# Cold fusion is back. Comments? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 23, 2011, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-fusion-is-back-comments/579440 "2011-04-23T05:25:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-fusion-is-back-comments/579440/41 "2011-04-24T13:05:58Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > Weren’t a lot of the problems that Pons & Fleischmann had were difficulties in getting platinum electrodes of the required purity and solidity, that the experimental setup was unusually finicky? Further, [didn’t the U.S. Navy at their labs in San Diego](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,510589,00.html) get some breakthroughs by therefore constructing the electrodes via a CVD or PVD process? (the link was one of the first that came up in Google) Granted, I didn’t hear anything more about it, and you’d think that we would if there actually was anything to it. I thought the consensus was that there was something weird going on in P&L’s lab—that it probably wasn’t fusion, and probably was just bad lab technique/experimental design—but there was a small chance that they’d stumbled into something odd. > > I think they were screw-ups who initially overpromoted their findings. The revolutionary possibilities if they were right led to the massive overexposure they received. Calling a screw-up with shoddy lab technique a "fraud"demeans that term, IMHO. I don’t see in their conduct the bad intent necessary for that, as opposed to the actions of someone like [Jan Hendrik Schön](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%B6n_scandal) or [Andrew Wakefield](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield). Then again, I haven’t followed their actions as closely as some of you have. Have you read “Bad Science” by Gary Taubes? It is a full telling of the Cold Fusion fiasco. Prior to reading it I thought P&T were just poor fools caught up in a mistake. Afterwards I realized that they were borderline con-artists who made their own trouble by telling more and more lies as they went along. The truly deserve the scorn they receive. > [@](#): > > You’d think after 20-30 years there’d be some breakthrough though… Its always ‘just around the corner!’. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-fusion-is-back-comments/579440/42 "2011-04-24T13:11:52Z")
> [@pinguin](#): > > I do understand it. What I complain is why it is taking so long to get out of the lab and into the consumer. We need Fusion now! OK, you figure out how to stabilize 100 million K of plasma and tell everyone how easy it is. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-fusion-is-back-comments/579440/43 "2011-04-24T22:15:19Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Power source of the future, and it always will be. Are we talking about cold fusion or female orgasms? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-fusion-is-back-comments/579440/44 "2011-04-24T22:24:18Z")
> [@42fish](#): > > > [@Sitnam](#): > > > > Power source of the future, and it always will be. > > Are we talking about cold fusion or female orgasms? Fusion, unless the female in question is Supergirl. Otherwise the power output is a bit low. The generating equipment ought to look pretty interesting, though. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-fusion-is-back-comments/579440/45 "2011-04-24T22:51:57Z")
Am I the only one who sees this as the main problem in the story?] > [@](#): > > Rossi and Focardi do not claim to know how the fusion reaction they are harnessing actually works Yet they have somehow produced a machine to produce energy based on a theory they don’t actually have? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-fusion-is-back-comments/579440/46 "2011-04-25T00:09:03Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Yet they have somehow produced a machine to produce energy based on a theory they don’t actually have? They got lucky? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-fusion-is-back-comments/579440/47 "2011-04-25T00:18:14Z")
> [@](#): > > They got lucky? …Thereby producing a female orgasm. It all comes together, now! ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-fusion-is-back-comments/579440/48 "2011-04-25T01:18:15Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > …Thereby producing a female orgasm. It all comes together, now! Once, in 1982, on Valentines day, for 20 microseconds. ---
**Author:** ![SCSimmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-fusion-is-back-comments/579440/49 "2011-04-25T02:01:42Z")
> [@pinguin](#): > > Yes, I suspect it is fraud. > I wonder if any “serious” scientists had taken Cold Fusion seriously… I didn’t see anyone answer this, so I thought I’d throw my experience into the ring … I was an upper-level undergrad at the physics department of a major university when Pons & Fleischmann made their splash, and it cause no end of excitement for a short period of time. There was a team trying to replicate their results, and any number of professors and graduate students poring over the data that was supplied from the ‘successful’ experiments. I recall it taking about three weeks before it all got written off, although there were questions asked very early on about discrepancies between the description of what was happening and the data that was provided. > [@WarmNPrickly](#): > > I don’t know about the patent office, but cold fusion of the Ponns and Fleishmann variety is not quite the joke it once was either. I still think there is yet to be anything definitive, and we aren’t talking about next generations power source for either of these things, but they are at least providing a forum for this at ACS meetings. There have been a handful of ‘true believers’ continuing to do experiments ever since–this has never really gone away–but I’ve never heard of any significant & replicable results coming out of all this research. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-fusion-is-back-comments/579440.md?page=2)