Related Research Articles
Cold fusion is a hypothesized type of nuclear reaction that would occur at, or near, room temperature. It would contrast starkly with the "hot" fusion that is known to take place naturally within stars and artificially in hydrogen bombs and prototype fusion reactors under immense pressure and at temperatures of millions of degrees, and be distinguished from muon-catalyzed fusion. There is currently no accepted theoretical model that would allow cold fusion to occur.
Pathological science is an area of research where "people are tricked into false results ... by subjective effects, wishful thinking or threshold interactions." The term was first used by Irving Langmuir, Nobel Prize-winning chemist, during a 1953 colloquium at the Knolls Research Laboratory. Langmuir said a pathological science is an area of research that simply will not "go away"—long after it was given up on as "false" by the majority of scientists in the field. He called pathological science "the science of things that aren't so."
Brian David Josephson is a British theoretical physicist and professor emeritus of physics at the University of Cambridge. Best known for his pioneering work on superconductivity and quantum tunnelling, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973 for his prediction of the Josephson effect, made in 1962 when he was a 22-year-old PhD student at Cambridge University. Josephson is the first Welshman to have won a Nobel Prize in Physics. He shared the prize with physicists Leo Esaki and Ivar Giaever, who jointly received half the award for their own work on quantum tunnelling.
Fringe science refers to ideas whose attributes include being highly speculative or relying on premises already refuted. Fringe science theories are often advanced by people who have no traditional academic science background, or by researchers outside the mainstream discipline. The general public has difficulty distinguishing between science and its imitators, and in some cases a "yearning to believe or a generalized suspicion of experts is a very potent incentive to accepting pseudoscientific claims".
Eugene Franklin Mallove was an American scientist, science writer, editor, and publisher of Infinite Energy magazine, and founder of the nonprofit organization New Energy Foundation. He was a proponent of cold fusion, and a supporter of its research and related exploratory alternative energy topics, several of which are sometimes characterised as "fringe science".
The year 1989 in science and technology involved many significant events, some listed below.
Bernhardt Patrick John O’Mara Bockris was a South African professor of chemistry, latterly at Texas A&M University. During his long and prolific career he published some 700 papers and two dozen books. His best known work is in electrochemistry but his output also extended to environmental chemistry, photoelectrochemistry and bioelectrochemistry. In the 1990s he experimented with cold fusion and transmutation, topics on which his unorthodox views provoked controversy.
Meitnerium (109Mt) is a synthetic element, and thus a standard atomic weight cannot be given. Like all synthetic elements, it has no stable isotopes. The first isotope to be synthesized was 266Mt in 1982, and this is also the only isotope directly synthesized; all other isotopes are only known as decay products of heavier elements. There are eight known isotopes, from 266Mt to 278Mt. There may also be two isomers. The longest-lived of the known isotopes is 278Mt with a half-life of 8 seconds. The unconfirmed heavier 282Mt appears to have an even longer half-life of 67 seconds.
Roentgenium (111Rg) is a synthetic element, and thus a standard atomic weight cannot be given. Like all synthetic elements, it has no stable isotopes. The first isotope to be synthesized was 272Rg in 1994, which is also the only directly synthesized isotope; all others are decay products of heavier elements. There are seven known radioisotopes, having mass numbers of 272, 274, and 278–282. The longest-lived isotope is 282Rg with a half-life of about 2 minutes, although the unconfirmed 283Rg and 286Rg may have longer half-lives of about 5.1 minutes and 10.7 minutes respectively.
Steven Earl Jones is an American physicist. Among scientists, Jones became known for his research into muon-catalyzed fusion and geo-fusion. Jones is also known for his association with 9/11 conspiracy theories. Jones has claimed that mere airplane crashes and fires could not have resulted in so rapid and complete a fall of the World Trade Center Towers and 7 World Trade Center, suggesting controlled demolition instead. In late 2006, some time after Brigham Young University (BYU) officials placed him on paid leave, he elected to retire in an agreement with BYU. Jones continued research and writing following his early retirement from BYU, including a paper published in Europhysics News in August 2016.
The Patterson power cell is an electrolysis device invented by chemist James A. Patterson, which he said created 200 times more energy than it used, and neutralizes radioactivity without emitting any harmful radiation. It is one of several cells that some observers classified as cold fusion; cells which were the subject of an intense scientific controversy in 1989, before being discredited in the eyes of mainstream science.
Gary Taubes is an American journalist, writer, and low-carbohydrate / high-fat (LCHF) diet advocate. His central claim is that carbohydrates, especially sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, overstimulate the secretion of insulin, causing the body to store fat in fat cells and the liver, and that it is primarily a high level of dietary carbohydrate consumption that accounts for obesity and other metabolic syndrome conditions. He is the author of Nobel Dreams (1987); Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion (1993); Good Calories, Bad Calories (2007), titled The Diet Delusion (2008) in the UK and Australia; Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It (2010); The Case Against Sugar (2016); and The Case for Keto: Rethinking Weight Control and the Science and Practice of Low-Carb/High-Fat Eating (2020). Taubes's work often goes against accepted scientific, governmental, and popular tenets such as that obesity is caused by eating too much and exercising too little and that excessive consumption of fat, especially saturated fat in animal products, leads to cardiovascular disease.
Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion is book of science history by Gary Taubes about the early years (1989–1991) of the cold fusion controversy.
E. Paul Palmer (1926–2011) was a Brigham Young University physicist who specialized in geophysics. He coined the term "cold fusion". However he was an early critic of Fleischmann and Pons's claims to have developed a useful method of cold fusion.
The Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry is a peer-reviewed scientific journal on electroanalytical chemistry, published by Elsevier twice per month. It was originally established in 1959 under the current name, but was known as the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry and Interfacial Electrochemistry from 1967 to 1991. It is currently edited by X.-H. Xia. The journal is associated with the International Society of Electrochemistry. While the journal is now published exclusively in English, earlier volumes sometimes published articles in French and German.
Robert Alan Huggins is Professor Emeritus at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the School of Engineering at Stanford University and Honorary Professor at the University of Kiel and the University of Ulm. He was previously Chief Scientist at the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research in Ulm. The International Society for Solid State Ionics (ISSI) held a symposium in his honor in 2009, in recognition of his work on fundamental properties and behavior of materials, solid state ionic probing techniques, catalytic behavior at gas–solid interfaces, and the development of electrodes for Lithium Ion batteries.
Martin Fleischmann FRS was a British chemist who worked in electrochemistry. Premature announcement of his cold fusion research with Stanley Pons, regarding excess heat in heavy water, caused a media sensation and elicited skepticism and criticism from many in the scientific community.
Richard A. Oriani was an El Salvador-born American chemical engineer and metallurgist who was instrumental in the study of the effects of hydrogen in metal. He also made significant contributions to the field of cold fusion.
John Robert Huizenga was an American physicist who helped build the first atomic bomb and who also debunked University of Utah scientists' claim of achieving cold fusion.
Edmund Storms is a nuclear chemist known for his work in cold fusion.
References
- 1 2 Platt, Charles (1998). "What if Cold Fusion is Real?". Wired Magazine . Vol. 6, no. 11. Retrieved 2008-05-25.
- 1 2 Weinberger, Sharon (2004-11-21). "Warming Up to Cold Fusion". Washington Post . p. W22. Archived from the original on 2007-08-10. (page 2 of online version)
- ↑ "Nuclear fusion", Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011, accessed May 6, 2011.
- 1 2 3 William J. Broad (1989-05-09). "Brilliance and Recklessness Seen in Fusion Collaboration". The New York Times .
- ↑ Fleischmann, M; Pons S; Hawkins M (1989). "Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion of deuterium". J. Electroanal. Chem. 261 (2): 301. doi:10.1016/0022-0728(89)80006-3.
- 1 2 Adil E. Shamoo; David B. Resnik (2003). Oxford University Press US (ed.). Responsible Conduct of Research (2, illustrated ed.). p. 76, 97. ISBN 0-19-514846-0.
- ↑ Taubes, Gary (1993). Bad science: the short life and weird times of cold fusion . New York: Random House. pp. 6. ISBN 0-394-58456-2.
- ↑ Bart Simon (2002). Rutgers University Press (ed.). Undead Science: Science Studies and the Afterlife of Cold Fusion (illustrated ed.). p. 119. ISBN 0-8135-3154-3.
- ↑ Henry Krips; J. E. McGuire; Trevor Melia (1995). University of Pittsburgh Press (ed.). Science, Reason, and Rhetoric (illustrated ed.). pp. xvi. ISBN 0-8229-3912-6.
- ↑ Michael B. Schiffer; Kacy L. Hollenback; Carrie L. Bell (2003). University of California Press (ed.). Draw the Lightning Down: Benjamin Franklin and Electrical Technology in the Age of Enlightenment (illustrated ed.). pp. 207. ISBN 0-520-23802-8.
- ↑ Thomas F. Gieryn (1999). University of Chicago Press (ed.). Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibility on the Line (illustrated ed.). pp. https://books.google.com/books?id=GljD3CHbDx0C&pg=PA204 204. ISBN 0-226-29262-2.
- ↑ Voss, D (1999-03-01). "What Ever Happened to Cold Fusion". Physics World. 12 (3): 12–14. doi:10.1088/2058-7058/12/3/14.
