Michio Kaku totally dismissive: Cold Fusion is due to chemical reactions


    You and I definitely differ on that opinion. While I would agree that Ali inspired many people, I personally find no value in the life's work of someone who dedicates their life to physically beating others ideally to a point that they pass out and cannot stand. Hopefully some day we can move past violent sports such as boxing and MMA etc. For me personally, comparing the life's work of a physicist, even one who enjoys celebrity as he brings visibilty of science to the masses the same way Carl Sagan did, to that of a fighter is a deeply misplaced dishonor. We now live in a society that thrives on violence through movies, reality shows (even women beating women), the most violent incarnation of sports...and the average lemming could care less that in 2016 you can watch a live stream of the ISS. You see Michio Kaku as "worrying about popularity"....I see Michio Kaku waking up non-science geeks to the world of science and making people question the world around them. We have VERY few people in this world that do that especially for young people. I would have given anything to have all the science TV shows and documentaries as a child that exist now....we had nothing compared to what is out there now. I am deeply saddened by the perspectives of scientists and physicists such as Michio Kaku in here...someone was even trashing Carl Sagan....

    • Official Post

    There is many way to be an idiot with a high IQ.


    What Kaku says is very common consensus among physicist who cannot depart from their current, not even theory, but simple usual way to work.
    Some heat is produced above chemistry, and in their framework it cannot be else fusion, and since this does not behave like their usual fusion they say the experiment, domain in which they are incompetent, is wrong for an unspecified (or refuted) reason.


    Very common fallacy. This is the story of the flying cows.


    their argument are very good, but in the wrong framework.


    That is rather false weak logic to point to a single physicist who made some really bad lazy decisions as strength to argue a notion of idiocy among physicists. Obviously we look at the word "idiot" in a much different way.

    • Official Post

    Interesting you should bring up the criticality incident. The official account of the incident contains several errors. For a start, there were several other people in the room at the time who have never been named officially. I knew one of them, now no longer with us. This was the Los Alamos team, none of them were stupid, but were working limitless hours under huge pressure from many directions.

    Alan Smith said "The Los Alamos team"


    I think that was the physics elite of the US and Jewish exiles at that time..
    Plenty of nous there.. but a devil may care attitude to radiation damage.. I think Feynman
    made a story about there being the potential for a nuclear explosion due to the bits and pieces of uranium left around..
    according to this story he was the prime mover in removing the hazard...
    told in his inimitable manner
    at http://calteches.library.calte…34/3/FeynmanLosAlamos.htm.


    This kind of blasé attitude to radiation was rife and didn't change for a long time.


    Even in 1977 in my undergraduate project at Cambridge
    I was splattering around hot phosphorus in biology tracer experiments..
    all over the floor my clothes..
    I'm thankful I am still alive today..no tumors yet


    I was surrounded by academics and found them just as humanly idiotic as the nonacademics

    • Official Post
    Quote from robert bryant

    This kind of blasé attitude to radiation was rife and didn't change for a long time.


    Oh yes indeed. I worked at several research facilities/engineering outfits alongside the survivors of that generation, including a spell working on prototype gradient density ultra-centrifuges. I guess you know what they are used for? Part of my Monday morning routine was to go around the lab with a pair of tongs, a 'radioactive waste' disposal can and a Geiger, finding and disposing of contaminated stuff. Including on one occasion the boss's second-best hat.

    /* Mr. Kachiu is a TV entertainer, it is difficult to blame him : he reflect the opinion of the mainstream. */


    It's like to say, it's difficult to blame Hitler as he "just" reflected the opinion of most Germans in his time (or Putin with respect to 80% of Russians today, etc...). Just the fact, the same guy has been engaged in string theory speaks for itself. Nobody of string theorists can occupy the physically realistic stance: with cold fusion or without it.

    Quote from stephenrenzz

    No matter how you slice it, an idiot is one who is lacking intelligence or intellectually disabled...to tie that word to any physicist is a very naive thing to do.

    Well, I was an undergrad at Cal Tech, where I once saw the Scholastic Achievement tests of applications, the computer printout. On the Math test, 800 was a common score. That was my score. Perfect. And how did we talk to each other? The term I remember is "warm body." A warm body was defined as someone who could tell the difference between light and dark. We used it liberally.


    Nobody is using the word idiot literally. Nor does anyone believe that all physicists are idiots, or that Kako is literally an idiot, nor that he isn't high-functioning in some other area.


    However, his originally expressed views remain very common among physicists. Those views change when the physicist involved has an opportunity to examine the evidence. Outside of special cases, though the rejection cascade became so strong that initial opinion is so negative that the scientist in question won't look at the evidence, or dismisses as obviously wrong.


    There is was a nice snippet in the CBS 60 Minutes report on Cold Fusion. Richard Garwin was interviewed, about SRI calorimetry. As I recall it, he says, "They say there is no doubt. Well, I doubt." Q.E.D., eh?


    Great, Richard. What they say is that there is no reasonable doubt.


    I think he also says about that calorimetry, "They must be making some mistake."


    That is an expression of belief, it is not an expression of knowledge. He is not speaking as a scientist there. He is speaking as a person who came to a conclusion and who believes that conclusion. But what was the conclusion?


    Cold fusion is undefined. We know the established physics that leads to the idea that "it" is impossible, but the original Pons and Fleischmann research was not aimed at finding an energy source (as is often casually claimed). It was a scientific exploration, testing approximations made in calculating reaction rates in the solid state, which approximations essentially treat the state using two-body physics, since most of the solid state is empty. Pons and Fleischmann suspected that there might be some deviation from those approximations, so they decided to test it. Fleischmann later wrote that they expected that the deviation would be below their ability to measure it. Then they had the famous meltdown, which they could not explain with chemistry.


    What their work challenged was not basic physics, but the accuracy of an approximation. Further, they were both right and wrong. They thought the reaction might take place in the relatively high density of deuterium in the palladium lattice. That is, they expected a reaction in the bulk. They worked to obtain high loading, higher than was routinely thought possible, ordinary loading stops at about 70%. The reaction, later work shows, arrives after loading above about 90%. And that is not a sufficient condition.


    Physicists -- and the electrochemist Nathan Lewis at Cal Tech (I just noticed he was relatively young at the time (a tenured associate professor) -- attempted to replicate, using sketchy information from the press conference and and faxed preprints of the first paper -- which had nowhere near enough information -- and were satisfied with relatively low loading. And saw nothing, and this is now part of the body of accepted evidence on cold fusion. It's all predictable from what is now known that these "failed replications" would fail to find anything.


    McKubre, an electrochemist at SRI, had experience with PdD before, and knew that the material was well-explored, below 70%. So he knew that Pons and Fleischmann must have been looking at higher loading. So he had a leg up.


    However, the reaction is not a bulk reaction. From where the helium it produces is found, it is a surface reaction. Storms infers from the behavior that the reaction takes place in cracks that form from repeated loading and deloading, that the high loading is a method of conditioning the surface. His latest experimental work shows that if the temperature of the cell is maintained, shutting down the electrolytic current has no immediate effect on anomalous power. It continues unabated at least for many hours. But loading will immediately decline if the electrolysis power is shut off, so loading ratio is not a major controlling factor for the reaction itself. The existence of nuclear active envirornment, the presence of fuel, and temperature is. He also has reported that he can take a working cathode, remove it, clean it, store it, then put it in a cell, load it, and it works immediately, generating anomalous heat. His work is unconfirmed, but it's very recent.


    The impossibility argument is fundamentally defective. It can operate against a specific theory of mechanism, because if a specific mechanism is proposed, with full details, it is then possible to calculate, from existing physics, reaction rates.


    Kaku does not necessarily go through all this process. Rather, he has read, in the media, over and over, that the Pons and Fleischmann experiment could not be replicated. If that were true, then, while the impossibility argument would still fail, there would be no reason to think that the original report was anything more than some error. "They must be making some mistake" is reasonable if a report is astonishing and unconfirmed. But Garwin knows that the work has been confirmed, and he saw that work at SRI.


    Cold fusion challenges the boundaries of knowledge in physics. The mechanism is a mystery. It is not known if any revision to basic laws of physics is needed. Takahashi's theory uses existing QED theory to predict fusion under a certain unexpected condition in the solid state. There may be other such conditions. No theory, so far, is both consistent with existing physics and the known experimental facts. However, the conditions on the surface with electrolytic PdD are extraordinarily complex. Every cation in the electrolyte may end up on the surface of the cathode. I can easily imagine a physicist, accustomed to the clean environment of plasmas, looking at this work and not wanting to touch it with a ten-foot pole.


    But there is heat, and there is correlated helium, and this is not just confirmed, it is multiply confirmed. Is science based on experiment, or is it based on "knowledge"? Over and over, in the history of science, existing knowledge was inadequate.


    However, as human beings, we want to know things. It gives us a sense of control and safety. If we have been successful in science, we think it is because of our knowledge. Not knowing something relevant to our field? Aside from carefully contained "explorations," where knowledge has never become settled, ignorance is a major threat, which can affect us without our realizing it.


    Idiot? Obviously not literally. An idiot would be be stuck, smug. So how about "not even an idiot"!


    Those are just words. I'll look at the later video, I still haven't.
    (to be continued)

    (continued)
    One story:


    I participated on http://moletrap.co.uk/ for a time. The cartoon there was inspired by discussions between me and a certain well-known and at one time very active anti-cold fusion activist, almost certainly the -- at the time PhD candidate in astrophysics -- Wikipedia user ScienceApologist, banned for a time, back with a name designed to conceal his past activity and history.


    In that discussion, a moletrap regular claims to be a physicist PhD working in private industry. From his posts, it was believable.


    His position was very simple. Until it appears in Nature, it isn't real. That's what he pays them for, he said.


    Nature published an editorial very early in the cold fusion affair that they would not publish any more papers on cold fusion. This was before the heat/helium correlation was known (which is definitive, Huizenga knew that and wrote about it in the second edition of his book, Cold fusion: scientific fiasco of the century).


    Similar embargoes were established in other major journals and publications. This phenomenon is called a cascade, a consensus that appears as a social phenomenon, that is not based on science, but on reputations. The embargo was by no means complete. Some journals continued to publish papers, and the largest scientific publishers in the world publish papers on cold fusion. But most physicists don't read them.


    Why should they waste time reading papers in a field that is already known to be complete nonsense? They will trust that if something is real, Nature or Science will publish. Eventually, they will, my prediction. It may merely take the passing of the rejection generation, or demonstrations so clear that they cannot be denied, readily available. Rossi has never reached this level. He could have, if he had what he claimed to have in 2011. Easily.


    That he hasn't proves nothing except that he doesn't care about delay in the acceptance of the field. Maintaining his property is more important.


    My assessment is that delay in the practical application of cold fusion is a lost opportunity cost to humanity of a trillion dollars per year times the probability of such application being possible, which I'd place somewhere north of 90%.


    Both U.S. DoE reviews recommended continued research. That fact is covered up by the belief that they "rejected" cold fusion. No, they recommended against a dedicated federal program, a Manhattan-scale project, which might ultimately be necessary. And I agree with that conclusion as to then, and still today. However, the basic research that they recommended should properly have been considered urgent, because of the potential value.


    A few million dollars per year, accelerating as more becomes known. (Less than what was spent in a pile of hasty replication attempts.)


    A billion dollars would mostly be wasted at this point. It's necessary to know where to spend the money!


    The first order of business is to nail down the science, because the rejection cascade is continuing to cause damage. I suggested again measuring the heat/helium ratio again, and pointed out how this could be done with higher precision than ever done before, with no increased cost, simple. This suggestion has been taken up and work is under way.


    Beyond that, there are experiments with striking results, showing control of the reaction, and possible repeatability, that have not been independently confirmed. There is work under way at SKINR in Missouri, with nanotechology, perhaps looking to develop active surfaces. Storms has found some remarkable results that, if confirmed, radically revise what we know -- or think we know -- about cold fusion.


    This is science. The NiH work mostly is not science, because full disclosure is missing and results -- so far -- are not repeatable without details that are left out deliberately, or results from some efforts have not been confirmed. We have no reliable, confirmed evidence as to the reaction product, if NiH anomalous heat is real and not just artifact (or fraud), no correlation with reaction product and heat.


    The whole Rossi affair is a circus. Very entertaining. It may or may not have something to do with cold fusion.

    LENR is an atom smasher process and not as fusion reactor. The important product of the LENR reaction are subatomic particles, mainly mesons. Until the LENR detection paradigm is changed from excess heat detection to sub atomic particle detection, the LENR field will languish.

    Lomax wrote:


    Quote

    Axil wrote:



    Well, Axil is spot on here. Now, I have not read the sources linked here. However, what is quoted from Kaku is standard pseudoskeptical rant going back to 1989, that developed as a general meme about cold fusion, but that was never established by scientific process.


    The idea that no known nuclear process is consistent with cold fusion claims is most certainly established by a century of robust and reproducible science.


    Cold fusion advocates think it extremely insightful to counter this by saying that cold fusion is not a known nuclear process, but an unknown nuclear process, as if this hadn't occurred to the likes of Kaku. Of course, it's perfectly obvious to everyone, including skeptics, that an *unknown* nuclear reaction (or an unknown anti-matter reaction, or an unknown vacuum energy source, or an unknown process relating to a fifth as yet unknown force, or some other unknown process involving unicorns) could produce the claimed excess heat without radiation. It is implicit in statements like Kaku's that he considers unknown or unprecedented nuclear reactions in the given context at the claimed level even less likely than known reactions.


    The difference between skeptics like Kaku and true believers like you is education. Nuclear reactions, particularly fusion reactions, have been studied in great detail in a wide range of conditions, but particularly in palladium deuteride for military and scientific purposes, and an extremely comprehensive and consistent picture has emerged with no significant contradictions. Scientists familiar with this body of work are confident that as-yet-unknown nuclear reactions in that context and at that level are extremely unlikely, even if college dropouts do not have the background to understand such confidence.


    Of course, this doesn't mean such reactions are impossible. There are many examples of surprises in science. But there are far more examples of artifacts in science, and if the observations are of such a nature that they are more plausibly attributed to artifacts or errors combined with confirmation bias, then it is reasonable to be confident that the claims of cold fusion are illusory.


    In other words, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and in the judgement of most scientists with relevant expertise, cold fusion evidence falls far short of even being ordinary.


    As an analogy, consider someone who claims he has trained pigs to fly (unassisted, like birds). Most people would scoff at such a claim because pigs do not have the necessary anatomical parts to provide the necessary lift at any conceivable speed by any known process. But isn't that succumbing to the simplicity of the meme? True believers would say that the pigs fly by some unknown process yet to be discovered and understood. After all, we should not be so arrogant to think there is nothing left to learn about aerodynamics, or the talents of pigs.


    A case like this, where the extraordinary nature of the claim is familiar to everyone, shows how silly this argument is. The only thing that would convince skeptics would be evidence, and it would have to be incontrovertible. Only then would they begin to consider new processes to explain it.


    There are lots of ways to get pigs airborne, or create the illusion of flying pigs. You could fire them from a canon, or suspend them from a helicopter. Or fill pig-shaped balloons with helium, and claim that flock several miles away is a flock of pigs. Or use a green screen to make a movie of a flying pig. Etc.


    But no one would accept any of these tricks. Just as when magicians perform magic that we can't explain, we nevertheless don't believe it's magic. We would need better evidence than the contrived demonstration just performed.


    For flying pigs, we'd need to see them up close first, and then watch them take off in front of us. That sort of thing.


    Now, this is not to suggest that all cold fusion experiments represent deception by magicians or con men, though some almost certainly do. It's just meant to illustrate that when one understands the extraordinary nature of a claim, the evidence has to be incontrovertible.


    And I submit that true believers in cold fusion simply don't understand how extraordinary the claims are, and are therefore satisfied with extremely flaky evidence because of wishful thinking. And they are willing to ignore contrary or contradictory evidence, as long as every so often, if you squint, there is something that looks sorta like it might be cold fusion.


    So, this idea that cold fusion should be accepted because it's an *unknown* reaction may help believers sleep at night, but I assure you it has no persuasive effect on skeptics.

    Lomax wrote:


    Quote

    Huizenga, in 1993 or so, wrote in the second revision of his book that the Miles work finding a heat/helium correlation was amazing, and that, if it were confirmed, this would solve a major mystery of cold fusion, i.e., the product.


    He said "If it were true ... one of the great puzzles of cold fusion would be solved."


    No one disagrees with that, but he didn't call the work amazing, and he went on to say it was unsubstantiated and in conflict with other well-established experimental findings. As it happens, the work was very crude and challenged in the refereed literature, and no replication of the claims since has met the modest standard of peer review. On the other hand, Gozzi reported in a refereed journal that the presence of helium was not definitive. And in spite of the absence of replication, I'm not aware of any attempts reported even in conference proceedings in more than a decade.


    Quote

    But deuterium is being converted to helium with the fusion energy showing up as heat. The correlation is unmistakeable, so this is a done deal. It was confirmed.


    In a post complaining about succumbing to the simplicity of the meme, you succumb to a far more egregiously simple and dishonest meme.


    Kaku is skeptical of cold fusion because there is no radiation, as would be expected from what is known about nuclear reactions. I suggest the even greater implausibility of unknown reactions is implicit, but whether you agree or not, at least he's honest.


    On the other hand, to suggest that the correlation is unmistakeable and a done deal is manifestly untrue. A panel of experts examined exactly the evidence you refer to and 17 of 18 judged the evidence for nuclear reactions *not* to be conclusive. Moreover, the claim was disputed in refereed literature and replication has not even survived peer review. If it were a done deal, there would be a Nobel prize in the field, and Hagelstein and Boss would not complain about the rejection of cold fusion papers.


    Quote

    However, the ratio is still a bit imprecise. The theoretical value is 23.8 MeV/4He. That is "consistent with" what's been measured, but the precision is on the order of 20%. It's not easy to do this work!


    It would be easy to do this work if the many claims of excess power exceeding a watt had any merit. A watt of excess power for a day or more would be easy to detect, and for several weeks would be unmistakeable. That's why all the claims of commensurate helium are in experiments claiming much lower excess power. In the Arata experiment, where he claimed 5 W for 2000 hours, the helium is still in the noise, and many orders of magnitude too low to account for heat. Of course, these data are ignored when calculating a ratio.


    The value you report from Storms' review is from cherry picked data. I have given chapter and verse here recently.

    Lomax wrote:


    Quote

    So, just as a simple thought experiment. Takahashi has shown that four deuterons in a particular physical configuration will collapse to form a Bose Einstein Condensate. That's math.


    He claims to have shown this, but if any other theorists took him seriously, you'd think they might build on it, but all I hear is crickets. A BEC has never been shown to form at temperatures above a few kelvin. Moreover, as argued by Lindley, the only important contribution to the fusion rate comes from the product of the wave functions when the deuterons are very close. But the wave functions in the BEC are calculated explicitly by ignoring the nuclear interaction; they are valid everywhere except at close range. Where the assumptions that lead to a BEC are correct, the fusion rate is negligible; where the fusion rate might be significant, the BEC model is wrong.


    Finally, if the conditions were suitable for 4-deuteron fusion, they would be far more suitable for two deuteron fusion, and that would produce the neutrons and tritium or gammas that are not observed.


    Quote

    Basically, Kaku, if quoted fairly, has no idea what he's talking about, he doesn't know what the actual issues are with cold fusion, he is just repeating ideas from 25 years ago, as if they were fact.


    He's probably ignorant of what's going on in the field of perpetual motion machines, but his skepticism is well-informed anyway.

    I better repeat my post again, since the latest post scripters seams to ignore it perfectly:


    Kaku one month ago: "Cold Fusion - I'm open about it", see 1:25 into this video:m.facebook.com/story.php?story…10153610046843527%2F&_rdr

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