[extropy-chat] Elvis Sightings (was: cold fusion warms up)

[Keith Henson]

At 04:09 AM 12/26/2006 -0500, John wrote:
>"Damien Broderick" <thespike at satx.rr.com>

Snip.

I have been following cold fusion ever since it started.

At the time it started, I figured it would be either confirmed or debunked 
in short order.  The one thing that I could not imagine was that after all 
these years people would still not understand what was going on nor have a 
theory.

A year or so ago DoE looked at the work that had been in recent years and 
recommended it continue.  (I don't remember if they offered funding.)

One of the things which is just hard to understand is that heat generation 
goes on sporadically.  Some group hooked up a whole mess of experimental 
cells and watched the lot of them with a thermal camera.  The episodes of 
excess heat production not only showed up randomly, but the heat could even 
be seen to come from small segments of a particular cell.

Perhaps it is Muon-catalyzed with cosmic ray muons.

I wonder if anyone has tried zapping a cell with muons?

But as far as this becoming something useful in an engineering sense, 
perhaps not.  Even with the most optimistic reports, cold fusion might be 
only useful for pocket warmers.

Keith Henson