Cold fusion
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Cold fusion is the "philosopher's stone" of modern science. "Fusion" in this case usually refers to the fusion of hydrogen atoms (usually deuterium (H2) or tritium (H3), since the amount of energy required to fuse regular hydrogen is largely unattainable in Earthbound apparatus) to produce helium with the accompanying release of energy. This reaction normally requires an extremely high temperature/pressure environment such as is found within stellar objects (or hydrogen bombs). Although fusion has been achieved under controlled conditions, the net energy balance has generally been negative, because the reaction requires using more energy to safely maintain the conditions for fusion than can be extracted. The term "cold" is very relative - temperatures are still high by everyday standards, but "cold" by comparison with the environments usually required for fusion to occur.
Cold fusion was claimed to have been achieved in 1989 by University of Utah chemists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann,[1] but was first reported to the media, rather than normal scientific publishing channels, which complicated attempts by other groups to duplicate the experiment.
Despite this, Pons' and Fleischmann's work was quickly discredited by mainstream scientists. Although it retained a strong following of true believers for over a decade, most now consider Pons-Fleischmann electrochemical cold fusion to be pseudoscience. What is still referred to as "cold" fusion is often, in reality, what is also known as "locally hot" fusion, where fusion reactions take place at normal high temperatures, but on a very small scale that does not affect the ambient temperature of the device as much.
Cold fusion experiments are being carried out at the US navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego, California. Furthermore, papers have been published in the peer-reviewed journal Naturwissenschaften.[2]
[edit] See also
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ Robert Park's Voodoo Science (Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 0195135156) has a decent history of the cold fusion train wreck from Park's point of view as the head of the Washington office of the American Physical Society.
- ↑ http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/mg19426021.000-cold-fusion--hot-news-again.html
