Cold fusion in the NYT

[Lan Barnes]

Free registration yadda yadda yadda.

The NYT has a short piece on a recent literature review of cold fusion.
The review said, in brief, inconclusive but keep looking. Not much new
here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/02/science/02fusion.html

What did strike me as outrageous was this Times remark:

"After that, most scientists regarded cold fusion as a discredited
farce, but a small group of scientists continued work in the field.
Measurements have become better, but cold fusion experiments still
produce heat at best half of the time."

My god! Half the time?!! How stupid are these science writers? If a well
planned experiment shows measurable and unexplainable heat ONCE out of
thousands of experiments, then it is a Big Thing (TM).

I remember the chemistry lecture where a professor discussed the
discovery of Teflon (which would have been considered chemically
impossible at the time -- the 50s). A researcher at DuPont weighed an
"empty" cylinder of fluorine after an experiment as a matter of routine
and found it was maybe 0.5 g too heavy. He took off the top, stuck a
small spatula down in there, and it came back up with traces of
unexplained white goop on it. It had never happened before. It took
thousands of tries to make it happen again (silver is the catalyst
IIRC). I suppose the Times would have us believe that it was therefore
questionable whether it happened that one time.

Sheesh! It's amazing how little people get science.

-- 
Lan Barnes                    lan at falleagle.net
Linux Guy, SCM Specialist     858-354-0616