Threshold Phenomena





Threshold Phenomena

A threshold phenomenon is one that is just barely detectable, that is at the limit of vision or hearing or any other sense. Nothing the experimenter can do will make the effect larger. It is likely that not everyone will be able to experience the phenomenon.




N-Rays




Polywater




Canals on Mars




The Maunder-Pickering Experiments




Venus Lines Illusion




Cold Fusion

References:
Voodoo Science by Dr. Robert Park,
The Undergrowth of Science by Professor Walter Gratzer,
Yes, We Have No Neutrons by A.K. Dewdney,
Bad Science by Gary Taubes,
Too Hot to Handle by Frank Close,
The Scientific Fiasco of the Century by John Huizenga.

This is an example of, at least, science done badly. Pons and Fleischman announced their "discovery" in 1989. Both were reputable scientists with numerous publications. They discovered, or at least thought that they had discovered, a phenomenon in which heavy hydrogen (deuterium) could be made to undergo a fusion reaction at room temperature. This was done in an electrochemical cell by passing an electric current through a solution of LiOD using cathodes of palladium. If true, it would be one of the most significant discoveries of the 20th century.

Professor Scalise outlined the normal procedures for handling such a discovery. The scientist asks colleagues in the same institution to come have a look and critique the experiment. Some experiments that might disprove the result might be done as a sanity check. Then internal seminars might be held to present the result to more colleagues. Seminars at other institutions follow, with more discussion and critique. At the end of this, a formal paper is written and submitted to the appropriate peer-reviewed journal. Here, referees read the paper anonymously and critique it thoroughly. Changes may be recommended. If the paper is accepted as good science, it will get in line for publication. The paper will detail all assumptions and will contain detailed descriptions of the discovery, the appropriate experiments, and enough information for another researcher to reproduce the work.

Pons, Fleischman, and the University of Utah bypassed all of this. They went to the Patent Office and to the press, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times of London, two publications not usually known for their science content. Big headlines resulted. If this were real, the patents could be worth millions. In doing this they bypassed all of the normal steps. No critiques were done. There were no sanity tests or control experiments. They did not release any details about how the process worked. This was not normal scientific procedure.

Pons and Fleischmann did not perform the DISCONFIRMING experiment using ordinary light water, instead of heavy water containing deuterium, before going public. They had been working for five years and never thought to try this. Physicist Harold Furth asked Pons about this during the American Chemical Society meeting in Dallas. Pons agreed it would be a good idea, went back to try it, and reported, "We did not get the baseline we expected." Translation: ordinary water produced the SAME effect, but it could not have been fusion because light water will not fuse to helium.

A group at Yale wanted to try replicating the result, but the Utah group was not releasing any details. A news photo of Pons and Fleischman was available, and in it Pons was holding the electrochemical cell. The Yale group, using Pons' hand as a size reference, worked out the scale and built a cell from the photo. They set it up with palladium cathodes and tried it. Nothing happened. They reported their negative result, and then some details came dribbling out of Utah. You had to preload the cathode with the deuterium. So the Yale group did that. Still no result. Others tried to replicate the experiment. Most reported failure. The widespread failure to reproduce the "cold fusion" led to the discrediting of Pons and Fleischman and embarrassment for the University of Utah.

That was in 1989 and 1990, but the story doesn't end there. Interestingly, cold fusion is not dead, like N-Rays. There are still people working on it; some are claiming real results. The most commonly reported effect is an unexplained episode of excess heat output from the cell. This means that the heat coming out exceeds the electrical energy going in. It is, however, very difficult to do, and the effect is sporadic and unpredictable. No one seems to know exactly what is going on. But no neutrons are being produced, and with no neutrons it isn't fusion.

Two companies (Blacklight Power and Clean Energy) have patents on processes in this area. They are working like beavers, but no products are on the market. No one has found a reliable recipe for producing the effect. There seems to be just enough going on to keep a few people working on it. Meetings on the subject are held regularly.

It seems that the Department of Energy is going to put some money into an effort finally to answer this one. It won't die. Several experimenters seem to be able to repeat the excess heat production and have found the experimental conditions required. This is as of Summer 2004.

What are we to make of this? Mainstream physics says that such fusion is not possible and that no evidence of it has been found. Those who are working on it say there is something happening. It seems prudent for us to conclude that the jury is still out on this one. If such an effect is actually real, someone will someday get it right and figure it out. That would be an extremely significant discovery. If, on the other hand, it putters along like this for years (19 years already with no results), there is likely nothing there. All we can do is wait. Maybe the DOE funding will bring forth an answer.

In the context of our class, what do we have here? A hoax? Probably not. Hoax implies deliberate deception. Threshold phenomenon? They were using instruments to record their data. Scientific error? Seems most likely. They did not use the right instruments to confirm fusion. They did not do control experiments. Their controls were poor. They were electrochemists working in physics, which meant they were working out of their area of expertise. All this combined to produce a very embarrassing episode.

Note Well: The name "Cold Fusion" has changed.

There was so much controversy and scandal associated with "Cold Fusion" that its proponents now refer to it as "Low Energy Nuclear Reactions". This Orwellian name change does not alter the physics involved.

Patents

Note that the issuance of a patent for some device or process does not give you any assurance that the thing will work. Patents have been granted for some really ridiculous things.

We discussed the patent process. The disclosures in a patent application are supposed to describe the invention thoroughly that anyone having "ordinary skill in the art" can duplicate it. In the case of cold fusion, that doesn't mean that YOU could do it, but rather that a scientist skilled and knowledgeable in that field could do it.

We relate the case of a Patterson Cell, which is a patented cell for producing cold fusion. Working from the patent, the investigators tried to duplicate the result, with no success. Maybe the thing doesn't work at all (very likely), or maybe the patent disclosures were not adequate. Who knows?



Bubble Fusion

Nuclear Engineering Professor Rusi Taleyarkhan of Purdue University, who led the research in question at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, was co-author of a 2002 paper purporting to show "bubble fusion" brought about by intense implosions of bubbles in a liquid bombarded with sound waves. Others have struggled without success to replicate the results, though Taleyarkhan says two little-recognized groups have done so.



The Hafnium Isomer Bomb

Gamma-ray Laser (Graser)

Hafnium-178m2 Isomer Triggering

Since 1999, a collaboration led by Professor Carl B. Collins (University of Texas at Dallas) has been reporting evidence for the release of energy stored in an unusually long-lived nuclear isomer of hafnium-178 induced by a dental x-ray. No other group has confirmed this result.