Cold Fusion -- It's BaaaAAAaaack...

[The Mad Monk]

$233.80 per ounce. Not too bad, yet.

http://www.quotepalladium.com/

[Straybow]

It is possible that impurities in palladium samples could cause irregular results. It is possible that purifying palladium to the degree required is unfeasible with our present level of science and engineering.

C'mon, let's give a little bit of wiggle-room to hope.

[Elok]

It is possible that a bank in Nigeria is having so much trouble moving a dead prince's fortunes that they're reduced to employing random strangers off the internet...

[KrazyHorse]

A couple of weeks ago (I think) I saw something on Wikipedia about a group in the US trying to achieve fusion with a LOT of lasers. KH only said that they've been promising us cold fusion for a veeeeery long time when I asked his opinion. But I find myself favoring the expensive laser facility over the bucket of seawater and palladium.

No, I said that they've been promising FUSION.

Cold fusion is nonsense.

[chequita guevara]

If cold fusion were possible, it would be observed in nature.

[KrazyHorse]

It is possible that impurities in palladium samples could cause irregular results. It is possible that purifying palladium to the degree required is unfeasible with our present level of science and engineering.

C'mon, let's give a little bit of wiggle-room to hope.

No. This is ridiculous, until you can offer some reasonable explanation how a perturbation (chemical binding potential) of eV scale can sufficiently alter the state of a simple nucleus to allow fusion (which needs to overcome a barrier of 40 keV in the case of D-D fusion).

That's ****ing retarded. Anybody with some basic undergraduate quantum mechanics can tell you that.

[chequita guevara]

I don't understand that, and even I understand that.

[Straybow]

If cold fusion were possible, it would be observed in nature.

We don't see semiconductor transistors in nature, do we? No.

[DanS]

Besides the cold fusion hocus pocus, I thiink it's an interesting anomaly on its own merit.

[DanS]

We're saved! Endless powa Thank you oh thank you.

We already have endless powa. The sun isn't going to be running out of juice anytime soon.

[KrazyHorse]

Besides the cold fusion hocus pocus, I thiink it's an interesting anomaly on its own merit.

This would be true if I didn't believe that these people were sloppy scientists (based on their idiocy in claiming nuclear effects where the only reasonable effects are electrochemical).

[Elok]

That's ****ing retarded. Anybody with some basic undergraduate quantum mechanics can tell you that.

Just as an interesting cultural tidbit, probably 90% or more of all people, even on this board, have a hard time thinking of any quantum mechanics as "basic." It's a phrase not unlike "jumbo shrimp."

[KrazyHorse]

Elok, I understand that this is not basic to the average person.

But it should be basic to anybody who's at all qualified to think about fusion. This is not reasoning based on some arcane branch of knowledge available to only a few experts. There are tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) who can tell you why these cold fusion people are *****.

[DanS]

This would be true if I didn't believe that these people were sloppy scientists (based on their idiocy in claiming nuclear effects where the only reasonable effects are electrochemical).

So they're sloppy scientists. Who cares? Electrochemical anomalies are researched all the time. Once the stigma of cold fusion is removed, then other, more exacting scientists may do some tests on it in their spare time.

[KrazyHorse]

The sloppy science part makes me think that the most likely explanation is that they don't know what the **** they're doing, and have screwed up the experiment.