed with me. That is why they leaked their reviews, and why the DoE tried to cover them up. Anyway, you are welcome to read through the reviews, make your own tally, and come to your own conclusions.

Given that the DoE review did consider the most important and what proponents considered the best evidence for cold fusion, and found it wanting. . .

The review found it wanting; the reviewers themselves were split 7 No, 5 Yes, 7 undecided. That's my tally, but the fellow who wrote the DoE summary tallied it differently. You can decide for yourself who is right. --JedRothwell 22:43, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Revert to FA version

Over at Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/Cold fusion there seems a fair number of people (including me) who want to revert this to its featured state. So I have. If you think thats a good idea, you know what to do when the inevitable happens... William M. Connolley 20:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC).[reply]

That looks fine. Now let us delete any remaining statements from this version that lend support to cold fusion, and then insert the Storms draft after this. That will clearly delineate the two points of view. This version is particularly good because it contains no references to the experimental literature, journal articles or books. It is based entirely on opinions and rumors. --JedRothwell 21:12, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No. Wiki isn't here to give equal space, nor is it acceptable to attempt balance by merely juxtaposing opposing views. Wiki is here (in the science articles) to represent, first and foremost, the current scientific opinion. Which (as Joke points out) is clear from the state of the literature. The Storms draft is unacceptable. William M. Connolley 21:33, 3 January 2006 (UTC).[reply]

William - wow, that was an incredibly counterproductive thing to do. You're simply tossing out a lot of good material, for example two whole pages of references. I can understand if you don't like the writing in the body of the article, the latest version is messy and I don't like it either. But I really don't understand why you want to delete stuff which is sourced (or heck, which is sources). What is your objection? Yes, I read your comment on the vote page (so, am I one of the "loonies" according to you?). It still doesn't explain why you want to do this. If there is a specific problem, point it out or fix it. ObsidianOrder 22:11, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Like it or lump it, the FARC discussion does represent a clear consensus and needs to be followed until another one is established. - Taxman ^Talk 22:17, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think there's a clear consensus for a "revert to FA version"? Based on the current voting I think the FA removal will probably win, but I don't see the consensus for a revert. Let me do a quick count. ObsidianOrder 22:22, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, as of right now the voting is 18 remove, 11 keep (not counting revert-and-keep votes), and 8 revert (including revert-and-keep). Consensus for a revert? Hardly, I'd say that's a consensus for don't-revert ;) There is also (barely) a consensus for a FA removal. (the last vote I counted was the Pjacobi vote btw). ObsidianOrder 22:33, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is many of the "votes" there are not in good faith and a simple count won't suffice. You don't know me and probably assume I'm biased, but if the result was against my own POV, I'd still have to defer to my integrity and conclude many of those comments are not legitimate, and it only occured on one side of the debate. In any case we've already esablished a way forward, so there's no reason for major fuss. - Taxman ^Talk 22:31, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Taxman - I don't assume you're biased, you certainly haven't said anything to make me think so. On the contrary, your comments on Storms pretty much matched what I thought about it. Why do you think many of the votes are not in good faith? I agree that we should move forward, but I fear it will be much more dificult to do from the reverted state. ObsidianOrder 22:37, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion was officially about removing FA status and nothing more. But if you think about it for a minute, you can see that almost all the remove votes essentially felt that the article has degraded recently and all the votes specifically on the issue were for reverting to the FA version except Jed's. But lets not spend any more time on this since the way forward is discussed below. Edit a temp page combining the draft version with the current FA version. If consensus decides that's better, then we go with that. It works for everyone as long as NPOV is followed. See below. - Taxman ^Talk 22:55, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ObsidianOrder wrote:

". . . but I fear it will be much more dificult to do from the reverted state."

Why? What's the big deal? It look like a piece of cake to me. There are no footnotes or references in the present version, so it should be no trouble to put the two together. There are no sources at all. Just have one of the skeptics chop out everything they disagree with and boom, you have the "Skeptical Point Of View" intro. Taxman wants to make it longer than the Storms portion, because he feels that the number of words should more or less reflect the number of people on each side. Why not? It could be 100 megabytes for all I care, as long as our side is also represented in a clear, undistorted, unbiased presentation somewhere in the article. I could not care less what percent of the whole it is. --JedRothwell 22:53, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

William M. Connolley writes:

The Storms draft is unacceptable.

Storms and I find it acceptable. Who put you in charge of this article? Ours is a "significant view" per the NPOV policy:

"If we are to represent the dispute fairly, we should present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties."

Storms is an expert, by the commonly accepted standards of science: he has a PhD, he worked for decades at LANL, and he has published peer-reviewed papers on the subject in mainstream journals. Who are you tell us he will not be allowed to contribute to this article?

Wiki is here (in the science articles) to represent, first and foremost, the current scientific opinion.

The current scientific opinion is evenly divided, judging by the DoE review panel. There have been no polls or other objective measurments.

. . . nor is it acceptable to attempt balance by merely juxtaposing opposing views.

Well, if you can find a way to integrate the two points of view, be my guest. For example, you might want to explain why hundreds of autoradiographs from places like the NRL and BARC are all, without exception, wrong. Have the laws of physics changed? Does film no longer reliably record x-rays? What is your hypothesis? I doubt you can address these issues, so I think it would be easier to keep these points of view seperate, since they appear to be mirror opposites in every important respect.

While we are on the subject of acceptability, it certainly is not acceptable to revert an article and then not allow any opposing point of view! It is hard to imagine anything less acceptable by the standards of this forum.

--JedRothwell 22:01, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In response to the revert to the FA version, until there is consensus to move to something derived from the above draft version, editing the article to include more pro CF POV is against consensus, is disruptive, and can be reverted. Wikipedia is ruled by consensus and the NPOV policy above all. - Taxman ^Talk 22:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, for now, the FA version seems handy. As far as I can tell, it concisely and accurately expresses the views of the skeptics. So let's leave it for now. The Storms version will be ready tomorrow (or as soon as I can figure out how to make the footnotes work). Why don't you figure out a simple way to combine them, with the skeptical version first? What is the big deal?

Just delete the redundant parts and the few sections which are in agreement.

I think this will be easier than you seem to think, and it will satisfy everyone. It may be a little unconventional by the standards of Wikipedia, but why should every article be formatted and presented the same way? Why not allow some variation to fit the circumstances, which are unusual.

It seems to me that a "consensus" view is not the same as everyone agreeing on everything. It means we agree that both sides are fully and fairly represented and expressed. There is obviously no middle ground between these views, so why not make that explicit? I have no objection whatever to the skeptical viewpoint being expressed here in the strongest version. I would like it if you would quote Robert Park, who says that cold fusion results are caused by lunacy and fraud. The more extreme, the better, since it makes the skeptics look unreasonable. (I have not quoted Park because I would not want to overstate or misrepresent the skeptical point of view, but if most of you agree with him, and you think cold fusion is fraud, please say so!)

--JedRothwell 22:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's my point. You can do a merged version or whatever in the temp page. But you have to reallize that NPOV is to give smaller space in the main article to the non mainstream viewpoint. It's not deciding who's right, just characterizing the debate. There is adequate evidence that CF is not the mainstream viewpoint yet and there's nothing wrong with that. Then it can be discussed if the merged version is better. If there is consensus that it is, then all the better. If not, we still have a version of the article that is considered by consensus to be better than it was yesterday. - Taxman ^Talk 22:25, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Taxman writes:

"But you have to reallize that NPOV is to give smaller space in the main article to the non mainstream viewpoint."

Look, for crying loud, make the skeptical portion as long as you like! Make it ten times longer than Storms. Frankly, I do not know what you have to say that will fill up all that space, but make it as long as you feel necessary to fully express your views. Some of the articles here in Wikipedia are far longer than this, such as the one on Japanese (which I recommend, by the way).

For that matter, why do you think the number of words should be proportional to the number of people on one side or the other? That seems like a crude metric.

What is the big deal? You write your side, Storms writes our side. A few adjustments to blend them together and voila, problem solved. It seems like the present reverted version is close to what you support, so why don't you just tweak it a little?

I honestly do not see a problem here. This is working out well for everyone.

--JedRothwell 22:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The point is the article for FA standards needs to stay around 40kb or below, so the space covering the arguments of your POV is limited, and still needs to conform to NPOV. So yes, as has been established, see what you can do in a temp page to merge an article that everyone can agree on. The below points are spot on too. - Taxman ^Talk 22:55, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Taxman writes: "The point is the article for FA standards needs to stay around 40kb or below . . ." I have seen articles here on television shows and rock groups that were longer than that! But OKAY aready, if you insist, you go ahead and write 35 KB of skeptical blather, I will reduce Storms from 17 KB down to 15 KB. Would that be acceptable?

Why are you so obsessed with word counts, anyway? It seems to me that if you are truly convinced you are right, you could express your point of view in a short, elegant segment no longer than Storms, and convince everyone. Why does the number of words have to be so much larger? Do you think a mass of verbiage will be more impressive to the reader?

For that matter, what can you possibly say that will take up 35 KB? You cannot point to a single experimental paper. You have no body of literature to point to. Your only real statement is that you do not believe any of the experiments are correct. What more is there to say? How many ways can you say that? The present reverted article seems to cover all skeptical arguments, as far as I can tell, and it is 17 KB. (About 5 KB is non-skeptical, so it can be cut.) Huizenga sums up his arguments in a few paragraphs at the end of his book. His argument boils down to this: 'theory overrules experiments.' If you agree, say so and have done with it. --JedRothwell 23:30, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comments on general policy

Having had an edit conflict, but finding the same thing come up again and again, I'll make some general points here:

Jed/OO seem to be suggesting: "its referenced, therefore it should be in the article" - this is one of the standard arguments of minority view pushing, and its wrong. Its backwards. Anything in the article should be referenceable/supportable. But just because it can be ref'd doesn't mean it belongs. The problem is balance - minority views should be represented in rough proportion to their acceptance by science. In this case, from the publication record, its clear that CF is very fringe indeed. Jed seems to be suggesting that the two "sides" simply write competing versions. This is not acceptable.

Experts and balance: Storms is very clearly pushing a fringe viewpoint. If he has any PR papers on CF, I don't see any evidence for them: http://www.nde.lanl.gov/cf/iccf6ab.htm for example is not from a journal. Nor does User:ObsidianOrder/Cold_fusion list any. The balance in the NPOV policy refers to the balance of papers in the literature, not to you finding one pet expert.

The primary decider of scientific content (as far as wiki is concerned) is presence in the literature. CF just isn't there.

William M. Connolley 22:46, 3 January 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Don't get rid of the external links section. It is very useful to anyone wanting to learn about this subject. I don't know why the current external links section was removed? Rock_nj

William M. Connolley writes:

Jed/OO seem to be suggesting: "its referenced, therefore it should be in the article"

Actually, I am saying these are references published in peer-reviewed mainstream scientific journals. I believe that is the usual standard of excellence and credibility, but perhaps Connolley has some other standard in mind.

The problem is balance - minority views should be represented in rough proportion to their acceptance by science.

FINE! Good. Great. Storms has 31 references, so Connolley should please go find 310 references to support his point of view. Or 3,100. However many he wants would be okay with me. As far as I know only two skeptical papers have appeared in peer-reviewed journals in the last 16 years, but maybe Connolley knows of many others. (It is not for me to judge what is "skeptical" and what supports his point of view.)

As I said the word count or number of references seems like an odd metric, but if that is what you want, please be my guest and add all the references you like.

By the way, Storms published in Fusion Technology and J. Alloys and Compounds. I do not know why they are not listed at the LANL site. As for "experts and balance" everyone on our side considers Storms an expert. ("Everyone" includes several hundred researchers and the people who have downloaded 450,000 papers from LENR-CANR.org. Storms is a clear favorite with both.)

We will pick our experts and you pick yours. Don't quibble with our choices, or we will insist you quote Huizenga and Taubes -- and you don't want to go there.

--JedRothwell 23:02, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Its a bit unclear to me whether you're being deliberately silly here, or just genuinely don't understand. Firstly, Storms has 31 refs - oh yes - but #4 is the retraction of a claim made in #3, and a pile of others are from "Infinite Energy" which is not a reputable journal, several are www.LENR-CANR.org, one is to Kuhn! (a reputable book, but hardly to be counted as pro-CF). Storms wouldn't be citing things like that, and conference papers, if there was a solid body of real peer-reviewed literature. Why not, as an exercise, hack out all the goo and the dribble from that ref list and leave only peer-reviewed journal articles from the last 5 years and see what you're left with. William M. Connolley 23:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Storms can reference anything he wants, and you can reference anything you want, and the readers will decide which is more credible. Okay? Do you have a problem with that? Probably the reason he referenced the stuff at Infinite Energy is because it is available on line whereas most of the journals papers are not. (Because of copyright issues). --JedRothwell 23:15, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A journal does not have to be online to be referenced. - FrancisTyers 23:42, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. I think Ed selected mainly on-line resources to make it easier for the reader to find out more. --JedRothwell 02:20, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

-- Why do you [deleted insult for the sake of civility - WMC] skeptics keep deleting the Resource Links section? There is nothing controversial about providing links to relevant webpages that discuss the cold fusion controversy to some extant or another. The Resource Links are not related to the ongoing controversy surrounding the content of the Cold Fusion article, so please leave the links along. Please stop deleting this useful resource. Rock nj 03:16, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are issues with that section: various pro-CF websites are described as journals, for example. There's probably more. It needs a cleanup. William M. Connolley 09:36, 4 January 2006 (UTC).[reply]

William - if it needs a cleanup, by all means clean it up! How does "needs a cleanup" translate into "delete it all"? You deleted among other things a link to the original P&F paper, for crying out loud! I started out assuming good faith, but this is just completely unreasonable. It's really beginning to look like an attempt to sweep under the rug inconvenient references (like for example the complete 2004 DoE reviewers' comments). I don't think that will work, though. ObsidianOrder 11:06, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ObsidianOrder - Right on. There are issues regarding the content of the article that need to be addressed. But to just erase two years worth of External Links, many of them extremely relevent to the topic of cold fusion and anyone looking for more information about this topic and the saga behind it, seems to be going well beyond the bounds of editorial housecleaning, more like a wholesale purge. There is no need to withhold informational links in a public forum like Wikipedia, as long as they are relevant to the article. Rock nj 14:12, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Was interwoven, will be top-bottom

Before this article was revised, it included pro and con points of view mixed together in each section, and sometimes in one paragraph. It was actually a rather civil and balanced article. Most of the time, both sides were careful not to whack the other. The only problem was, the article was awkward, repetitive, too long, and hard to read. So I asked Ed Storms to write a better version of our side. He actually reduced the overall text devoted to the supporter’s point of view.

Now I have a simple suggestion: we present the same material, only rearranged to make it easier to read. Skeptics first, supporters next. Instead of interweaving we present them top to bottom. Of course it would be fine if the skeptics make minor changes or corrections to the Storms text, but in general, we should respect our turf just as we did before. It is divided up a little differently, that's all.

This is the same proposal above, and I've pointed out there why it isn't acceptable. Do you really think that just repeating the same thing again and again will work? William M. Connolley 09:56, 4 January 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Seriously Jed, repeating the same thing over and over and trying to win your argument solely by volume isn't going to be effective anymore. Please learn to be concise and don't repeat the same things that have been shown to be spurious. Learn how Wikipedia works before you keep proposing things that have been shown over and over not to meet Wikipedia policies. - Taxman ^Talk 14:21, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You misunderstand: I was just kidding. I am surprised you did not pick up on comments such as "he is our pet." Does that sound serious to you? I know perfectly well that you will not allow any cold fusion researchers to contribute to this article, and I will not waste any more time trying. --JedRothwell 14:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The skeptics feel that they in the majority and they should have a larger share of the article.

No. As explained above (are you really this bad at reading?) most of us feel that CF lacks any real support in the scientific literature and that this should be reflected in the balance of the article. William M. Connolley 09:56, 4 January 2006 (UTC).[reply]

I doubt they really are a majority, but okay, they can write up to 35 KB of their arguments, and they can have the top spot. They can preserve every single sentence in the present reverted version. Better yet, they can strip away all remaining arguments in favor of cold fusion in the current version. They can add back in several arguments that were cut. They can add more undocumented history from 1989.

Why is this such a big deal? Why are there such loud objections? Why is it "unacceptable"? Everyone agreed we need an expert, so I persuaded Ed Storms, one of the leading experts, to write a draft. Now OBVIOUSLY the skeptics, who do not believe one word about cold fusion, will consider Storms to be misguided, incompetent, crazy or what-have-you. They think everyone who is in any way associated with the field must be incompetent. They think that all papers about cold fusion are "goo and dribble."

Sigh. You're moving off into aggressive-defensive. I didn't say *all* such are goo and dribble - I pointed out that your proud count of 31 refs in Storms draft included a lot of stuff that were not proper peer-reviewed papers. I challenged you Why not, as an exercise, hack out all the goo and the dribble from that ref list and leave only peer-reviewed journal articles from the last 5 years and see what you're left with - so... why don't you? William M. Connolley 09:56, 4 January 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Nope. Not aggressive defensive. I find you funny & pathetic but nothing to be upset about. I am miffed only with myself, for wasting so much time. Although I must say, the next time you go to the trouble to add 40 footnotes to an article, please let me know and I will go delete them for you. I should have known that one of you people would do this. You can tolerate only your own point of view, and you are allergic to facts. You will not allow dissent, dialog or views that are not strictlly according to what Nature or Sci. Am. dictate. --JedRothwell 23:20, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why is that a problem? If I were a skeptic, I would want the supporters to present "goo and dribble." They claim that Storms is a "pet expert." So what if he is? He is our pet, not yours. Just about everyone on our side agrees with him. If you think he is incompetent, you should be glad we cannot find anyone better. Why do you care who we select to write our side of the argument? If this were a debate between, let us say, Creationists and biologists, why would the biologists feel upset if the Creationists managed to persuade the person they considered their top expert to write the article?

If you want an expert skeptic, go ask Huizenga, Taubes or Robert Park to write your part, or simply use the material that is already there in the reverted article. It just needs a little brushing up and it will be a clear statement of your beliefs. Or I can send you the last page of Huizenga's book and you can quote it. Or keep every word as is -- you decide.

I cannot understand why anyone would complain about this arrangement. Frankly, I think that the skeptics want to eliminate all material written by supporters. If Storms is not satisfactory to them, no one will be. They want to have this entire article supporting their point of view only. That, I gather, is against the rules in this forum.

--JedRothwell 03:21, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No. The NPOV rules of wiki clearly state that the balance of the article should reflect, roughly, the weight of scientific opinion (in those bits which are describing disputed bits). That isn't done by presenting two competing versions and letting the reader decide which they prefer. William M. Connolley 09:56, 4 January 2006 (UTC).[reply]

And you have no idea what the weight of scientific opinion might be. You claim you know, but only two objective measurments have been made: 1. A poll of Japanese researchers a few years ago; and 2. The DoE panel review. Both showed that scientific opinion is sharply divided, and about even on both sides.

Let us drop this discussion. I will let you take over the article and upload any nonsense that crosses your mind. --JedRothwell 14:38, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Problems with the FA version

"most scientists believe that there is no proof of cold fusion in these experiments" - source?
"A majority of scientists consider this research to be pseudoscience" - source? (this is actually repeated twice)
"Unfortunately, no "cold" fusion experiments that gave an otherwise unexplainable net release of energy have so far been reproducible." - factually incorrect, see McKubre 1994 etc.
"claimed that there was a "secret" to the experiment" - source?
"electrical heater to generate pulses of heat and calibrate the heat loss due to the gas outlet" - this statement displays simply astonishing ignorance of how indirect isoperibolic calorimetry works; it is wrong in about six different ways.
"The level of neutrons, tritium and 3He actually observed in Fleischmann-Pons experiment have been well below the level expected in view of the heat generated" - factually incorrect, see Miles 1993 etc. (update: or rather, correct by omission - the level is below that expected for D+D->T+p or D+D->3He+n, but consistent with a primarily D+D->4He reaction)
"the power balance over the whole experiment does not show significant imbalances" - absolutely factually incorrect, see Storms 2001 or any report on successful reproduction of P&F-type experiments.

and that's just a quick read-through, and I'm not even including what is missing (any info on the reported transmutation products by Iwamura et al, just to pick a random example). For those reasons, I'm tagging this totallydisputed. ObsidianOrder 11:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'll start with your points 1 & 2. And return to the challenge I set Jed: how many of the papers from Storms list-of-31 are valid journal papers from the past 5 years? The answer turns out to be one, Iwamura, Y., M. Sakano, and T. Itoh, Elemental Analysis of Pd Complexes: Effects of D2 Gas Permeation. Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. A, 2002. 41: p. 4642. [3] And of course the significant thing about that paper is... that it isn't about cold fusion. So really the answer is zero. So, cold fusion as a topic is simply absent from valid research journals.

The article clearly needs to say something about how mainstream science views CF. Perhaps psuedo-science is a bit harsh. It would be fairer to say that most simply ignore it as being of no interest. So we could replace A majority of scientists consider this research to be pseudoscience with something more specific: how about: Mainstream science ignores cold fusion; there are no recent peer-reviewed journal publications on the subject?

William M. Connolley 21:39, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

William M. Connolley writes: "So, cold fusion as a topic is simply absent from valid research journals." Is there a statute of limitations for physics and chemistry? After 5 years, scientific papers are no longer valid? That would mean Einstein's theories, for example, are defunct. There are two very good reasons why few papers on cold fusion have not been published lately. The first is exactly the same as the reason Einstein has not published lately: most cold fusion researchers are dead or incapacitated. They were old men in 1989 and they are older now -- or dead. The second reason Mr. Connolley can discover by looking in a mirror. Many of the editors and opinion makers are just like him. They know nothing about the subject, they have read nothing, but they condemn it out of hand, and they invent outrageous reasons for doing so, such as claiming that papers over 5 years old no longer matter. The editor of the Scientific American is a prime example. You can see from the letters he wrote to me, here: [4] He brags that he knows nothing and he will not look at the data! In a sane world he would be ashamed. The times are out of joint. --JedRothwell 00:17, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That is a pretty good proposal. I have no problem with that (although I would say "few" rather than "no" - would you like a list? also, to nitpick, the Iwamura paper is very much about cold fusion of D in Pd, just in a non-electrochemical type experiment). However, a more complete statement would be something along the lines of "After a number of prominent individuals and organizations (list: Nature, Sci Am, Parks, Huizenga ...) made comments (cite) describing cold fusion as a pseudoscience, it has become a taboo subject in physics, and it is very hard, or in some publications forbidden by policy (cite) to publish cold fusion papers. Nonetheless, there are a number of prominent scientists (list: Brian Josephson, Julian Schwinger, ...) who are outspoken proponents of cold fusion, and work in the field continues with support from a number of institutions (list) in different countries. Most current work on cold fusion is now presented at regular cold fusion conferences (ICCF)." ObsidianOrder 22:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well a list of prominent people/orgs who have said CF is psuedoscience would be a good idea. Taboo is wrong... it would seem more natural to say that it becaome unpopular. If some journals have policies against publishing CF (a bit like the US patent offie won't allow perp motion machines, perhaps) that would be worth recording too. Not happy with the Nonetheless onwards. William M. Connolley 22:44, 5 January 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Yes, I think it's worth recording too. This is just the kind of thing the article needs (meticulously supported by cites, of course). I think "taboo" is accurate, but if you want to rephrase that, go ahead. I'm thinking for example of the treatment that Bockris was subjected to [5] and similar events elsewhere. Regarding the second part - what about it are you not happy about? Ok, using "nonetheless" to contrast it to the first part is a bit of editorializing, but it is all factual, is it not? ObsidianOrder 23:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding question of papers in mainstream peer-reviewed publications in the last 5 years, try this list: User:ObsidianOrder/Cold fusion biblio. It's not complete, but it's a start. From one point of view, considering the potential significance of the field, that is not much. From another point of view, it is a hell of a lot for a "pseudoscience". However, for most of the really interesting stuff you have to read tech reports like this Szpak et al, SPAWAR, 2002 (highly recommended, btw) or the ICCF proceedings. ObsidianOrder 01:36, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How to avoid an edit war and move on

One: I strongly object to the FA version but I will not revert it. Let's work on making a better article instead. However, while this version is up, it's gonna have the totallydisputed tag (because it is - see above, also see this entire discussion).

Nope. Its not totally disputed, and you don't get to add the tag just cos you're presistent. William M. Connolley 18:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC).[reply]

William - yes, it is disputed. I have described specific serious problems with this version. You have not even tried to respond to the issues I brought up about this version, and neither has anyone else. Other editors are disputing it as well, as should be extremely obvious from this talk page. Heck, well-known experts in the field are disputing it. Your original revert to the old FA version was counterproductive and heavy-handed, and it does not in any way represent consensus, since (1) the FA removal vote was not about a revert and (2) the votes for a revert just aren't there if you count them anyway. In any event, I have refrained from reverting the page as a whole in the hopes of avoiding an edit war and moving forward. However, removing a npov/disputed tag when there is an active ongoing dispute is just not done (see WP:AD and WP:NPOVD). What you're doing is wrong. Please stop. ObsidianOrder 19:27, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, let's recap: I added the totallydisputed flag for reasons which I explained right here, at Talk:Cold fusion#Problems with the FA version, exactly as I'm supposed to as per WP:AD. Those include both factual and POV problems, therefore totallydisputed is the correct tag. They are also very serious, since some of the key claims in this version of the article are not sourced at all (and perhaps cannot be sourced). There are other editors which I beleieve would agree with the tag. William M. Connolley has reverted it three times, with the following explanations: "Its not totally disputed, and you don't get to add the tag just cos you're presistent.", "rm'ing unjustified totallydisputed tag", "Nope, its not justified by the talk." and "you haven't justified it, and this is an FA"; and FrancisTyers reverted it once with "removing tag per WMC". Whether an article was FA has absolutely nothing to do with whether it should have a disputed tag (unless you can point to a policy that says otherwise? no?). I've made a substantive criticism; you haven't responded to my criticism at all, or done anything else to attempt to reach a consensus; obviously as it stands now there is no consensus; but you think it's appropriate for you to remove the tag? What makes you think that? Just saying "not justified" is not good enough. If the problems I point to above are not enough justification for you, what would be? In case you guys need a refresher on Wikipedia policy and customs, you may want to read Wikipedia talk:NPOV dispute which discusses when it is appropriate to remove a tag. ObsidianOrder 01:02, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Two: A version based on the Storms draft is at User:ObsidianOrder/Cold fusion. This includes a verbatim copy of the references from before the FA revert, the Storms writeup and references with some possibly POV parts removed or changed, the "Other kinds of fusion" from the FA, and a rewritten intro based on the FA intro which I hope should get no objections from either side. You are all invited to look it over. Please point out anything you think is a NPOV or other problem here. You may edit it constructively, but no reverts please - this is my user space, and I don't have time for edit warring. I will try to take edits into account and build a reasonable consensus version. I would like this to become the active version of the article in the relatively near term, unless anyone can point out unfixable problems with it.

Three: An outline of a completely new version is at User:ObsidianOrder/Cold fusion redux. This would, I hope, cover all sides of the subject considerably better than what exists now. (and please, don't try to pidgeonhole me as a "cold fusion advocate" or whatever. I am genuinely interested in the truth, and I think none of the versions we have at the moment does justice to either side, even aside from being pretty muddled writing). Again, feel free to edit, but no reverts. I intend to write this up referencing every single detail as I go along. For now, think just about the outline, and possibly brief bullet points about what would go in. This is a somewhat longer term project, but I think it can result in a radical improvement all around.

ObsidianOrder 18:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome to create a version in your userspace for you (and perhaps your friends) to edit. But since you control it, you can't really expect others to want to edit it too; or to watch it; nor can you take other peoples silence on it as endorsement. The other way is to create a sub-page here called "tmp" or somesuch. But then you don't get to control it. William M. Connolley 19:19, 4 January 2006 (UTC).[reply]

That is a valid concern. You're jumping a bit ahead though, considering I haven't actually undone any edits yet ;) It was my intention to move the page out of userspace once I felt it is ready. If you prefer I do so now, I'd be happy to, but I am sincerely hoping to avoid the back-and-forth edits of the type you and I are currently engaged in over the totallydisputed tag. As much as possible, I will not revert, I will leave alone or rewrite instead. Fair? Anyway, the version incorporating the Storms draft is now at Cold fusion/tmp. Edit away. ObsidianOrder 19:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Message sent to HelpDesk

This is probably a total waste of time, but I sent the following message to helpdesk-l@wikimedia.org. People who know a lot about Wikipedia might wish to forward it to other addresses. --JedRothwell 15:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings

As you probably know, cold fusion is a very controversial subject. Until this week, the Wikipedia article on this subject contained a balance of statements from people who do not believe that cold fusion exists, and statements by cold fusion researchers who think that it does exist. The researchers and I added 40 references to experimental literature, mainly papers in peer-reviewed, mainstream journals (not those devoted only to cold fusion.)

Unfortunately, this week one of the opponents deleted all of this work, and he will not even allow us to add a tag saying this article is disputed. We consider it technically inaccurate and biased, but we are not even allowed to post a single sentence to this effect. We have never deleted or distorted the claims of opponents, but only clarified why we consider them technically incorrect. (See example below.)

Please note that the researchers include many of the world's top electrochemists, two Nobel Laureates, a Fellow of the Royal Society and so on. I added some relevant, uncontroversial quotes from a deceased Nobel Laureate regarding theory and reproducibility, but the opponents deleted these along with everything else. I believe that comment by someone like this represents a "significant viewpoint" but opponents will not allow it.

If you allow this to go unchallenged, I think it shows the Wikipedia cannot support an honest, fair debate about a truly controversial subject.

Sincerely,

Jed Rothwell

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT WAS DELETED. This discussion about energy storage versus production is vital. It is one of the most important aspects of cold fusion.

PRESENT VERSION:

Energy source vs power store

While the output power is higher than the input power during the power burst, the power balance over the whole experiment does not show significant imbalances. Since the mechanism under the power burst is not known, one cannot say whether energy is really produced, or simply stored during the early stages of the experiment (loading of deuterium in the Palladium cathode) for later release during the power burst.

A "power store" discovery would have much less value than an "energy source" one, especially if the stored power can only be released in the form of heat.

VERSION INCLUDING COMMENTS BY RESEARCHERS, AND REFERENCES TO LITERATURE:

Energy source vs. power store

Some skeptics hypothesize that while the output power is higher than the input power during the power burst, the power balance over the whole experiment does not show significant imbalances. (In other words, each positive exothermic power burst is balanced by a previous period of negative power, or endothermic storage.) Since the mechanism under the power burst is not known, one cannot say whether energy is really produced, or simply stored during the early stages of the experiment (during the loading of deuterium in the palladium cathode) for later release during the power burst. A "power store" discovery would yield only a new, and very expensive, kind of storage battery, not a source of abundant cheap fusion power.

However, this cannot be the case, because large endothermic storage is not observed. When the experiment begins, there are a few hours of endothermic storage as the palladium is loaded, and this is readily detected. (A calorimeter measures a heat deficit as accurately as it measures excess heat.) In most bulk palladium electrochemical experiments, this is followed by an incubation period of 10 to 20 days, during which there is neither excess heat nor storage. Following that, there is continuous excess heat production, which often continues longer than the incubation period, and produces far more energy than the initial endothermic storage. "Isothermal Flow Calorimetric Investigations of the D/Pd System" shows typical examples. [REF McKubre0] Since the excess heat is easily detected, at a high signal to noise ratio, if there were an initial endothermic storage phase to balance it, this would be even easier to detect, because it would have to be larger.

Furthermore, this energy storage hypothesis would violate the laws of physics, because most cells produce far more energy than any known chemical storage mechanism would permit. Chemical processes store (or produce) at most 12 eV per atom of reactant, whereas many cold fusion experiments have produced hundreds of eV per atom of cathode material, and some have produced ~100,000 eV per atom.

Finally, many researchers, notably Kainthla et al. [REF Kainthla] and McKubre et al. [REF McKubre1] have conducted careful inventories of chemical fuel and potential storage mechanisms in cold fusion cells, and they have found neither fuel nor spent ash that could account for more than a tiny fraction of the excess heat. Since many cells have released large amounts of energy, a megajoule or more, this chemical fuel would have to be present in macroscopic amounts. In fact, in many cases the volume of ash would greatly exceed the entire cell volume. These issues of energy storage and chemical fuel hypotheses have been discussed in the literature exhaustively. See, for example, "A Response to the Review of Cold Fusion by the DoE", section II.1.2.[REF Storms]

Jed - unfortunately there are just two ways to do something here: (a) talk (and try to reach common ground) or (b) edit things you think are wrong. Appeal to higher authority doesn't usually work ;) The current reversion to an article from over a year ago is wrong, don't take it as the "word of god". It was done by just a couple of people (William M. Connolley, FrancisTyers and Taxman - who has indicated he could possibly support a version based on the Storms draft). There are about the same number of people who support a different version: me, you, Rock_nj, and judging from the past talk history quite a number of other people who just don't happen to be editing the article actively right now. This doesn't have to stand. You don't like it, change it ;) I think I would wait a decent period (a few days) for comments on the Storms draft, then change over to that. If people simply revert it without talking, well, I recommend to revert them right back :( ObsidianOrder 16:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ObsidianOrder writes:

"Jed - unfortunately there are just two ways to do something here: (a) talk (and try to reach common ground) . . ."

There is no common ground. Our side believes in the scientific method and the primacy of experiments over theory; their side believes in voodoo and mob rule.

". . . or (b) edit things you think are wrong."

The whole article is wrong -- it is a travesty. I will not waste another moment editing things that are wrong. It is obvious that opponents will simply erase my work. I will not get into a mud fight with pigs.

"Appeal to higher authority doesn't usually work ;)"

Well, who knows, it might work in this case. Cold fusion is widely known to be controversial. It is worth a letter. There is no point to dicussing this issue with ignorant barbarians who will not even bother read the literature they attack.

--JedRothwell 16:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Jed, please don't make personal attacks. I remember warning you about this before. Personal attacks are against Wikipedia policy. Please try to be civil. - FrancisTyers 16:53, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Francis - technically that is not a personal attack, since it is not directed at a specific person. I seem to recall fairly similar comments at Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/Cold fusion. I might point out that removing a dispute tag when there is a very active ongoing dispute is also against Wikipedia policy. ObsidianOrder 17:13, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I'd like to point out that I reverted once and have not reverted since. I would also like to point out that it is a personal attack and I have warned him about them before, as I have warned many other people about making personal attacks. Thanks :) - FrancisTyers 17:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FrancisTyers writes, "please don't make personal attacks." That wasn't a personal attack. I do not know what person deleted all of the content and swept away my 40 footnotes, so I cannot attack him. My comment about "voodoo and mob rule" applies to all opponents, with strict impartiality. I do not insult any one them personally, but rather all of them, en mass. That appears to be perfectly okay judging by what they write about cold fusion researchers. (Or is it only okay for them to insult us?) My comment about mud wrestling with pigs is a folk expression, not an attack, and in any case I am fond of pigs and would not attack them. They are sweet animals, but you do not want to wrestle with one. --JedRothwell 23:55, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And the Help Desk mailing list (or at least, myself) responded with a suggestion that the emailer review the [resolution] process. User:Zoe|^(talk) 19:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes you did, and promptly too. Thanks! The people at "Dispute Resolution" redirected me to some other section of Wikipedia. I feel somewhat lost in the bureaucracy, and I do not understand the section where the fellow at "Dispute Resolution" wants me to go to, so I asked him to please forward the message to whom it may concern. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:SCZenz#Arbitration_request_Re:_Cold_Fusion

You have a daunting thicket of procedures & departments here at Wikipedia, I must say. --JedRothwell 23:55, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]