Cold Fusion

[DanBlather]

I heard a teaser on NPR the other day that cold fusion may not be a dead end after all. I did not hear the segment. What is new with CF?

[Exapno_Mapcase]

What’s new with CF?

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

What’s you’re hearing are reports on some presentations given at the American Chemical Society meeting this week. Here’s a long blog article on it.

If you read closely, you see the same things that have been said for years. You can get more energy than predicted than by some models, but with no explanations, no practical uses, no hope of funding, and no future that doesn’t depend on a breakthrough that nobody can foresee.

[John_DiFool]

Hell, from what I gathered from this month’s Sci Am article, hot fusion doesn’t fare very well on most all of those counts either. They do have a solid base of theory behind it at least.

[bonzer]

The blog linked to by Exapno quotes Peter Hagelstein on the prospects as follows:

Basically we’re growing older, we’re not going to live forever. Unless something changes, there’s a very good chance we’re not going to finish our work before there’s none of us left to do anything… At the moment, one thought is that the best that we could be doing right now is to document the fruits of our labor, such that sometime in the future…maybe we can hand of our work to another generation, maybe 50 years from now.

Given that Hagelstein has been cold fusion’s staunchest supporter amongst theoretical physicists over the last twenty years, that’s rather less than a ringing endorsement of the idea currently going anywhere at all.

My biases on the subject have been aired on the Dope before, but that sounds like a literal dead end to me.

[Chronos]

One thought is that they should maybe be documenting their work? That’s supposed to be a given for all scientists.

[BrainGlutton]

Hijack: Looks like Steorn is still at it, promising their perpetual-motion machine “Orbo” works despite their never yet having made a successful public demonstration. From their website:

How Orbo Technology Works

Orbo is based upon time variant magnetic interactions, i.e. magnetic interactions whose efficiency varies as a function of transaction timeframes.

It is this variation of energy exchanged as a function of transaction time frame that lies at the heart of Orbo technology, and its ability to contravene the principle of the conservation of energy. Why? Conservation of energy requires that the total energy exchanged using interactions are invariant in time. This principle of time invariance is enshrined in Noether’s Theorem.

The time variant nature of Orbo interactions can be engineered using two basic techniques. The first technique utilizes a method of controlling the response time of magnetic materials to make them time variant. This is achieved by controlling the MH position of materials during permanent magnetic interactions.

The second technique decouples the Counter Electromotive Force (CEMF) from torque for electromagnetic interactions. This decoupling of CEMF allows time variant magnetic interactions in electromagnetic systems.

Any of this make sense to Dopers who know physics?

[billfish678]

While cold fusion certainly has a dubious history, there is one positive result IMO. It got people to think outside the box and at least consider that there might be some slick trick to cause fusion other than the “hotter than crap” method, which aint exactly cheap, easy, or making great strides either.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@billfish678

While cold fusion certainly has a dubious history, there is one positive result IMO. It got people to think outside the box and at least consider that there might be some slick trick to cause fusion other than the “hotter than crap” method, which aint exactly cheap, easy, or making great strides either.

This is sorta like faking an alien invasion to get the countries of earth to unite (or alternatively invent that fabulous machine that the aliens have, depending on which story you read).

You don’t have to force physicists to think outside the box. They’re more than willing to waste their time on non-starter technology all on their own.

[billfish678]

@Exapno_Mapcase

You don’t have to force physicists to think outside the box. They’re more than willing to waste their time on non-starter technology all on their own.

True enough, I know these types. I is one sorta. Butttt you tell me how many folks had written cold fusion articles before the initial big flurry, and how many afterwards. For a time there there was a whole bunch of brain power focused on something that got little attention.