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Technology Science

Desktop Cold Fusion Reconsidered 241

Posted by samzenpus from the tabletop-sun dept.
Armchair Anarchist writes "Nature.com reports on Rusi Taleyarkhan of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, who is once again claiming to have achieved ultrasound-induced fusion in deuterium-enriched acetone. Other experts are sceptical, but Taleyarkhan is keen to have other scientists check his results."
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Desktop Cold Fusion Reconsidered More

Desktop Cold Fusion Reconsidered

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  • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:05PM (#14451461)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Not Cold Fusion (Score:5, Insightful)

    by znu ( 31198 ) <znu.public@gmail.com> on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:10PM (#14451482)
    From the article:

    The idea is simple enough. Blast a liquid with waves of ultrasound and tiny bubbles of gas are created, which release a burst of heat and light when they implode. The core of the bubble reaches 15,000 C, hot enough to wrench molecules apart.

    This isn't cold fusion, it's just a sneaky way of achieving hot fusion without huge x-ray lasers and giant magnets and such.

    • Re:Not Cold Fusion (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) <akaimbatman@gmaiBLUEl.com minus berry> on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:20PM (#14451516) Homepage Journal
      This isn't cold fusion, it's just a sneaky way of achieving hot fusion without huge x-ray lasers and giant magnets and such.

      Bingo. And this is one of 50,000 articles that Slashdot has had on Sonofusion. The long and short of it is, there's lots of light and neutrons when some tiny bubbles pop. Some scientists think it's fusion. If it is fusion (as predicted), there's no current way to make it energy positive. However, it will make a nice desk ornament right next to your Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor [wikipedia.org]. (Which is also table-top, BTW.)

      • Re:Not Cold Fusion (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Rei ( 128717 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:34PM (#14451589) Homepage
        There's no current way to make it energy positive

        It's currently six orders of magnitude from breakeven.

          * The addition of tritium into the mix should automatically make it three orders of efficiency better. In fact, even starting with deuterated acetone, it would eventually breed enough tritium to make a difference.

          * There is no reason to believe the current starting conditions (the solution used, the temperature and pressure used, the frequency of the ultrasound, etc) are anywhere close to optimal.

          * There is potential for faster than linear scaling. The more efficient it gets, the larger the bubble clusters you have; the shock waves from multiple bubbles in a cluster interact to produce stronger shocks.

          * There is potential for criticality in theory, in which neutrons from one reaction seed bubbles at its acoustic anti-nodes at the time in which they're under maximal tension.

        So, no, there is no reason for your fatalistic attitude. *Will* it pan out? Who knows, but it is definitely worth investigation, just like the concept of fission criticality was early this century.
        • So, no, there is no reason for your fatalistic attitude. *Will* it pan out? Who knows, but it is definitely worth investigation, just like the concept of fission criticality was early this century.
          You mean last century?
        • Where are you pulling the figure "currently six orders of magnitude from breakeven" from? I don't really buy that. What I've heard of Rusi's sonofusion results is they have barely got things going over a thousand neutrons/pulse if that. (I don't believe its real yet anyway, but for the sake of argument) ICF schemes currently put the breakeven and ignition regime at around 10^16 - 10^17 neutrons/pulse so I'd say we're more like a factor of nearly a QUADRILLION off.

          • Re:Not Cold Fusion (Score:3, Informative)

            by Rei ( 128717 )
            My mistake - seven orders (I was typing from memory). Taleyarkhan cites Lahey et al, 2005 for that number.
          • Oh, and remember that breakeven depends on how much energy you have to put into it. In Fig. 4 of "Sonofusion - Fact or Fiction?", they show a measurement of ~4e5 neutrons/s, so we're looking at 7e6 MeV/s = 1.12e-9 watts. 7 orders of magnitude would imply that the input energy was around 11.2 milliwatts. Sounds a little low, but is conceivable.
        • > it is definitely worth investigation, just like the concept of fission criticality was early this century.

          Last century, but point taken, point taken.
          • Slashdot ate my first submission attempt:

            Technically, a century is a period of 100 years, not necessarily starting at a year numbered xx00 in the Christian calendar, so he could have meant 'earlier in the last 100 years', which is interestingly enough probably what he was trying to express.

            http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/century [m-w.com]
        • We're still talking 10 reactions per bubble collapse. Supposing the ultrasound is 10 MHz, and all the 17.6 MeV produced from DT fusion is recovered:

          10 * 10e6 1/s * 17.6e3 eV * 1.6e-19 J/ev = 0.28 microwatts (gross output)

          This is going to need some serious scaleup if it's ever going to be a viable power source, provided it can surpass breakeven.

      • Re:Not Cold Fusion (Score:5, Informative)

        by tomhudson ( 43916 ) <barbara@hudson.barbara-hudson@com> on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:38PM (#14451603) Journal
        Not cold fusion because it's at 15,000 degrees? Sure it is.

        http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT05/Abstrac ts/Donoabst.html [foresight.org]

        In practice, an ignition temperature of 400M K is needed to compensate for lost energy
        Even the lower temperature of only77 million degrees makes 15,000 degrees look positively arctic. Being able to do it in a container without magnetic containment in a vacuum ... well, sounds like cold fusion to me.

        • Re:Not Cold Fusion (Score:3, Informative)

          by WalksOnDirt ( 704461 )
          I don't know where Nature got the 15,000 degree number. I've seem reports of measurements of sonoluminescence temperatures of over 100,000 K (from the spectrum, and only a lower limit because the fluid wasn't transparent to high enough frequency light). For the fusion experiments different techniques were used and temperatures of over 100M K were targeted.

          The case for fusion here is perhaps not solid yet, but if it is fusion, it's hot.

          • Re:Not Cold Fusion (Score:4, Insightful)

            by radtea ( 464814 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @10:11AM (#14454257)

            The bubbles are seriously far from thermodynamic equilibrium, so assigning a single "temperature" is misleading. If this is fusion there are clusters are particles with average energy quite a bit higher than that implied by 15,000 K.

            To answer another question in this thread: the reason to be skeptical about this means of inducing hot fusion ever reaching breakeven is twofold. For one, there are getting on for a dozen different ways of inducing hot fusion that have failed to get close to breakeven in the past fifty years. Fusion is the technology of the future and always will be. For two, hot fusion in a small volume of high density matter is pretty much a worst-case in terms of loss processes.

            However, given that no one would ever have predicted this phenomenon to occur at all, it is certainly not impossible that it will someday reach breakeven. My personal bias is that would be a very good thing, but I'm not hopeful that it will ever happen. Still, sometimes moonshine turns out to be stronger than anyone expected.

      • Re:Not Cold Fusion (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Rob Carr ( 780861 )
        If this ever did achieve better than breakeven, it would make triggering a fusion bomb much easier. Currently fission is used to trigger a fusion bomb [wikipedia.org]. This might make it easier, although I doubt it would be as compact.

        Even if it doesn't reach breakeven, it still has weapons potential. This thing gives off neutrons. If it's portable, it could be set up someplace and used to spray neutron radiation in a city. At low levels of efficiency, it would just be a weapon of terror. At high levels, it's a dirty bom

        • If this ever did achieve better than breakeven, it would make triggering a fusion bomb much easier.

          No it wouldn't. The fission bomb is used to produce a high pressure shockwave sufficient to compress the dueterium. This won't produce a sufficient shockwave to act as a trigger.

          Even if it doesn't reach breakeven, it still has weapons potential. This thing gives off neutrons.

          Lots of things give off neutrons. [wikipedia.org] They're useful for a controlled nuclear reaction like a power-plant, but not that useful when what you
          • actually you need more pressure than *anywhere* on jupiter. Since jupiter is clearly not a star.

          • Re:Not Cold Fusion (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Rob Carr ( 780861 )
            No it wouldn't. The fission bomb is used to produce a high pressure shockwave sufficient to compress the dueterium. This won't produce a sufficient shockwave to act as a trigger.

            Who said anything about violating Lawson's criteria? If the sonoluminescent fusion is actually occurring significantly above breakeven, then you've already exceeded Lawson and the critical ignition temperature somewhere! The trick is to make use of that. At that point, it's engineering. Is that engineering going to be easy? There'

        • Re:Not Cold Fusion (Score:2, Informative)

          by deglr6328 ( 150198 )
          Oh damn, my nocluebie-o-meter just exploded!

          "If this ever did achieve better than breakeven, it would make triggering a fusion bomb much easier. Currently fission is used to trigger a fusion bomb. This might make it easier, although I doubt it would be as compact."

          Stupid. The imploding fusing bubble IS the fusion "bomb"! You might also have trouble with the fact that it occurs on the MICROSCOPIC scale and you need conditions equivalent to that on the cm to METER scale to set off a conventional fusion bomb.
          • Stupid. The imploding fusing bubble IS the fusion "bomb"! You might also have trouble with the fact that it occurs on the MICROSCOPIC scale and you need conditions equivalent to that on the cm to METER scale to set off a conventional fusion bomb. This has absoluelty no weapons applications whatsoever.

            Making the transition of scale is indeed the trick. Simply putting one next to the other would not work. Finding a way to jump the change in scale has interested a lot of people, though. Remember, you don't t

            • but as long as it's easier than getting and enriching fissile material, it's worth the effort.

              That's just the point. It's not. Getting and enriching fissile material is markedly easier than doing a lot of very basic scientific research which may or may not lead anywhere, could well consume millions of dollars, and could take decades to produce anything.

              If you really wanted a bomb, it would probably be easier to go and buy the fissile material or dig it up out of the ground in central Africa (or heck pick on
      • Ironically, It's the huge x-ray lasers and giant magnets that make hot fusion 'cool'.

    • This isn't cold fusion, it's just a sneaky way of achieving hot fusion without huge x-ray lasers and giant magnets and such.

      Taleyarkhan himself calls it "sonofusion".

      There was a documentary about this some time ago in television about Taleyarkhans previous claim of same issue in 2002 (I think it by BBC) and the scientists who studied the results, didn't find the cold fusion that Taleyarkhan claimed when they reproduced the demo. So I'm a little bit sceptical.

      If this however would be true, it would b

  • Before you jump to conclusions... (Score:5, Informative)

    by freedom_india ( 780002 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:10PM (#14451483) Homepage Journal
    Before you jump to conclusions like the Robot Lawyers episode, here's a scrap from the article:

    "Although the neutron count doubles at some points in the experiments, Putterman says that neutrons produced in random showers of cosmic rays, rather than fusion events, could be responsible. But Taleyarkhan points out that the neutron count was smaller in detectors further from the reaction chamber.
    To prove that the neutrons are coming from fusion as bubbles burst, Putterman and Suslick suggest that the team closely monitor exactly when the neutrons appear. The current experiment simply counts up the number of neutrons detected over minutes, so correlations with bubble bursts cannot be seen."

    They are NOT yet sure whether the neutrons come from bubbles or from cosmic rays.

    So let's not start the usual jokes about using car stereos to power cars, sound waves harming swan ears, etc.

    • If they were really interested in testing this, they would use run the very same setup and test a solution with normal hydrogen (which will 100% not fuse), then compare that to their results with deuterium. This would in one stroke settle the cosmic ray question, the "it's just energy you're putting in" question, and many others.

      What makes me think this is a hoax is the fact that this obvious and cheap control was not done (or not reported - either way, a bad sign).

      • Re:One thing screams "HOAX!" (Score:5, Informative)

        by pubidiot ( 169811 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @06:10AM (#14452816)
        From their Oct 2005 paper [rpi.edu] ...
        It is significant that 2.45 MeV D/D fusion neutrons were measured only when chilled, well-degassed, cavitated D-acetone was used. That is, no neutrons were measured when room temperature D-acetone, or as expected, normal acetone, was used.
        So the obvious and cheap control was done after all.

      • Agreed. I would also have another nutron detector set up specifically to read the background neutron count. Thick lead sheilding all round the experiment with plenty of before and after neutron measurements would be nice as well.

        What makes me really skeptical is the way the experimenter is trying to change the world but hasn't been taken the time to set up a 110% bullet proof experiment. If I was going to announce something like this tothe world I would make damn sure there wasn't any possible way someone

  • I'll be more interested when either the results are confirmed or one of them gets radiation poisoning. Although potentially safe by nuclear standards fusion should result in a lot more radiation than any of the cold fusion tests have so far. Good ole Mr Fusion is still going to require some serious lead shielding. There have been some intriguing results but by science standards until it can reliably be reproduced it doesn't exist. The problem is it could be a whole new effect they are seeing and not actual

    • Re:Glow in the dark scientist (Score:5, Informative)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:44PM (#14451632) Homepage
      Undue harshness given the state of the literature. It *has* been reproduced extensively, so those comments are completely incorrect; the main controversy is about the level of radiation emitted. Subsequent experiments in better conditions have reduced much of the criticism.

      However, good comments on fusion's radiation. Even prized "pure" fusion reactions, such as B11+p, produce nasty radiation because you get some p-p fusion, you get some of the alpha particles (He4) as fusion reactants, even a tiny B12 or Dt impurity will dramatically increase the radiation levels, and all sorts of other problems.

      The good thing about radiation from fusion reactors is that the fusing materials generally aren't "hot". The only problem is that irradiation of the reactor chamber itself can leave it radioactive; however, proper selection of construction materials can ensure that it has a short halflife, making reactor part disposal much less controversial.
      • Undue harshness given the state of the literature. It *has* been reproduced extensively, so those comments are completely incorrect; the main controversy is about the level of radiation emitted. Subsequent experiments in better conditions have reduced much of the criticism.

        Do you have any references of experiments carried out to verify Taleyarkhan's observations?
        • Sure. The first independent confirmation was by Yiban Xu and Adam Butt at Purdue in 2005. I could probably track down all of those who have confirmed his setup if you want; it's a relatively new field, so there shouldn't be too many papers.

    • Re:Glow in the dark scientist (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Animats ( 122034 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @12:18AM (#14451791) Homepage
      I'll be more interested when either the results are confirmed or one of them gets radiation poisoning.

      During the first cold fusion flap, back in the 1980s, I went to a talk by a physicist at Stanford who was trying to replicate the experiment. He mentioned that when they first started, they had radiation alarms set up around the equipment, but after a while, they moved those back. They measured neutron levels around twice background on occasion, but realized that people around the experiment were acting as neutron reflectors for background radiation and affecting the results. So the whole experiment was moved into a cube of lead bricks, after which no neutron emissions were observed.

      Bear in mind that it's not that hard to generate fusion. There have been fusion lab setups since the 1950s. There are many ways to force large amounts of energy into a small volume and thus create the conditions for small-scale fusion. The hard part is getting out more energy than you put in.

  • A biproduct of this research... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gasmonso ( 929871 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:12PM (#14451490) Homepage

    A byproduct of this research has led him to create the variable velocity bullet. You can read more here: http://inventors.about.com/od/tstartinventors/a/ve locity_bullet.htm [about.com]

    http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]
    • That description doesn't describe how they vary the force of the explosion. Presumably there is some mechanism for introducing a measured amount of noncondensible gas into the round prior to firing? How long do you have to wait after introducing the gas before pulling the trigger?
       

  • this has come up again? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by superyanthrax ( 835242 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:19PM (#14451515)
    Here's the most important part of the article: "There is one big problem, however: the experiment doesn't always work, and the group is not sure why." Until they figure out what's going on, the group really hasn't advanced much beyond what is already there.

    Also I'm interested in seeing other try to replicate their experiment. That will be the ultimate test as to whether their methods are valid or not.

  • My recommendation (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:21PM (#14451521)
    Cold Fusion should focus on the server where it belongs. The desktop is just a pipe dream.

  • sceptical?! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    http://webster.com/dictionary/skeptical [webster.com]

    I can't believe you call yourselves "editors", or more likely "edatters".

  • how how to tell if its for real (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jodka ( 520060 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:24PM (#14451537)

    The real test of whether cold fusion is for real is not scientific. It is economic. When someone opens a cold fusion power plant which sells more power than it consumes, you'll know it's the real deal.

    • Re:how how to tell if its for real (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Inspector Lopez ( 466767 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @12:38AM (#14451879) Journal
      The real test of whether cold fusion is for real is not scientific. It is economic. When someone opens a cold fusion power plant which sells more power than it consumes, you'll know it's the real deal.

      This is true in a pretty strong sense. If it was possible to extract large amounts of energy by inserting pins into effigies of (say) Britney Spears or Tom Delay, and we didn't know why it worked, that wouldn't erase the basic fact that you could get energy out of torturing dolls.

      The infuriating thing about "economic" is that it periodically annoints technologies which all Right Thinking Persons know are blasphemous, such as: Windows (compared to Mac OS or Gnu/Linux), or VHS (vs Betamax), or Infix Notation (vs Postfix), or MKS (vs CGS), or Vi (vs. Emacs), or Visual Basic (vs. Lisp), or the Dallas Cowboys (vs. the Green Bay Packers), or GSM (vs. CDMA), or Complex Numbers (vs. Quaternions), or the Hummer (vs. the Prius), or the body image of Kate Moss (vs. that of Scarlett Johansen), or that of Brad Pitt (vs. that of Jack Black), or ABBA (vs. Silkworm), or Old Coke (vs. New Coke); or George Bush (vs. George McGovern).

      For all you nerd-kings and nerd-queens out there: ignore "economics" at your peril. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't ignore economics; it just means that you should ignore it at your peril. Occasionally weird things happen, involving (say) quixotically charismatic Finnish grad students. Some of them become cellists http://www.apocalyptica.com/home/ [apocalyptica.com], or hackers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds [wikipedia.org], or radar waveform designers, http://www.eiscat.no/EISCAT/boards/discuss/0081.ht ml [eiscat.no].

      You just never know.

    • Considering the fuel efficiencies possible with fusion, the real test is if you can forsake all those wires from the power company and instead set up Mr. Fusion in some corner of your own garage.
  • As long as this guy [wikipedia.org] hasn't been seen around, I'm keeping an open mind.
  • Every school that discovers tabletop fusion has a Division 1 football team.

  • light was a form of energy last time I checked... (Score:5, Funny)

    by inio ( 26835 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:31PM (#14451572) Homepage
    Caption on the figure:

    Imploding bubbles, caught on film emitting light. Are they emitting energy too?

    So apparently I'm wrong.

    Oh, and apparently the new MacBook Pro produces energy too [apple.com].

  • ...but it wont surpass the "break even" threshold. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by keilinw ( 663210 ) * on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:31PM (#14451577) Homepage Journal
    Nuclear Fusion is most certainly possible. However, in order for it to be useful (at least for power production purposes) the energy output must surpass the energy input. In the article it looks like (and I'm not sure if it is even true) the "ultrasonic" waves introduce enough energy into the liquid to separate molecules, which in turn fuse together and release energy.

    So, the "cool" aspect of this technology is *not* that ultrasound can wrench molecules apart, but that the molecules release energy upon "fusing".

    Regardless of however, "cool" this is, it is still quite impractical. Perhaps if the energy released was in the form of heat instead of "light" then a chain reaction could occur. We'll I just hope that humanity invests in the "basic" research necessary to create useful technologies from this. At a minimum, it is very interesting!

    Matthew Wong.

    • Re:...but it wont surpass the "break even" thresho (Score:5, Informative)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:50PM (#14451667) Homepage
      Perhaps if the energy released was in the form of heat instead of "light" then a chain reaction could occur.

      Incorrect. First off, you get light even when there is no fusion; the light is simply blackbody radiation of very hot material that was heated by the coalescing of shocks from bubble collapse in a very small region. The *fusion* gives off most of its energy as high-energy neutrons.

      It's six orders of magnitude from breakeven currently, but has a lot of potential to scale up, including potential for criticality. Will it actually pan out as a valid energy source? Who knows; it's still in its infancy.
    • Phil Farnsworth, boy inventor of television, later worked on the Farnsworth Fuser, which was a small fusion machine. It didn't produce more energy than it used, but it did fusion and was still a good idea for some stuff that otherwise would have stretched the limits of science as it was known back in those golden days. So, fifty, sixty years later, maybe we got another. My advice, better to invent television again. It was better back then, too.

  • Conspiracy Theory (Score:5, Funny)

    by Essef ( 12025 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:32PM (#14451583)
    The reason their experiment only works "sometimes", is because the US Military Industrial Complex is in cahoots with Big Oil and is using alien technology from the Rosswell crash to constantly alter the laws of physics in close proximity to any attempted Cold Fusion reactions.

    --
    Don't believe the hype; Tinfoil hats work.

  • Is this "Desktop" Cold Fusion as in ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dlugar ( 124619 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:35PM (#14451592) Homepage
    Is this "Desktop" Cold Fusion like the ENIAC is a Desktop PC?

  • Let's face it. . . (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jafac ( 1449 )
    We're all willing to put up with dozens of repeat articles on cold fusion based on the dream that one day, we'll all be able to extend our middle fingers at ExxonMobilShellAramcoBushCoHalliburtonChevron.

  • Cold Fusion (Score:5, Funny)

    by ltwally ( 313043 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:37PM (#14451600) Homepage Journal
    Cold Fusion. And, I quote, "I'll believe that when me shit turns purple and smells of rainbow sherbert."
  • The temperature inside the bubbles is at the levels of traditional fusion.
    • I don't think the temperatures is anywhere near "normal" fusion temperatures. Here [doe.gov] is a reference suggesting you need 10-100 million degrees. TFA says the the temperature in the bubbles is maybe 15,000 or so at best.
  • ... of a dodgy burrito! 15,000 C - Sure feels that way. tiny bubbles of gas - Sure smells that way. which release a burst of heat and light - Sure sounds that way. hot enough to wrench molecules apart - Sure hurts that way.

  • What a day! (Score:4, Funny)

    by alex_guy_CA ( 748887 ) <alex@NoSPAm.schoenfeldt.com> on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @11:49PM (#14451666) Homepage
    We've got diesel from algae, electricity from trees, and now Mr. Fusion! We're saved! Woo Hoo!

  • Experimental Improvement Needed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sanman2 ( 928866 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @12:01AM (#14451718)
    Even before getting to any goal of practical power generation, the most important thing in a scientific investigation is to structure it to avoid doubts -- meaning either proving or disproving it completely. There's no dishonour in disproving it, if it helps to clarify what the remaining fusion possibilities are. Dr Taleyarkhan should have specifically monitored the neutron outputs to see if they had any cyclicality that coincided with the bubble oscillation cycle. If you get neutron spikes when the bubbles implode, then that's a very helpful sign consistent with acoustic fusion occurring. Why a big scientist like him didn't do such an obvious thing worries me. But the article says that Putterman et all will be working to duplicate his experiments. Duplication is really the essential thing for proving something. After all, if it only works when Taleyarkhan does it, but not for anybody else, then you know something's wrong.

  • Had this guy for class... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pro-mpd ( 412123 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @12:04AM (#14451730) Homepage
    ... and he's a freakin' genius. He taught us very briefly about his work, but was hesitant when I took the class to go into a lot of details because of the pre-publication nature of the work. The TA for the class, Adam Butt, is also a very quick guy. Although I recognize the possibility of fabrication, all the people I know around the project were hesitant to make claims until they had better proof. They are still hesitant to proclaim victory. All things considered, I think this is the most promising energy work since the Manhattan project.

  • Desktop cold fusion (Score:3, Funny)

    by Thomas Henden ( 804134 ) <t_henden @ h o t m a i l . c om> on Thursday January 12, 2006 @12:10AM (#14451753)
    Guess I don't need to buy the 1kW power supply [pcpowerandcooling.com] for this system [bit-tech.net], or...?

    Now, if they also would come up with a laptop cold fusion unit...

  • how difficult is this? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wall0159 ( 881759 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @12:34AM (#14451857)
    The thing I think is interesting is perception of difficulty. I have an idea:

    We'll get a multiple-hundred-ton platform, and float it on the open ocean. Despite currents and storms, we'll send a 10-inch drill bit down 1-3 kilometres in to the ground below the ocean. From there we'll drill into a big oil resivoir.
    Then we'll pump the oil up - without spilling it. We'll somehow load it onto ships, and distribute it all around the world.

    When you think about it, this is bloody amazing. It shows what we can do if we put our minds to it. Granted - the oil industry has a bit of a headstart over cold-fusion, but we must recognise the limitations of oil and pursue other options.

  • actually the problem is the scientists (Score:4, Interesting)

    by eadint ( 156250 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @12:55AM (#14451942) Homepage Journal
    The scientific comunity is more like the Mafia an anything else. The idea of cold fusion is not a theory it is a fact ( this is why helium is minned ). Cold fusion happens every day inside the earth, people just don't know why or how it happens. The real problem is that the scientific community is more like the Mafia, it is not and open minded industry for enlightenment it is more like the Catholic church during Gallileos time. When pons and fleishman published their experiment they essentially threatend all of the very expensive plasma and laser bassed fusion projects and because of this it was shut down, instead of investigating the phenominae of cold fusion it was instantly ostrisized. Plasma and lasers will never work in the arena of fusion and they will just continue to suck up money and resources but the scientific comunity is backing that technowlogy and they will never acknolege any other method of fusion until the money has run dry and they are considered the fools that they are. we should be investigating and trying to replicate what is happening in the earth, but doing so wil kill your carreer.
    • Though calling the scientific community the catholic church fighting against galileo is somewhat inflammatory, the whole thing stinks of conspiracy.

      Most scientists and techies and as we have seen, a lot of Slash-dotters, are very dismissive of Cold Fusion. Why? Because renowned universities like MIT have discredited the results.

      When MIT reproduced Pons and Fleishmann's original Utah experiment, they claimed that it hadn't work. However, evidence has surfaced that they _doctored the data_. Eugene Mallov

    • Why are there so many kooks on Slashdot? What is it about this place that attracts the ignorant and paranoid?
      • Why are there so many kooks on Slashdot? What is it about this place that attracts the ignorant and paranoid?

        It's flypaper for freaks. They were always paranoid.

        I don't know but between choosing Ruby on Rails evangelistas and the army of undead Amiga enthusiasts or choosing the ignorant kooks is ...well, boy,... that's a tough call.
    • You know, part of the resson they were ostricised was that they went straight to the media, not peer review.

  • from the article: (Score:2, Interesting)

    by shrewd ( 830067 )
    from the article: " Imploding bubbles, caught on film emitting light. Are they emitting energy too?"

    errrrr.....
  • What a gas!

    No pun intended.
  • Ok, so using ultrasonics, they're able to create momentary "pops" that produce a heat flash in a special mix of deuterium. Cool. What about applying technologies such as those that product so-called 'standing waves' or accoustic levitation?

    In sort, it may be possible, using a careful design of sonic generators, and specially designed chambers, to create a single, constant, "fusion point" in a sonic chamber. Furthermore, I believe it would be possible to tune the sonic chamber so that the vibrations from the
  • Imploding bubbles, caught on film emitting light. Are they emitting energy too? ...

    *cry*
  • At least according to lenr-canr.org
    which is the homepage for all research activities concerning
    Low Energy Nuclear Reactions and Chemically Assisted Nuclear Reactions.

    The original cold fusion experiments have been successfully replicated many times over.
    There are hundreds scientists around the world working in the field

    To quote the webpage:
    "Cold fusion was never "debunked" and even the harshest critics until now have never suggested that it was fraudulent. The cold fusion effect was replicated at high signal
    • That website is a from a business which would like to profit from low energy research (nothing wrong with that, but it's not an objective scientist's site). If you restrict yourself to websites of national laboratories and respect physicist groups, you'll find a different story: continued investigation recommended, but no convincing evidence because of background noise, poor experimental technique, etc. For a summary of the state of affairs, see this [doe.gov] So it's premature to say "IT's Real!", just that sc
  • There's a well-known phenomenon that all scientists should watch out for-- unintentional self-fooling. In any experiment that requires many runs, it's all too easy to disqualify certain runs on dodgy criteria. For example:
    • "Oh, I sneezed during that run, maybe that shook the neutron detector"
    • "There was a cosmic ray burst there near the end, throw out the whole run".
    • "There couldnt have been zero neutrons during that run, that's implausible, the neutron detector must gotten saturated by a super cosmic r
  • And they were considering making it a desktop development language.
  • Chain Reaction [imdb.com] has them using water and not acetone, but same difference.
  • "You don't believe in all this cold-fusion mumbo jumbo do you? You know you're a very pretty lady." - Simon

  • Desktop Cold Fusion Reconsidered (Score:3, Funny)

    by drgroove ( 631550 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @11:15AM (#14454886)
    "Macromedia.com reports on Rusi Taleyarkhan of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, who is once again claiming to have achieved dynamic web-sites using Cold Fusion. Other developers in the CS department are sceptical, but Taleyarkhan is keen to have other students check his results."

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