The key is confirmed experimental results that are other than predicted by established theory. When theory is very well established, there is a tendency to out-of-hand dismiss contradictory results as probable errors. Sometimes that “theory of error” is accepted without the errors ever being identified. This especially can happen if there is mixed success in confirmation, which can happen when a phenomenon is not understood and is difficult to set up.
Nuclear physics is such a field, where quantum mechanics is incredibly successful at making accurate predictions when the environment is simple, i.e., in a plasma.
However, in the solid state, to apply quantum mechanics, to predict fusion probabilities, notably, requires simplifying assumptions.
Seeking to test the accuracy of these assumptions, Pons and Fleischmann, starting in about 1984, found a heat anomaly. The effect was difficult to set up, it required loading of deuterium into palladium at a ratio higher than was normally considered possible, and most palladium samples didn’t work.
They were not ready to announce the work, but the University of Utah forced them, for intellectual property reasons, to hold a press conference. All hell broke loose, it is said that for a few months the bulk of the U.S. discretionary research budget was spent trying to reproduce their results.
Most of these efforts were based on inadequate information about the original research, most failed (for reasons that are now understood), and a cascade developed that there was nothing but incompetence behind the finding.
However, some researchers persisted, and eventually there were many independent confirmations, and the heat effect was found, by a dozen research groups, to be correlated with the production of helium, at the ratio expected for deuterium fusion to helium, within experimental error. Helium was not expected to be a normal product of deuterium fusion (it’s a rare branch), and when normal (hot) fusion does result in helium, there is always a gamma ray, required by conservation of momentum. No gamma rays.
The mechanism is not known. What I’ve written here is what you will find if you look for recent reviews of the field in mainstream journals. (See especially Storms, “Status of cold fusion (2010),” Naturwissenschaften.)
But the opinion is still extremely common that the whole thing is “pathological science,” or worse.
Until the mechanism is known, this might be a laboratory curiosity, or it could open up a whole new territory, with vast implications. More research is needed.
The key is confirmed experimental results that are other than predicted by established theory. When theory is very well established, there is a tendency to out-of-hand dismiss contradictory results as probable errors. Sometimes that “theory of error” is accepted without the errors ever being identified. This especially can happen if there is mixed success in confirmation, which can happen when a phenomenon is not understood and is difficult to set up.
Nuclear physics is such a field, where quantum mechanics is incredibly successful at making accurate predictions when the environment is simple, i.e., in a plasma.
However, in the solid state, to apply quantum mechanics, to predict fusion probabilities, notably, requires simplifying assumptions.
Seeking to test the accuracy of these assumptions, Pons and Fleischmann, starting in about 1984, found a heat anomaly. The effect was difficult to set up, it required loading of deuterium into palladium at a ratio higher than was normally considered possible, and most palladium samples didn’t work.
They were not ready to announce the work, but the University of Utah forced them, for intellectual property reasons, to hold a press conference. All hell broke loose, it is said that for a few months the bulk of the U.S. discretionary research budget was spent trying to reproduce their results.
Most of these efforts were based on inadequate information about the original research, most failed (for reasons that are now understood), and a cascade developed that there was nothing but incompetence behind the finding.
However, some researchers persisted, and eventually there were many independent confirmations, and the heat effect was found, by a dozen research groups, to be correlated with the production of helium, at the ratio expected for deuterium fusion to helium, within experimental error. Helium was not expected to be a normal product of deuterium fusion (it’s a rare branch), and when normal (hot) fusion does result in helium, there is always a gamma ray, required by conservation of momentum. No gamma rays.
The mechanism is not known. What I’ve written here is what you will find if you look for recent reviews of the field in mainstream journals. (See especially Storms, “Status of cold fusion (2010),” Naturwissenschaften.)
But the opinion is still extremely common that the whole thing is “pathological science,” or worse.
Until the mechanism is known, this might be a laboratory curiosity, or it could open up a whole new territory, with vast implications. More research is needed.