The Politics Of Cold Fusion
from the cold-fusion-rides-again dept
The debate on the possibilities of cold fusion has gone on for years, and many physicists see cold fusion as the wacko theory of physics. So, you might be able to imagine just a little bit of the politics that went into getting Science magazine to publish researchers who say they've done cold fusion. It seems that everyone tried to stop the publication, insisting that it couldn't possibly be true - despite Science's review of the research (and apparently, they're fairly thorough). It seems a bit odd to me that people would be so against the publication. If it really is bogus (as the famous Pons/Fleischmann cold fusion deal was years ago) then that will be proven, and this new study will also be discredited. However, if someone really has done cold fusion then it would be quite revolutionary. While I tend to agree with the skeptics as to whether or not this is legit (at least until a lot more research is done), I don't see anything wrong with publishing the findings to let others dig into them.
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Cold Fusion? Did it in the 60's
a) America's TV system
b) cold fusion in the 1950s
c) both.
Suggest you visit the December 1998 issue of ANALOG for Tom Ligon's article on Inertial Electrostatic Confinement fusion - then search the net for plans on basement fusors costing $1,000 using deuterium from your local welding gas supplier. Now, getting it to BREAK EVEN and be cost-effective? THAT's a little different story.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Cold Fusion? Did it in the 60's
[ link to this | view in chronology ]