Excess Heat: Why Cold Fusion Research Prevailed

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ex-engineer
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Excess Heat: Why Cold Fusion Research Prevailed

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by Charles G. Beaudette (Paperback - May 2002)

This is an excellent overview of the history of the CF phenomenon, written for a general, but technically literate, audience.

Beaudette is a retired engineer, and he's quite convincing when he reports both that something is going on (excess heat has been generated and measured in hundreds, if not thousands, of experiments), and that the mainstream physics community has put the cart before the horse in requiring that the effect must conform to current theory before it can be accepted as "real".

The book includes a survey of some of the more recent research.

Matt McConnell
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Richard Hull
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Re: Excess Heat: Why Cold Fusion Research Prevailed

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With the efforts ongoing, this is much more than polywater and N-rays which were quashed overnight by comparison. Something is real here. What it is and of what value, if any, is another matter.

I personally believe some major future science is lurking here. If I am right, the period of denial will go down in physics and science history as a mini-dark age in science when its priniciples were corrupted by authoritorian dogmatic denial.

Its trail involves so many experimenters and researchers who have each supplied a mite or chip to the puzzle that by the time it is "outed" there will be no true discoverer, though I am sure Nobels will be passed out to high profile, acceptable, "Johnny come lately's". The history of this phenomenon can be traced in letters and scientific papers back into the 1920's. Some claim earlier.

Unfortunately, the CF/CANR/LENR community has been saddled with the hucksters, and the "real soon now" mentality that we joke about as legendary within the hot fusion community circa 1950-2000.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Adam Szendrey
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Re: Excess Heat: Why Cold Fusion Research Prevailed

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I say it's the same with all those "overunity" devices (hundreds and thousands of them), which all add a little to the puzzle, because there are common phenomenons reported, and similarities, of independent experiments. It's an extremely chaotic field...Thus one must have a good eye, and a kind of sixth sense to filter out the immense amount of bogus there...
I wonder when will the breakthrough happen...maybe it already happened...maybe it will never happen...will it be slow, or a fast change? The upcoming "hard times" might serve as a fertile soil for the seed of revolution in science...why does it always takes a crisis or "armageddon", for a major change to happen?

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Re: Excess Heat: Why Cold Fusion Research Prevailed

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Richard -

I agree on all counts. There's definitely something to it, and it will definitely cause some level of revolution in the currently established theories of nuclear reactions. The treatment that many of the researchers have received by the physics community and so-called research universities will certainly reinforce one's cynicism about how the world of "big science" really works.

Whether all the work leads to technologies that are of significant use to humankind is a different question, and one it's clearly too early to answer with any certainty. But on the face of things, it's a darn sight more attractive than hot fusion as a potential energy source.

And, as you rightly point out, the field has attracted some number of folks who are either a few cards short of a full deck or think this looks like an untapped market for snake oil sales.

Matt
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Richard Hull
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Re: Excess Heat: Why Cold Fusion Research Prevailed

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Overall, I don't hold out as much hope for "new energy" from CF as much as I do "new science" At all events, I feel there is something in all of this.

We do not need disaters to make new discoveries. It is just that with one's back to the wall, one becomes far more directed and focused.

Perhaps the greatest revolution to take place in physics is the result of serendipity in three areas within about 3 years. Boom, boom boom and the world changed. These were (1) the discovery of the electron -Thompson; (2) The discovery of X-rays - Roentgen; (3) The discovery of Radio-activity - Bequerel.

Physics went from a self-satisfied disipline in the 1890's that looked as if it only needed some decimal places advanced to fully explain nature, to a confused and stunned bunch of researchers off on a chase that is still a "work in progress".

The melding of modern business, technology and science has done a lot to crush the casual "single-person questing" so vital to keep science moving via stunning insightful discoveries. The resources required for modern experiment are often far beyond those of even the genius experimenter, Rutherford, using bailing wire and sealing wax to push open the doors of nuclear physics.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Adam Szendrey
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Re: Excess Heat: Why Cold Fusion Research Prevailed

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I think it's a little more shaded than that. One major discovery is different from another...if a discovery would replace an existing economy than it will probably be supressed, until the current technology is exploited. The discovery of the electron did not replace anything...it created various new industries. Same for the rest of the nuclear discoveries at that time.
Nowdays most new discoveries result in the replacement of existing technologies. This can be disturbing for some industrial forces. But in other cases it's not, or it's even helpful...so in some cases it might seem that there is a free flow of new technologies, but actually it is fully under control. It's just that it's not simple , not black or white, but it's not a conspiracy, more like the result, the sum, of all the events, and act of persons, connected with the research, or the invention, the new technology. This can result in situations that can seem to be a free flow of ideas, or a conspiracy, or a mistake....mostly anything.

Adam
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Richard Hull
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Re: Excess Heat: Why Cold Fusion Research Prevailed

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I still say that nothing has changed physics the way the revolution of the 1890's did. Everything changed. Replacing a technology is common. Replacing a world view and established dogma in science is earthshattering. One only need read books of the period to see the elation, fear, hope and distress that ran through physics and all sciences of period. it was like a pool break from the neatly ordered triangle of balls that were once all fit together.

Lasers, Transistors, and the like are but toys and bumps in the road of physics. All ultimately tumbled from the 1890's revolution.

One of those now would be nice and unsettling.

Man advances by fits and spurts, but he likes the comfort that good dogmas afford in between as he gets smug with his newly digested and codified knowledge.

When will come the next billiard break? Right now, we have, effectively, just run the balls out from the last break, building new sandcastle edifices as the balls are slowly re-racked.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Adam Szendrey
Posts: 1333
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 5:36 pm
Real name: Adam Szendrey
Location: Budapest, Hungary

Re: Excess Heat: Why Cold Fusion Research Prevailed

Post by Adam Szendrey »

Then we agree Richard .
Though it seems i expressed myself wrong.
I too think that there has not been any major discovery that changed our scientific view since those times. It's about time for a refreshment....

Adam
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