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Evidence? As far as I can tell the only 'fraudulent' thing they did was jump to the conclusion of "WE MADE ENERGY WITH COLD FUSION" when they probably should'v

by PeCaN 11y ago

Evidence? As far as I can tell the only 'fraudulent' thing they did was jump to the conclusion of "WE MADE ENERGY WITH COLD FUSION" when they probably should've announced their result with "looks like we have some unexplained heat". They most probably were, however, understandably rather excited.

Retric 11y ago
Producing even a little heat with fusion produces a lot of nasty radiation. As in kill everyone in the unsheilded room within a few seconds. Based on the amount of unexplained heat they produced fusion would have been extremely radioactive, however they did not treat there setup as an extreme radiation hazard. Which suggest they did not think there would be any fusion. PS: Here are some pictures for a device expected to produce less than 1W of fusion. http://www.cmgww.com/historic/farnsworth/inventions/fusion/fusionhot.html http://www.cmgww.com/historic/farnsworth/inventions/fusion/f... Note the deep and cheap to produce pit.
- kryptiskt 11y ago
  They were chemists, not physicists. They were completely out of their depth when thinking about physics. From what I read in Frank Close's book they jumped the gun when they learned about Steve Jones (who wanted to explain Earth's He-3 with cold fusion), and they didn't want to risk losing credit for their major discovery. Obviously they were no saints and did lie and massage data when it all crumbled. But they behaved far more like blinkered true believers than frauds.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    Blinkered true believers and frauds differ only in one aspect: intent. I've met some 'true believers' and the common element was that they believed enough to risk other people's funds but not enough to risk their own. That makes it a very fine line between a true believer and a fraud, thin enough for me to bin them equally. It doesn't matter to me because I can't look into someone's head to figure out which of the two it is, no matter what they say or do, true believers may very well be frauds and people who you think are frauds may end up being true believers. In the end, the only thing that matters is results.
    - trhway 11y ago
      > I've met some 'true believers' and the common element was that they believed enough to risk other people's funds but not enough to risk their own. according to wikipedia Pons and Fleischmann self-funded the experiments for several years before the announcement to the tune of $100K. Anyway, giving such a great palladium's absorption of hydrogen it would be interesting to see a grain of palladium deuteride as a target for NIF and/or Sandia Z. The density of the deuterium absorbed into palladium is about the density of the standard frozen DT grain used traditionally, yet with all these additional heavy palladium atoms spread around the stability of compression would definitely be different - whether better or worse the experiment would show. Also the electrons would be in typical in-metal cloud state instead of being attached to the deuterium atoms - again the difference which may play a role (at least in lithium deuteride used in H-bomb it doesn't make things worse :)
- ScottBurson 11y ago
  > Producing even a little heat with fusion produces a lot of nasty radiation. As in kill everyone in the unsheilded room within a few seconds. This is greatly exaggerated. The amount of excess heat they claimed to observe was really quite small, and D-D fusion produces a relatively weak neutron flux [0]. I'm not saying some shielding wouldn't have been a good idea, but instant death? No. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power#Deuterium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power#Deuterium
  - Retric 11y ago
    100Mev+ X-Ray / Gamma radiation is not fun. There is some play in the numbers based on type of fusion, but ~1w is on the order of 10^12th reactions per second and flat out lethal. Sure, if a device is weak out 1 millionth of that then it's not a big deal, but nobody cares about 0.000001 watts / second.
    - ScottBurson 11y ago
      You didn't even click the link. Neutrons from D-D fusion are at 2.45 MeV.
      - Retric 11y ago
        Yea, I was off by a factor of 10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalent_dose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalent_dose 1W of 2.5Mev neutrons ~= 10W worth of Gamma Rays in terms of equivalent dose. (http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/nuclear-engineering/22-01-introduction-to-ionizing-radiation-fall-2006/lecture-notes/absorbed_dose.pdf http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/nuclear-engineering/22-01-introdu...) There are several 14.1+Mev fusion products see chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion (Which is probably where I was thinking 100Mev), but it’s already normalized so we are talking 10W equivalent. Granted that 10W dose equivalent is not focused so a person standing next to it might get 8% of that which is .8W, or ~0.01W/kg equivalent (for a 80kg person) which just happens to be ~1 Rads per second. (1 rad = 0.01 Gy = 0.01 J/kg. 250 to 500 rads is the LD/50. So, Standing next to an unshielded 1W neutron source has a 50/50 shot giving you a lethal dose within ~4 to 9 minutes. PS: 2.5Mev Neutron radiation @ 1J per kg is ~10 Gy which is ~LD100 and probably where I was thinking 1W = death. (Please double check my math.)

by PeCaN 11y ago

Retric 11y ago

Producing even a little heat with fusion produces a lot of nasty radiation. As in kill everyone in the unsheilded room within a few seconds. Based on the amount of unexplained heat they produced fusion would have been extremely radioactive, however they did not treat there setup as an extreme radiation hazard. Which suggest they did not think there would be any fusion. PS: Here are some pictures for a device expected to produce less than 1W of fusion. http://www.cmgww.com/historic/farnsworth/inventions/fusion/fusionhot.html http://www.cmgww.com/historic/farnsworth/inventions/fusion/f... Note the deep and cheap to produce pit.

kryptiskt 11y ago
They were chemists, not physicists. They were completely out of their depth when thinking about physics. From what I read in Frank Close's book they jumped the gun when they learned about Steve Jones (who wanted to explain Earth's He-3 with cold fusion), and they didn't want to risk losing credit for their major discovery. Obviously they were no saints and did lie and massage data when it all crumbled. But they behaved far more like blinkered true believers than frauds.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  Blinkered true believers and frauds differ only in one aspect: intent. I've met some 'true believers' and the common element was that they believed enough to risk other people's funds but not enough to risk their own. That makes it a very fine line between a true believer and a fraud, thin enough for me to bin them equally. It doesn't matter to me because I can't look into someone's head to figure out which of the two it is, no matter what they say or do, true believers may very well be frauds and people who you think are frauds may end up being true believers. In the end, the only thing that matters is results.
  - trhway 11y ago
    > I've met some 'true believers' and the common element was that they believed enough to risk other people's funds but not enough to risk their own. according to wikipedia Pons and Fleischmann self-funded the experiments for several years before the announcement to the tune of $100K. Anyway, giving such a great palladium's absorption of hydrogen it would be interesting to see a grain of palladium deuteride as a target for NIF and/or Sandia Z. The density of the deuterium absorbed into palladium is about the density of the standard frozen DT grain used traditionally, yet with all these additional heavy palladium atoms spread around the stability of compression would definitely be different - whether better or worse the experiment would show. Also the electrons would be in typical in-metal cloud state instead of being attached to the deuterium atoms - again the difference which may play a role (at least in lithium deuteride used in H-bomb it doesn't make things worse :)
ScottBurson 11y ago
> Producing even a little heat with fusion produces a lot of nasty radiation. As in kill everyone in the unsheilded room within a few seconds. This is greatly exaggerated. The amount of excess heat they claimed to observe was really quite small, and D-D fusion produces a relatively weak neutron flux [0]. I'm not saying some shielding wouldn't have been a good idea, but instant death? No. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power#Deuterium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power#Deuterium
- Retric 11y ago
  100Mev+ X-Ray / Gamma radiation is not fun. There is some play in the numbers based on type of fusion, but ~1w is on the order of 10^12th reactions per second and flat out lethal. Sure, if a device is weak out 1 millionth of that then it's not a big deal, but nobody cares about 0.000001 watts / second.
  - ScottBurson 11y ago
    You didn't even click the link. Neutrons from D-D fusion are at 2.45 MeV.
    - Retric 11y ago
      Yea, I was off by a factor of 10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalent_dose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalent_dose 1W of 2.5Mev neutrons ~= 10W worth of Gamma Rays in terms of equivalent dose. (http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/nuclear-engineering/22-01-introduction-to-ionizing-radiation-fall-2006/lecture-notes/absorbed_dose.pdf http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/nuclear-engineering/22-01-introdu...) There are several 14.1+Mev fusion products see chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion (Which is probably where I was thinking 100Mev), but it’s already normalized so we are talking 10W equivalent. Granted that 10W dose equivalent is not focused so a person standing next to it might get 8% of that which is .8W, or ~0.01W/kg equivalent (for a 80kg person) which just happens to be ~1 Rads per second. (1 rad = 0.01 Gy = 0.01 J/kg. 250 to 500 rads is the LD/50. So, Standing next to an unshielded 1W neutron source has a 50/50 shot giving you a lethal dose within ~4 to 9 minutes. PS: 2.5Mev Neutron radiation @ 1J per kg is ~10 Gy which is ~LD100 and probably where I was thinking 1W = death. (Please double check my math.)