I didn't know that there where some cold fusion that actually works. Even if the current methods is impractical for energy generation it doesn't sound like we have to break a few of the laws of physics to achieve it. So then it worth while to do some research about it.
Exists for a long time as a neutron source, for which it is really handy. For example, the "Fusor" was developed in the 60s and is a viable neutron source. A company called "NSD-Fusion" produces them as a commercial product today.
the wright brothers first plane flew only 180 feet, it was a glider with an engine and was shot off the ramp with a catapult, basically a worthless piece of crap,
@@robc1952 No catapult for the first Wright flight. We all have seen the film clip, but that was not their first plane, which was wrecked on the first day.
From what I understand (mainly from Dyson Freeman), a Masters in particle physics should do, then. A PhD involves working for 3 years on one tiny little area of something but the general knowledge comes with the Masters.
@@robertbrandywine not many people that choose to get a Masters in Particle Physics tbh. If you're going into that field, you'll likely need a phD anyways, so there's often no point in getting the Masters first. AFAIK, there are no Masters degree programs for particle physics in the US, though there are several in the UK and EU
@@TheGuyCalledX "Particle programs", you nuts or what...they found about a billion already yet nothing works! There is but ONE force only. Infidels, hail to one and the only, the mighty Electromagnet AKA just do it-the return to monopole magnetic stillness :P
@@TheGuyCalledX Well, if a MSc is enough, doing the work can be a legitimate PhD project. If a PhD is needed, the PhD probably has to be closely related.
I like that she acknowledges her skepticism, yet believes more study is beneficial. So often, science is treated as established fact. "There's just one problem..." - it is not. Science is still very much 'figuring it out'. That's not bad. We just need to recognize that our models are incomplete, and keep studying. Much continued success, Sabine. I like your attitude, and clear explanations. Well done! :)
The problem is when something is so unlikely to be achieved in theory that we might be wasting resources on that that we could use on more achievable stuff that is also very important.
@@didack1419 But given that our 'knowledge' is so limited, any ideas of what is 'so unlikely' could be way off. It's by stretching the limits of our perceived limitations that we exceed them, and find new horizons... :)
@@madnessbydesignVria But resources are limited (money, HR, materials), if you have to choose between several options, you have to invest into what is realistic to be achieved yet important, not on what is hypothetical. We need some standards, it can't be that we invest on whatever we feel like it regardless of how likely it is to give results.
The problem isn't really in science. REAL scientists (I'd say the majority of them at least) never claim to have "full knowledge" of anything, and are very much aware of the gaps and vast areas uncharted. They are even afraid sometimes to get to these vast uncharted areas in their research. The problem is with the billions of ignorants who MUST have something to believe in, and with the decline (in popularity) of religion, have made the scientist figure (yes, the one with strange hair-cut and white apron, holding glass test tubes and colorful liquid in them) their new high priests, doing the rituals of the new religion. True, we owe much of modern day's technology to the findings of scientists, still... the masses put way too much faith on the scientific method and "what we know at present" for their own health. I think the strongest example is the huge political force on scientists today to align with the new prophetic warnings of "global climate catastrophe" which is of course a big fat lie - there's absolutely no evidence, or even reasonable model to predict that. Anyway - the workings of religion severely damage scientists ability to do their thing successfully.
I greatly enjoy Sabine's discussions. I earned a Ph.D. in physics many years ago and can appreciate the exceptional depth and range of her knowledge. She does not engage in adverse criticism, personally, of other physicists with whom she disagrees. That makes her lectures even more enjoyable.
I admire Sabine's commitment to speaking the truth and letting the chips fall where they may. The first time I heard of her was her article in Symmetry Magazine attacking the sacred cow of "beauty" in physics. As a practicing physicist in the US, I can tell you that was an important message that physicists needed to hear. This video may have an even more important message since it address the conformity rampant in all fields of science. I am certainly guilty of thinking cold fusion is a hoax, but I am now willing to reconsider. Thanks Sabine!
This is really what I come to Sabine for. There are a lot of Science enthusiasts ready to explain the specifics of an experiment or project, but only she really brings the broader context. So thankful that she speaks plainly and from her experience in the field about practicalities
As a non-scientist I have the same appreciation of Sabine. I've read her book about the issue of beauty in physic. The problem is in the past that notion worked. However now we are so far beyond where our brains evolved to keep from being eaten by lions I'm amazed at the progress we have made.
She's speaking her opinion, not the truth. Maybe her opinion will eventually turn out to the right one, or maybe it won't. I'm not sure it's a good idea to take any one source and treat them as "the truth", it's better to just keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out, and listen to a lot of sources. And you don't have to decide which claim is true, you can listen to competing claims and end up just saying that there's not enough evidence to choose and so I don't know what the truth is.
I first heard about Pons & Fleischmann back when the big story broke, and I thought it was the most exciting thing, and the following months were such a letdown. I'm considerably more skeptical now... maybe cautious or patient. Glad there's a lot of fusion research going on today, public and private, exploring so many different approaches.
I led one of the teams that Sabine cites in this video (at the 10.34 mark). We spent almost five years looking into LENR. In the video, Sabine states that we could not replicate the prior results. That's true, but there’s more to it. We observed the claimed heat effect, both in magnitude and duration, in our parallel *control* cells. This indicates a calibration error in the apparatus. One little known fact about these electro-chemical cell experiments is that they are run for a week or more before the effect is observed. Typically, calibration is conducted over a few hours and is done both before an experimental run and intermittently during it, to re-check thermal stability. We submit that this approach to calibration is inadequate for establishing a calorimeter’s propensity for heat artifacts. Stability over time periods longer than the experiment should be demonstrated in order to minimize the possibility of misinterpreting the fluctuations that we observed as “excess heat” events. Consequently, we contend that all claims of anomalous heat in LENR experiments using electro-chemical cells that do not exhibit thermal stability on a time period longer than the time duration of the experiment itself must be thrown out. As the majority of research over the past 30 years has not demonstrated this kind of calibration stability, that eliminates most of the effort in this field. You can read more about our work on the ReResearch LLC website. That is not to say that we know everything about hot fusion in the solid state or how quantum mechanical interactions might impact fusion reactivity. There is much still to be discovered. But these electro-chemical LENR heat experiments are noise, not signal.
Gave you a thumbs up, I followed your report a little bit. ( Absolutely totally Out of my field) I was Hoping to see some input from the female narrator and the owner of this channel, about your findings. But she didn't say nothing. 🥺
At least the experiments are cheap. And you're supposed to say that more research is always better, right? Am I allowed to say it's never been shown to work above experimental error (is this still true if multi experiments are combined into a big meta-experiment?) and I wouldn't advise a friend to get involved in this direction?
Ι remember I was a physics student in 1989 when Fleischmann and Pons conducted their experiment; we were all in the auditorium talking enthusiastically about it, when the Nuclear Physics Professor came in and, when we asked him about it, he managed to wipe the smiles off our faces in five minutes! Still, I remember the excitement. We must never give up hope!
You were set up from the start. It’s real has been real and the results have been tampered with. I have a machine producing “cold fusion”. The name is malicious on purpose. This tech will never die all you need is water and cavitation. If not me many others will disclose this. Time for a revolution. Age from age we are born.
It's what Physics is about, though most holes are just in my knowledge. :) Another, similar, example is being a Project Manager and not liking to solve problems.
Frank? She draws the gaps in knowledge out, puts them in a party dress, covers them in beaded necklaces and parades them around in the town center, describing them in detail with a megaphone to anyone who will listen.
It was funny at start, but than it became more of a distruction and annoyance because of two reasons. Sabine kept talking and the music was too loud. Good idea, but needs work. :)
Sabine, you are absolutely BRILLIANT. I suffer from a lifelong allergy to math, and yet with your presentation I can actually understand the broad outlines of this research and some of the problems the scientists are encountering. You are a highly gifted teacher providing people like me a glimpse into areas of thought we would not otherwise have access to. Thank you so much!
"I suffer from a lifelong allergy to math" You suffer from trauma from crappy teachers, over bearing parents, and a shitty scholastic system. You need to address this trauma and stop deflecting with ridiculous notions like being scared of numbers or having an allergy to maths. Its not kitchy, its not funny, its not a badge of honor, its not a personality quirk. IT IS UNADDRESSED TRAUMA. Stop it. Get help. Also, its not the maths that matter. The concepts are whats important. If you understand the concepts at play you can look up the formula, put it into a spreadsheet, and have the computer do it for you. Just like literally everyone else does. No one is doing polynomials by hand. No one. That belief is a side effect of the trauma your shit school experience left you with. Stop making excuses for the people that have abused you and get over yourself. As someone who taught themselves more than school ever tried to, I know you're traumatized and you need to stop using it as a crutch. No one is going to pat you on the back for it except those who also think themselves cool for being afraid of maths. For the record, none of them are cool.
George, you may also want to check out (if you don't already), PBS's "Spacetime". Much in the manner of Sabine's show, the host takes a lot of really gnarly stuff and breaks it down into, "these are the theories between certain ideas physicists are toying with, minus the crazy math."
According to Sabine, there is only one problem with LENR: Labs aren't blowing up left and right. Finally somethings about physics that I can understand.
Not left and right, but there have been anomalous explosions, from the nano/micro-scale up to SRI losing one of their researchers in a lab explosion that COULDN'T possibly be accounted by a H + O or D + O or any combination thereof.
I never entirely understand what’s going on in these videos, but they give me such excellent research rabbit hole fodder. I get to be confused about so many new, exciting things. Thank you, truly!
You have to be careful with cold fusion, it is easy to waste time on rabbit holes. Actually I've watched a bunch of stuff about it and I've never seen a better explanation than this video...
Yeah show some caution with this particular rabbit hole. Theres a *lot* of crazy persons messing up what little sanity is in the field of cold fusion. There well may be something legit going on with the purported phenomena, but ever since they started teaching small children why perpetual motion machines will always be impossible, the crazy-person brigade seems to have moved over to cold fusion instead. See also Alcubiere Warp Drives (on paper possible, in practice probably impossible), EM drives (on paper impossible, in practice mixed results) and pretty much anything out of Eagleworks labs (NASAs mad scientist division, the guys who investigate hetrodox propulsion ideas on the understanding that 90% of what they look at is nonsense, but 10% *might* change the world)
As luck would have it, I actually knew Pons and Fleischmann back in the early-to-mid 1980s. I have reason to believe that, based on a cryptic remark the two of them once made to me, I think that they had already started their work on cold fusion at the time they made their remark to me. Martin Fleischmann died a few years ago. The last I heard Pons was still working on cold fusion at an undisclosed site, probably in France. There is another small fusion device called a fusor. It's not exactly cold fusion, but the devices can be quite small. The inventor (or perhaps one of the inventors) of the fusor was Philo T. Farnsworth, who was more famous for inventing television. Farnsworth was my grandmother's second cousin, and I once met his widow at a family party. I am actually in possession of one of Farnsworth's fusors, not the complete device but parts of it. The parts are sitting in my garage. The demonstration a few days ago of hot fusion exceeding the break even point was exciting. There is an old joke about nuclear fusion which goes something like this: practical fusion is just 20 years away, always has been, always will be. I heard that joke about 35 years ago, and it still applies.
A solid-state diode was in use for radio reception long before science explained how it worked. It was found that a metal wire in contact with a crystal of galena could perform rectification on weak amplitude-modulated signals. It was used simply because it worked.
Yep, it highlights the difference between science (knowledge for knowledge sake) versus technology (tool making). Blacksmiths were making metal, not just metal objects, thousands of years before metallurgy became a thing. Science and technology are now linked, because science is a tool that technologist can use to make their wares. They are still separate disciplines. Just because you use a computer does not make you a computer programmer.
Ha! You bring back old memories. I read an article in Popular Mechanics or some similar publication on how to build a crystal radio using galena. A friend of mine was a rock collector and gave me a small crystal of galena. I remember heating a lump of lead with my father's gasoline blowtorch and dropping the crystal in it. Then I needed to make an inductor. It turns out that Quick Quaker Oats came in a cylindrical container of the right diameter. I pestered my mom to make me Quaker Oats for breakfast. When the tube was finally empty, I asked my mom if I could have it. The next problem was finding wire to wind the inductor. It turns out that old power transformers from radio and TV sets had a lot of wire. I used some to make the inductor, and some heavier wire to make the antenna. Now that everything was together I found a sensitive spot on the galena crystal, and lo and behold I heard voices! The signal was much stronger than I expected, so I got on my bike and followed the road down to the end. There sat radio station CFRB, a 50,000 watt station on 1010 kilocycles. The friendly engineers let me in and took me on a tour of the station. I was completely fascinated and returned many times for more explanations of how the station worked. This started a lifelong career in electronics. I am now 80 years old and retired with a total of 6 United States Patents and numerous inventions. All thanks to a small crystal of galena from a friend.
@@stevewilson5546 I used a cat whisker on the Galena crystal using some tungsten wire, which I obtained by cracking open a 100 W lightbulb. But OA91 diodes become available not long after...
Fanbloodytastic video! You're an absolute star. Your videos should be part of the school curriculum, they're pitched at just the right level for kids who have any interest in science with just the right amount of detail to make them want to know more without overcomplicating it. And you're a born entertainer!
@@KerriEverlasting I think diogenesagogo is referring to her methods of presentation. The particular points she makes, could be simplified for a younger audience. Fred
Don't worry Sabina: your exquisite sense of humor shields you completely of that "bad reputation effect"! I've been laughing all along with your review. I'm being "infected" by your deep German/Physicist/ Geek humour. Thanks a lot.
Her absolute best line so far was about string theory: "... which means that if you tune the parameters right the theory will prove that the universe does not exist. This is of cause in conflict with observations". It doesn't get more deadpan than that, and I laughed hysterically for way longer than I should have.
Excellent video thank you very much Sabine. We humans aren't great at admitting that we don't understand something and I'm totally with you that there may be an interaction between chemical & nuclear reactions. As you say though we haven't ever been able to boil a kettle with cold fusion, yet.
*I love Cold Fusion.* It brings me back to my university days when Fleischmann-Pons first made their 'announcement' I remember so many people setting up their own experiments, and faxing, yes faxing each other their results(or non-results)
Fax machines pre-date the telephone, and are still widely used today. I just faxed someone yesterday. Reasons for use today often involve faxing legal documents, which are recognized in law as something close to the original for legal purposes, and also that a hard copy is necessarily produced in normal fax communications.
Hey. Hey there. Some of the Floridonians’ electrical cars caught fire when hurricane Ian flooded the salty sea water up to them. It was salty seawater. ohmigod. Why’d they catch fire BECAUSE of water? OhmiGAHD! I don’t know why because I’m a casual savant, and I didn’t look up shit.
So much information, thank you!! About the Fleischmann cold fusion, what struck us like hell was the simplicity of their set up in the lab. It was at secondary school level. It was hillarious. My uncle demonstrated us kids cold fusion using two little blocks of ice in a glass of whisky. After several tries and tasting the whisky, it really felt hot. My aunt threw us out of the the kitchen.
There are not many people who could pull that off. This is the first of her videos I have seen (won't be the last!) and I adore her delivery. Lively enough to keep us listening, and punctuated enough to know when we are taking a sharp turn.
CF is a catalyzed nuclear reaction that occurs by tunneling. It can be done using any of the D8 transition metals Ni Pd or Pt. The strongest resonance transition is with Pd. What happens is the electrons from the deuterium tunnel to fill the gap 9'10 D transitions giving Pd the configuration of Cd. When this occurs the hydrogen briefly forms an intermetallic alloy that nullifies the space charge. This drags the nuclei within the capture radius via quantum tunneling. A curous effect of this reaction is that it will preferentially create 3He and a free neutron rather than 4He and a gamma ray. It was studied as a potential source of tritium production. The major issue is that the reaction damages the lattice of the palladium partly by mechanical dislocation and partly by activation. The energy isnt enough for serious power generation and is self terminating. The best catalyst for the reaction are carbon nanotubes loaded with palladium nanocrystals in deuterium. Trigger with a magnetic field and an accoustic shockwave. Your choice of matrix deuterium at high pressure, lithium deuteride, or deuterium oxide. The first two options require an explosive to pump it, the last one can be done using ultrasound. With plain D2O you get dim blue flashes in the sonoluminescent cavitation cell, with carbon nanotubes the same but sometimes greenish white, with pd nanocrystals you get blue flashes and occasionally a brighter than normal and while flash. With Pd loaded nanotubes it will make the blue and greenish white flashes and occasionally very bright pinkish white flashes with detectable nuclear radiation both gamma and neutron. 🤓
This was fascinating. I had previously been under the impression that cold fusion simply doesn't work, but it sounds like it really just has the same problem hot fusion does: taking more energy to cause the fusion than you get out of the reaction. That does make it annoying that it doesn't see research and investment the way hot fusion does.
the problem is much worse: we dont actually understand what the problem is because we dont understand the mechanism. it gets worse than that though: we dont understand the mechanism because we cant get it to work consistently enough to start isolating variables. unfortunately, we dont understand why we cant get it to work consistently so we arent making progress on isolating those variables, therefore we cant figure out the mechanism, and thus we cant figure out how to get it to work consistently. its a real conundrum, and quite unique afaik.
@@jonathanodude6660 All I would like to know if there is good experimental confirmation (peer reviewed, clear enough) that anything nuclear happens in these experiments. That there is (delta)E=(delta)mc^2 kind of energy release and creation of isotopes that were not there to start with in the experiment. If so- then all the power to experimenters. But I'm afraid that we don't have such confirmation(none of cited sources in video). Am I correct?
And the problem is much worse. Due to the reputational risk, we don't have many scientists entering the field or money being used to investigate it (outside of Japan, initially), or even trying to replicate it. By the way, there were many people who did claim to replicate it, but due to the reputational hit to the field, these people were written off as "true believers" despite their previous experience as scientists. Storms was a good example. It didn't help that the field was also influenced by some folk that did have all the traits of true believers.
this is the funniest physics channel on youtube. Maybe its because I'm also german, but the "punchlines" are perfectly placed to be funny without really interrupting the flow of information.
Wow! Nice job Sabine. Incredibly comprehensive information on this subject! Learned quite a bit here. And thanks for mentioning my recent video on the Strong Force. Incredible
I have come to greatly enjoy your programs. You explain complex issues and problems, with no dumbing down. That takes great skill and a thorough understanding of the subject. I may just be a bohunk Georgia boy, but I am not an ignoramus. I think you respect the intelligence of every viewer.
0:00 It's not working 0:30 Fusion release Energy 1:23 Hot Fusion Eats Up Energy More Than It Releases 2:17 Replace Electrons with Muons - Neuron Catylized Fusion 5:56 Palladium and Heavy Water 7:16 Reputation Trap 8:29 2019 Google, Japan 9:09 Low Energy Nuclear Reactions LENR 11:02 Nano-Cracks, "unable to replicate finding." 13:18 "Something's going on, we don't know what" 14:30 The Strong Nuclear Force becomes weaker at high energy 15:3416:26 17:16 1991 method, ongoing inexpensive research 18:16 Basics of Physics w/Brilliant
5:40 since the 1920's ,,, Bring back the palladium night club! Or maybe the Petro giants has sabotage all research ,after all they buy all governments?
Great summary. I'm an engineer and I have experience measuring temperature and heat. As you say it is difficult to make precise measurements in this area. I think it was Feynman who warned about effects just on the borderline of experimental precision. It is unfortunately common in science for experimentalists to ignore data that disagrees with their pre-conceived ideas.
Thank you Sabine as always for the great summarization of the field of research, and for being appropriately skeptical but at the same wise enough to realize that LENR has significant potential in the theoretical as as well as applied physics and engineering to understand that something interesting is going on at this energy regime, and that these devices can be used as laboratory devices to probe this area of research. This is definitely worth investigating for the science alone, and the possible payoff in knowledge and possibly energy.
Not to mention those who make advances can ether be bought off to shut up and pretend their research 'couldn't be replicated' or threated into silence so they don't suddenly disappear... Even if they are willing to bite the bullet to push forward anyway most people fold if you start threatening their family, friends, and other loved ones. To figure out why research is buried/halted or 'reputation' damaging, just think of what corporate or political orgs would lose billions or go bankrupt if such a breakthrough is created.
@@awakenedpersona6488 That could be true when you look at the backlash toward climate change science but I don't know if any scientist has been threatened because of this research. Hanson (cannot remember his first name) the republicans tried to silence him I know. With climate change research there are so many scientists agreeing that it would be hard to threaten them in mass and get away with it. In LENR there is only a few scientists at present so the situation might be very different.
Know this, Sabine: I think I speak for many, many people when I say to you, we love you. You provide true value, and that, nowadays is a precious commodity. I utterly enjoy your content. I salute you.
Back in the day I used to pay people with sweets to act as 'friends'. I was so glad to discover nuclear physics because with neutrons there's no charge.
I wish mine had been as good as Sabine in communicating how _interesting_ science is! They made it so boring, so I didn't even want to try to understand.
Stanley Pons introduced cold fusion to the American Chemical Society in Dallas in 1989. It was very exciting. Later attempts to replicate were like trying to play basketball when the air goes out of the ball. One person at Texas A & M explained that in their further work, when it seemed to work, there was a lot of heat and the palladium rods would distort. And, that pure palladium would not work; it had to have impurities, possibly if i recall 5% platinum. Something was happening, if not cold fusion, but possibly neutron capture? Very obvious is that if we stick to known channels using known paradigms, we will not discover new worlds. Kudos to those who continue this work. Thank you Professor Sabine, for an insightful presentation.
Even if LENR never produces significant amounts of energy, surely research in this energy will produce significant amonts of knowledge. Basic research is never wasted.
Sadly that is not true, billions of dollars have gone into various cold fusion efforts and produced nothing usable at all, both at a theory level or practical level.
Good summary. In 1989 I didn't think there was any breakthrough but it has come to mind from time to time and I don't dismiss the idea of cold fusion anymore.
As an old guy from Utah that remembers the Pons/Fleischmann flash and fizzle news events, I'm glad to hear there is still research going on in cold fusion. It is one of those things that *seems* like it should be feasible and we just need that first breakthrough. We are sort of at that post electric but pre lightbulb era. Where we know enough to conjecture and try out a bunch of things, but it's mostly just guessing from millions of permutations. Once we have a small success, we can focus on a narrower set of parameters.
As Sabine pointed out very well, scientists ought to be cautious as not to become too overconfident that we believe we know that cold fusion is impossible, as chemistry cannot do such a thing. Science has shown in the past how easy it is to be too overconfident about presumptions. We have to acknowledge that we do not know everything and still have quite some gaps in our knowledge about materials science. A cold fusion method that we did not yet invent may just be lurking around the corner.
@@Guido_XL if the scientific elite had put more effort in high temp MSR_fission_reactors, we would have plenty of energy with little residual actinides (wastes ! ,?) available by now! The technology of FLiBe salt would be well known and established or chloride-salt-based fast reactors would be running and feeding on old nuc wastes, completely eliminating the need for long term safe storage facilities! Fission is easy, Fusion is hard.
Education and comedy a great combination there is just one problem, very few brilliant people have a sense of humor like Sabine. She brings a smile to my face each time I watch a video of hers. 😁👍👍
Or a laugh-out-loud moment. I love how she blindsides you by slipping in a silly image/idea into the middle of a serious technical stream ala Dave Barry. 3:56 "It's not just because lab life is lonely, and neutrons are better than no company"
I am retired now, but back in the day, I spent a lot of time studying the channeling phenomena of MeV alpha particles in single-crystal silicon. The channeling phenomena widens and becomes less pronounced as you decrease the incident particle's energy. It often struck me that if you aligned a single crystal substrate with a low-energy deuterium beam the beam would be focused to the center of the channel. as the deuterium piled up in the center of the channel the incident beam would be focused on that deuterium, effectively "Increasing" the d-d cross-section. It seems to me that an optimum energy and crystal substrate could be found to get a enhanced reaction going. There are some other tricks with two crystals you can do, but I digress
Thank you Sabine for a Cool Cold Fusion review! I love your take on it. I remember when I was an undergrad at my community college (College of the Redwoods) in Northern California, in 1989 there was a flare of excitement over Stanley Pons and Robert Fleischman's claims. One of the chemistry professors was like "yeah we've got the equipment, let's take a shot at it..." I got wind of the attempt, and asked to see the professor. I pointed out to him that since we really had no idea what was going on, that potential radiation hazards should be considered. I merely showed him that even a 1 W source of fast neutrons could produce a hazardous situation (a whole class of students getting fast neutron flux seemed to horrify him.) I asked that they slow down, obtain some additional radiation monitoring equipment before they attempt it. The suggestion was well taken, and the first experiment was done with a Geiger counter borrowed from the Geology department, and a closed circuit television system (borrowed from the Media and Broadcast Dept,) and a bunch of plastic barrels full of sand behind a maintenance building. First experiment only elicited a small twitch on the Geiger counter...so it was considered safe enough for the lab... It was just interesting how the Chemistry Dept did not even consider the physics involved in nuclear fusion. Just a little bit of caution....
Yeah. One of the red flags in many of those experiments was that there were people around active "Cold fusion" apparatus and they weren't dying of Radiation Poisoning.
An off-the-shelf Geiger counter doesn’t cut it to detect neutrons, as they work by detecting charged ionizing radiation. They can be specially built for neutron detection though. By making a tube filled with a gas that will undergo a nuclear reaction with incoming neutrons. Out of a general curiosity about how networked into the wider science community a community college was back in the day... Do you remember if they were using such a specialty tube?
I saw it happening before - people are trying to prepare so much for failing with an experiement that sometimes it don't even occur to them what if it actually works as predicted? Or what if it works even more than predicted? When typing this somehow the expression "Castle Bravo" came to my mind. Strange.
I agree that skepticism about getting practical cold fusion power is well-placed. I also agree that there's enough we can't explain, to make these lines of inquiry worth pursuing. We may not get world-saving amounts of energy, but we'll probably get some new understanding of physics out of it. Fred
The mysteries are what keep us interested. _Something_ is there, and if it is not what we are hoping to find it is still something we can find. That is good enough for now.
Skepticism? All LENR results have been characterised as "fraud" in the past, but now it becomes accepted, slowly but surely. Sabine has a short memory.
Just thank you for your objectivity, clarity, and competence. If you'd fool me I won't realize so keep up with your sense of responsibility. I count on you for honest scientific information!
Okay, coming back to this, because I watched it when it first came out, and youtube just proposed it to me again, and it made me laugh. That "there is just one problem"... Sabine is a very talented educator and communicator. We need more of her. In fact, we need at least one of her in every school. If you make your lessons interesting and engaging, students will learn. If you bore them to tears, they won't. It really is that simple. Of course, simple is not easy, and finding a good educator is an endlessly frustrating task. During my entire schooling I had... I think two teachers who were both engaging and effective. I had a great one that taught me next to nothing, because he was engaging but not very good at teaching, and none that were great at teaching but not very engaging, because the latter is a prerequisite for the former. Over the course of two decades, that is a very small number.
Sabine, I love your videos. Your sense of humor is awesome. You not only have deadpan face, but a voice to match too! You would make a great stand-up comic. You guessed it. There is just one problem - it doesn't pay too well...
Happy you finalized with serious scholarly thinking - there is something going on that we don't understand. Much better than simply stating that given current knowledge it is impossible, even though that kind of sober judgment is necessary, well in boring and costly situations... Pleasure to see your presentation.
There's no one so low-key and dry who can make me laugh so hard I have to stop the video😄. A rare gift. Also, I can understand the content! Very grateful.
ENG8 just had their catalyzed fusion device validated by UL laboratories in the UK to producing 5x electric power output vs input In previous validation tests in Portugal last year transmutations were discovered on the electrode....
Once again Sabine sheds light on something I had written off as a fraud. Watching the presentation I came to the same conclusion, something weird is going on that we don't understand. Cold fusion may not be possible but digging into this phenomena ought to add to our wealth of knowledge. Not to mention the notion of physicists and chemists working together, shades of Ghostbusters.
Really good explanation of the "Cold Fusion" concept. And clearly if there is gaps in our knowledge, even if it does not end up with an energy source, we should spend money exploring it. Later this knowledge may branch into many new valuable aplications.
The team that comes up with the patches for the "cold fusion" exploits deserves a round of applause. To come up with bug-solutions on such short notice is really impressive.
I stumbled upon her videos when a discussion of the pros and cons of nuclear power were discussed. I fell in love with her lectures because she does her best to avoid hype and present the material with humor and in terms I can understand. It’s like having a good professor.
It sounds like the palladium issues could be attacked by the significantly less-sexy fields of metallurgy and crystallography. It would be interesting to see whether the grain structure of the palladium influenced the decay products (checking the material defect hypothesis) and whether the crystal structure of the palladium was significantly changed after irradiation (checking the palladium decay hypothesis).
My guess is that palladium's electronic field properties are connected with why it's such a standard catalyst in so many reactions as well as being useful in rudimentary cold fusion. It seems to me that if we are going to discover a way to generate energy-positive low-gravity cold fusion, we will need to find some way to exploit electron fields in order to breach their repulsive effects. We cannot simply push the nuclei together against the outward electron degeneracy pressure. Converting the electrons into muons is a good example of finding a way around the degeneracy pressure. Apparently palladium has some way of slipping past it as well, and I would wager good money (if I had any) that it's connected to palladium's use as a catalyst. Perhaps research into platinum, another major catalyst, could yield more insight. Maybe we can engineer a metamaterial with far stronger catalytic properties which could assist with the process to a greater degree.
@@TheReaverOfDarkness I'd think that any potential contribution palladium might have would be crystalline lattice confinement of deuterium atoms. As for defects, annealing would help illuminate any such contribution by altering the defects in either direction. Probably end up with another neutron source, rather than an energy source.
The problem of repeatability seems to be reoccurring issue. And that may be due to the ignored non-repeatability of the materials used to repeat the experiments. It is very possible that to repeat the experiment, the confirming/debunking lab needs to use the very same substrate samples that the original labs used to observe the anomalous phenomena. The 'magic' that is being missed might be contained in the rare and fortuitous piece of palladium used in the first experiments. Such debunking/confirming efforts must be done using the same original materials used originally.
@@GeeTrieste from what I've observed, it may well come down to techniques used in construction of the unit under test. That's been borne out in every field over the years.
It is hard to express how relieved I am to learn that there is only one, single problem to be solved before we can enjoy the benefits of safe, reliable, and limitless fusion power. Thank you, Dr. Hossenfelder.
The Large Hadron Collider pumps a lot of energy into proton collisions. This is why understanding the strong nuclear force in LHC collisions is quite simple, by which I mean a PHD in particle physics will do. Thank you Sabina, this is good to know
I've just finished reading Keith Tutt's The Scientist, The Madman, the Thief and Their Lightbulb, which adds another dimension to what Sabine so ably explains here. Well done.
We already have a working fusion reactor at safe distance, all we got to do is to install and improve the equipment to harvest its energy and find ways to make that energy source less intermittent, ie find ways to store that energy more easily (aka more efficiently and more economically).
I think Sabine is one of the few scientists that look at facts objectively instead of throwing a tantrum whenever something doesn't fit into the classic science frameworks
Yes, there is something profoundly wrong in science academia if just making this video could damage your reputation. Those people are the same types of people that in a different time would have thought autopsies were necromancy and shun any who attempted such research. Thank you for going through with this video.
Or this is just cozy excuse for not doing good science aka making experiments that can actually proof or disprove the thing, and following the data. And it there are only negative results- calling it as it is- not existing phenomenon (tentatively as everything is, until someone provides the proof). One can make dozens of "theories" about how thing can be explained but I would like to see first proof that "the thing" actually happens.
@@scottslotterbeck3796 indeed. The excitement about cold fusion exists because of assumption/hope that some sort of nuclear transformations take place. Without it it is some other sort of "interesting"
Wow Sabine! Thank you for this. You really make such clear, precise and easy to understand content ( relative to topic difficulty ofc ). I cannot imagine combing through all this information / papers / news articles on my own.
Thank you for this very balanced view. It is a good antidote to the frankly, anti-intellectual folks who say “it is impossible because of physics“. As if all of physics is a settled matter. the number of times in the history of science, where people said something was impossible, and turned out to be possible is huge.
"...by which I mean a PhD in Nuclear Physics will do." Love the snark - this really helps with the discussions as it helps to keep me engaged when Sabine talks about stuff that's nearly always going over my head.
Thank you for this video. You are reminding us of what good science does; neither curtly dismissing nor blindly accepting, but keeping an eye out for the gaps in our knowledge and looking more closely to fill them in.
I've told people about Sabine, as a good way to explain scientific ideas objectively... it's always a treat, in the US, for people to try and sus out what her political agenda is. That's how lost the discourse is here (for a lot of people): the idea of objective criticism is so foreign to them, they can't really wrap their minds around the idea that someone would create media WITHOUT an implicit political bias. Thank you for that :^)
Worked on Cold fusion at MIT in the late 80s....we had made some progress and when were ready to publish initial positive energy results the professor was told he would loose his DOE grants and funding....pressure came from the DOE fast and furious.
The stellar engine within the Electrostatic (ES) and Electrogravitic (EG) Model is self-explanatory. - The Aether has 3 energy level space fabrics and 3 string (loop) theory - The Matter has 3 energy level space fabrics and 3 string (loop) theory The stellar engine is a supercompacted supersolid star core of gravitons - The stellar engine's photosphere is a supercompacted region of Aether space fabric COLD FUSING (NON-NUCLEAR) of Hydrogen to Iron - The photosphere uses the 3 energy level Aether space time fabrics of 3 strings (and loop) theory graviton-tensor-graviton-tensor-graviton ... - Aether Gravitons, Electrino gravitons, and Small electron gravitons are positron-positron pairings producing gravitational force - Aether Graviton tensors, Electrino tensors, and Small electron tensors are electron-positron pairings having dual electrical force and gravitational force - The Aether space fabric strings within the stellar engine's star core massive gravitational force of the photosphere converts these multiple 3 positrons into their respective energy level supra gravitons producing pressure, ... and the multiple electrons into their respective energy level supra electrons producing ionization - These supra gravitons and supra electrons are the actual active fusion agents within the stellar engine photosphere, fusing Hydrogen up to Iron - The normal deep space Aether space fabric has sub-quantum entanglement and is in a cosmic steady state tension, with the tensors having dual gravitational force holding the other gravitons together (preventing cosmic expansion), and the electrical force pushes away the gravitons (preventing cosmic collapse) - Aether space fabric operates within wave physics and QM QED - The stellar engine photosphere has emissions of radio eaves, microwaves, and infrared - The Lord (radio waves, microwaves), Humphrey (infrared), and Pfund (infrared) electron transition series operate within the Aether realm - **** This, by mechanical definition, is Cold Fusion, as a non-nuclear Hot Fusion radioactive (Uranium series et al) mechanism - The stellar engine's chromosphere is a supercompacted region of Matter space fabric COLD FUSING (NON-NUCLEAR) of Cobalt up to Element 91 non-radioactive Protactinium - ** and only higher nuclear radioactive HOT FUSING happens with Uranium up to Element 118 - The chromosphere uses the 3 energy level Matter space time fabrics of 3 strings (and loop) theory graviton-tensor-graviton-tensor-graviton .... - Matter electron gravitons, Muon electron gravitons, and Tau electron gravitons are positron-positron pairings producing gravitational force - Matter electron tensors, Muon electron tensors, and Tau electron tensors are electron-positron pairings having dual electrical force and gravitational force - The Matter space fabric strings with the stellar engine's star core massive gravitational force of the chromosphere converts these multiple 3 positrons into their respective energy level supra gravitons producing pressure, ... and the multiple electrons into their respective energy level supra electrons producing ionization - These supra gravitons and supra electrons are the actual active fusion agents within the stellar engine chromosphere, fusing Cobalt up to Element 91 Protactinium, ... and then into the higher nuclear fusion of Uranium up to Element 118 The normal deep space Matter space fabric has quantum entanglement and is in a cosmic steady state tension, with the tensors having dual gravitational force holding the other gravitons together (preventing cosmic expansion), and the electrical force pushes away the gravitons (preventing cosmic collapse) - Matter space fabric operates within light/particle physics and QM QCD - The stellar engine chromosphere has emissions of visible light, UV rays, [x rays], gamma rays - The Paschen (visible light), Balmer (UV rays, [x rays]), and Lyman ([x rays], gamma rays) electron transition series operate within the Matter realm - *** This, by mechanical definition, is Cold Fusion of non-nuclear elements, ... and Hot Fusion radioactive (Uranium series et al) mechanism Here is the real truths of the Sun's stellar engine and processes. It is the same for the (wrongly worded) Black Hole, which is not a black HOLE, not portal, nor wormhole to multiple dimensions. A black body is the naked remains of a former (super)nova star explosion's star core or star core fragment. The black body is reattempting electrogravitic accretion of its surrounding space debris in evolving back its photosphere, and eventual chromosphere. The event horizon is the photosphere--chromosphere boundary. There is no spaghettification effect, and no light capture, other than the Aether variable light speed photinos which remain captured (and still glowing) in the photosphere. The event horizon is the corollary of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, where the photosphere's electron transition series of radio waves, microwaves, and infrared are emitted. A black body is also conducting Cold Fusion within its evolving photosphere.
8:15 This Australian is Dick Smith, who started out as a home grown version of Radio Shack, selling electronic components and kits to hobbyists. He was the first person to fly a helicopter to both poles, and started the Australian Geographic Society.
He came to my highschool in a helicopter back in my senior year, I cannot remember what it was for I think for some speech about leadership and perseverence.
That explains that. I'm glad Sabine dismissed him as 'some Australian', I think he's not as important as he wishes he was in public life, apart from his contributions to knowledge.
I'm glad that there are people out there willing to get their hands dirty and risk their reputation exploring this topic, the potential is so huge that is a shame that there is such a stigma in the science community. Even if the probability is 0.001% for this thing to work, it seems dumb to not spend a few bucks investigating it. Glad Sabine has a positive attitude towards this, who would have thought! 😉
@@NorseGraphic and the more important - it has much more opportunities, areas and directions of study than hot fusion, for which the main and almost only possibilities - is to increase the temperature and the size of the reactor
16:05 Although it's logical think to think that an imperfection in a grid can be the cause of fusion not happening, it can also be reverse. Not saying this is true, but what if the imperfection itself is the cause for the fusion, like when pushing too many deutrium nuclei into the 'faulty' material, which then forces some of those irregularities to bring the deuterium nuclei even closer together, or somehow turns them at a perfect angle for fusion ? In that case the reason for the failure is a correct material grid, and the reason for succesful fusion is the failure in the material grid. Once again, not claiming this to be true, but looking at it logically this may be true. An amorphic structure usually has interatomic spaces that vary in size. I don't think this will actually solve anything, but you know, maybe it helps.
I had come across a couple of the examples you had hear about cold fusion that actually works, but the papers were WAY above my level. This video is an accessible explanation of cold fusion. And, that unknown "nuclear resonances" is definitely going in some fiction. Subscribed.
Resonances are potentially a key factor, if it's true. See the Mossbauer Effect, also, more speculatively, Peter Hagelstein's ideas on applying Dicke superradiance to crystal lattices.
That's what corporate suits always told us... "don't think of them as problems, think of them as challenges! Positivity!" Makes me physically ill to remember 🤣🤣
Wrong. Her Rossi story is a ludicrous mashup of what that "cold fusion" fraudster really did. Anyone who knows anything about Rossi and his pathetic "Energy Catalyzer" scam could have done better than she did.
@@CAThompson Sure. How much time does "us" have? Rossi began lying about "cold fusion" after he got out of prison for his awful "waste-to-oil" scam, not before. He lied to everyone for years about "nickel to copper transmutation" and "proton lithium-7 fusion." He sold a "1-MW cold fusion reactor" to an incredibly gullible and ignorant investor for US$1.5M.He sold the same sucker a "non-exclusive license" for another US$10M. He didn't just disappear. Even today, he's claiming that he invented devices that run on "zero-point energy." He did abandon CF/LENR, but he's still grifting.
This is an extremely well done video! Thanks for treating this seriously; anytime we find something we don't understand we should drive the investigations to a conclusion.
This was a good article. yet to many people associate cold fusion with heat instead of a tool to use with energy. Think of encryption, the computer does the work and together they produce a finished product.. This relationship will be used to advance force fields, teleportation ,cellular and genetic reconstruction.
I watched the original congressional hearing on cold fusion in the 80's. Even then, it was clear that the initial target should've been knowledge, not cheap energy.
@@gilian2587 No, not as the first target. They had an anomaly that was already well worth investigating -- as an anomaly. Selling it with hopes of cheap net energy was a disastrous mistake. Muon-catalyzed fusion was a successful experiment that taught us about previously unknown physics, not a failed attempt to generate cheap clean energy. Obviously we hoped all along for both, but an investigation almost always benefits from staying focused on "learning something" before moving on to "doing something". Cold fusion should've taken the same approach.
@@WilliamDye-willdye How does one go about substituting electrons for muons on an atom? I suppose that if one could collect muons in a container of some kind; then one could take the target atoms; ionize them, move them through a container that gets muons injected into the container; then one could expose those treated atoms to deuterium you could make it happen under specific laboratory conditions. But... you aren't going to get much useful energy out of that. How would one go about collecting/synthesizing muons? Sounds like a lab setup roughly as difficult to set up as what Wieman did with his Bose-Einstein condensates research. Maybe worse; the only way I know of that might allow one to synthesize muons would be to use a particle accelerator in addition to a special negative charge filtration then mass filtration setup -- like a kind of "distillery" for elementary particles with charge. Find a mechanism that produces more energy than that consumes? Not with the piddling laboratory setup I described. Edit -- looks like one can take a narrow beam of high energy protons; collide it with a metal like titanium to generate pions which will decay into positive and negative muons. Again... this sounds like an accelerator setup. Edit edit -- then there's the problem of muon containment. Once they collide with a normal material, there's a good chance of muon loss, right? So one would need an EM field of some kind in the container to maintain the muon plasma and minimize losses. Edit edit edit -- It looks like cosmic muons are constantly being generated. Perhaps a collection mechanism could be devised from that? All of these ideas sound like something of a reach.
@@gilian2587 I hope Dr. Hossenfelder reads this thread if she decides to create a video about muon-catalyzed fusion. It provides good examples of what her audience might be wondering as she describes the process, so it's useful feedback. You asked some worthwhile questions, but I'm going to pass on trying to answer them in a TH-cam comment thread. The scientific instruments I help create are designed for biology, not particle physics. There are surprisingly strong similarities in how both fields collect data (it seems that everything we know came from a voltage differential), but your level of curiosity deserves a better tutor. Besides, YT has a nasty habit of deleting and hiding comments without warning or notification. You're on a good track, tho'. I'm confident you can find good answers elsewhere.
@@WilliamDye-willdye Well... I'll see if I can track down some info/publications on muon-catalyzed fusion. Like you suggested, I doubt that net positive energy generation would be feasible from it. You wouldn't happen to be a polypeptide chemist, would you? What types of instruments do you build?
Thanks so much for covering this. I didn't know just how ignorant I was about cold fusion and thought it was completely impossible, but the titanium experiments show otherwise. Who knows, maybe some metamaterials can lower the Colomb barrier much further.
Right, me too. I didn't know about the titanium substrate methods, and that they are even a commercial product for generating neutrons. I didn't know the variations on the theme of cold fusion, little about the muon catalyzed fusion, or the depth of how careers are threatened just by talking about it.
@@GeeTrieste I've been a big skeptic of fusion for years. Even if we are able to break-even and generate energy with it, there is no guarantee it will be economically viable. But having seen Sabine's video, I see hope in cold fusion. Compared to hot fusion it's an area that has remained relatively unexplored.
I was in grad school (in math) when Fleischmann and Pons made their announcement. Shortly after the announcement, just as cold fusion seemed to be going down the tubes, I was at conference, and a well-known mathematician from the University of Utah (who was good friends with the cold fusion dudes) was there. He was fairly confident that there was something to cold fusion, and that something would eventually come of it. But, the thing that this math guy was most animated about was the way that other scientists reacted to the announcement. He claimed that most of the big researchers working on hot fusion had people present in Utah for the announcement, and that they went to great lengths to denigrate the idea, concentrating their effort on the press. Apparently, the purpose of this was to preserve the funding for hot fusion at all cost. In any case, it's nice to know that cold fusion (i.e., LENR) has made enough of a comeback so that it can at least be studied once again.
A very good and neutral approach to this controversial subject. Thanks for this video. Ten years ago, many were hoping these phenomenons would solve our energy (and thus climate) problems. Today, it seems it is just some interesting scientific question without any immediate benefits, but that's still something that needs to be investigated.
This whole cold fusion thing is starting to remind me of the research into extra-sensory perception (ESP) in the mid-20th century. Those researchers also had all these rationalizations as to why no one else could duplicate their results and why ESP seemed to come and go. A simpler explanation was that it was all due to experimental error. And so it is with cold fusion. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
This Video is so incredibly funny, I love the sad Violin music. I'm no scientific genius, just a retired electronics repairman. But I've been reading science journals since I was a child and I know enough to appreciate the humor.
I didn't know that there where some cold fusion that actually works. Even if the current methods is impractical for energy generation it doesn't sound like we have to break a few of the laws of physics to achieve it. So then it worth while to do some research about it.
Yeah, it won't save the world, but careful funding and experimentation is likely to produce some new knowledge.
Exists for a long time as a neutron source, for which it is really handy. For example, the "Fusor" was developed in the 60s and is a viable neutron source. A company called "NSD-Fusion" produces them as a commercial product today.
the wright brothers first plane flew only 180 feet, it was a glider with an engine and was shot off the ramp with a catapult, basically a worthless piece of crap,
@@graealex Fusors use hot fusion
@@robc1952 No catapult for the first Wright flight. We all have seen the film clip, but that was not their first plane, which was wrecked on the first day.
Soooo... Who's here cause they got recommended the vid after watching Bobby Broccoli's video on the 1989 Pots/Fleischmann Cold Fusion Debacle?
Me, wouldn't have clicked on it if I didn't see Bobby's
the targeted recommendations are working and the rabbit hole beckons
Oh no
They got me
Me, wth is the algo doing recently 😂
@@hikikomori_3708 iuuuiuu
“Understanding the strong nuclear force in LHC collisions is quite simple, by which I mean a PhD in particle physics will do.” Loved that!
Rocket scientists need not apply evidently ! hilarious zinger on her part.
From what I understand (mainly from Dyson Freeman), a Masters in particle physics should do, then. A PhD involves working for 3 years on one tiny little area of something but the general knowledge comes with the Masters.
@@robertbrandywine not many people that choose to get a Masters in Particle Physics tbh. If you're going into that field, you'll likely need a phD anyways, so there's often no point in getting the Masters first. AFAIK, there are no Masters degree programs for particle physics in the US, though there are several in the UK and EU
@@TheGuyCalledX "Particle programs", you nuts or what...they found about a billion already yet nothing works! There is but ONE force only. Infidels, hail to one and the only, the mighty Electromagnet AKA just do it-the return to monopole magnetic stillness :P
@@TheGuyCalledX Well, if a MSc is enough, doing the work can be a legitimate PhD project. If a PhD is needed, the PhD probably has to be closely related.
I like that she acknowledges her skepticism, yet believes more study is beneficial. So often, science is treated as established fact. "There's just one problem..." - it is not. Science is still very much 'figuring it out'. That's not bad. We just need to recognize that our models are incomplete, and keep studying.
Much continued success, Sabine. I like your attitude, and clear explanations. Well done! :)
The problem is when something is so unlikely to be achieved in theory that we might be wasting resources on that that we could use on more achievable stuff that is also very important.
Yes. We are the science. That's why it's incomplete.
@@didack1419 But given that our 'knowledge' is so limited, any ideas of what is 'so unlikely' could be way off. It's by stretching the limits of our perceived limitations that we exceed them, and find new horizons... :)
@@madnessbydesignVria But resources are limited (money, HR, materials), if you have to choose between several options, you have to invest into what is realistic to be achieved yet important, not on what is hypothetical.
We need some standards, it can't be that we invest on whatever we feel like it regardless of how likely it is to give results.
The problem isn't really in science. REAL scientists (I'd say the majority of them at least) never claim to have "full knowledge" of anything, and are very much aware of the gaps and vast areas uncharted. They are even afraid sometimes to get to these vast uncharted areas in their research.
The problem is with the billions of ignorants who MUST have something to believe in, and with the decline (in popularity) of religion, have made the scientist figure (yes, the one with strange hair-cut and white apron, holding glass test tubes and colorful liquid in them) their new high priests, doing the rituals of the new religion.
True, we owe much of modern day's technology to the findings of scientists, still... the masses put way too much faith on the scientific method and "what we know at present" for their own health.
I think the strongest example is the huge political force on scientists today to align with the new prophetic warnings of "global climate catastrophe" which is of course a big fat lie - there's absolutely no evidence, or even reasonable model to predict that. Anyway - the workings of religion severely damage scientists ability to do their thing successfully.
I greatly enjoy Sabine's discussions. I earned a Ph.D. in physics many years ago and can appreciate the exceptional depth and range of her knowledge. She does not engage in adverse criticism, personally, of other physicists with whom she disagrees. That makes her lectures even more enjoyable.
I love Sabine’s sense of humour. There’s just one problem [insert sad violin music]... only she can do it.
put her in the same room as Weinstein, Sir Roger and Sean Carroll.
What about Einstein? Yes, that guy again.
So - no one else has been able to reproduce the results...
I had an elegant response to this, but this comment section is not large enough to contain it.
At the end I am glad that there is just one problem ...
I admire Sabine's commitment to speaking the truth and letting the chips fall where they may. The first time I heard of her was her article in Symmetry Magazine attacking the sacred cow of "beauty" in physics. As a practicing physicist in the US, I can tell you that was an important message that physicists needed to hear. This video may have an even more important message since it address the conformity rampant in all fields of science. I am certainly guilty of thinking cold fusion is a hoax, but I am now willing to reconsider. Thanks Sabine!
This is really what I come to Sabine for. There are a lot of Science enthusiasts ready to explain the specifics of an experiment or project, but only she really brings the broader context. So thankful that she speaks plainly and from her experience in the field about practicalities
As a non-scientist I have the same appreciation of Sabine. I've read her book about the issue of beauty in physic. The problem is in the past that notion worked. However now we are so far beyond where our brains evolved to keep from being eaten by lions I'm amazed at the progress we have made.
She's speaking her opinion, not the truth. Maybe her opinion will eventually turn out to the right one, or maybe it won't. I'm not sure it's a good idea to take any one source and treat them as "the truth", it's better to just keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out, and listen to a lot of sources. And you don't have to decide which claim is true, you can listen to competing claims and end up just saying that there's not enough evidence to choose and so I don't know what the truth is.
Science is not about truth
I first heard about Pons & Fleischmann back when the big story broke, and I thought it was the most exciting thing, and the following months were such a letdown. I'm considerably more skeptical now... maybe cautious or patient. Glad there's a lot of fusion research going on today, public and private, exploring so many different approaches.
I led one of the teams that Sabine cites in this video (at the 10.34 mark). We spent almost five years looking into LENR. In the video, Sabine states that we could not replicate the prior results. That's true, but there’s more to it. We observed the claimed heat effect, both in magnitude and duration, in our parallel *control* cells. This indicates a calibration error in the apparatus. One little known fact about these electro-chemical cell experiments is that they are run for a week or more before the effect is observed. Typically, calibration is conducted over a few hours and is done both before an experimental run and intermittently during it, to re-check thermal stability.
We submit that this approach to calibration is inadequate for establishing a calorimeter’s propensity for heat artifacts. Stability over time periods longer than the experiment should be demonstrated in order to minimize the possibility of misinterpreting the fluctuations that we observed as “excess heat” events.
Consequently, we contend that all claims of anomalous heat in LENR experiments using electro-chemical cells that do not exhibit thermal stability on a time period longer than the time duration of the experiment itself must be thrown out. As the majority of research over the past 30 years has not demonstrated this kind of calibration stability, that eliminates most of the effort in this field. You can read more about our work on the ReResearch LLC website.
That is not to say that we know everything about hot fusion in the solid state or how quantum mechanical interactions might impact fusion reactivity. There is much still to be discovered. But these electro-chemical LENR heat experiments are noise, not signal.
Gave you a thumbs up, I followed your report a little bit. ( Absolutely totally Out of my field)
I was Hoping to see some input from the female narrator and the owner of this channel, about your findings.
But she didn't say nothing. 🥺
thanks for sharing; i appreciate the insight.
At least the experiments are cheap. And you're supposed to say that more research is always better, right? Am I allowed to say it's never been shown to work above experimental error (is this still true if multi experiments are combined into a big meta-experiment?) and I wouldn't advise a friend to get involved in this direction?
As George Orwell wrote, "All objects are cold, but some objects are colder than others."
As Oscar Wilde wrote, "To make one video about cold fusion is unfortunate; to make TWO begins to look like carelessness."
Ι remember I was a physics student in 1989 when Fleischmann and Pons conducted their experiment; we were all in the auditorium talking enthusiastically about it, when the Nuclear Physics Professor came in and, when we asked him about it, he managed to wipe the smiles off our faces in five minutes! Still, I remember the excitement. We must never give up hope!
You were set up from the start. It’s real has been real and the results have been tampered with. I have a machine producing “cold fusion”. The name is malicious on purpose.
This tech will never die all you need is water and cavitation. If not me many others will disclose this. Time for a revolution.
Age from age we are born.
One thing I really value about this channel.
Sabine is frank about the holes in our scientific knowledge.
It's what Physics is about, though most holes are just in my knowledge. :)
Another, similar, example is being a Project Manager and not liking to solve problems.
She's making them up.
@@hans-joachimbierwirth4727 **licks your elbow** 😍😍
You only said "holes" because she's a woman
Frank? She draws the gaps in knowledge out, puts them in a party dress, covers them in beaded necklaces and parades them around in the town center, describing them in detail with a megaphone to anyone who will listen.
I love that the "there's just one problem" line had its own theme music!
That was hilariously obnoxious
Or obnoxiously hilarious. I don’t know
It was funny at start, but than it became more of a distruction and annoyance because of two reasons. Sabine kept talking and the music was too loud. Good idea, but needs work. :)
I agree... But... There is one... 🎻🎵😈🤣
Sorry but for me by the end I couldn't stand it. It ruined what would otherwise have been an interesting video.
Sabine, you are absolutely BRILLIANT. I suffer from a lifelong allergy to math, and yet with your presentation I can actually understand the broad outlines of this research and some of the problems the scientists are encountering. You are a highly gifted teacher providing people like me a glimpse into areas of thought we would not otherwise have access to. Thank you so much!
"I suffer from a lifelong allergy to math"
You suffer from trauma from crappy teachers, over bearing parents, and a shitty scholastic system. You need to address this trauma and stop deflecting with ridiculous notions like being scared of numbers or having an allergy to maths. Its not kitchy, its not funny, its not a badge of honor, its not a personality quirk. IT IS UNADDRESSED TRAUMA. Stop it. Get help.
Also, its not the maths that matter. The concepts are whats important. If you understand the concepts at play you can look up the formula, put it into a spreadsheet, and have the computer do it for you. Just like literally everyone else does. No one is doing polynomials by hand. No one. That belief is a side effect of the trauma your shit school experience left you with. Stop making excuses for the people that have abused you and get over yourself. As someone who taught themselves more than school ever tried to, I know you're traumatized and you need to stop using it as a crutch. No one is going to pat you on the back for it except those who also think themselves cool for being afraid of maths. For the record, none of them are cool.
George, you may also want to check out (if you don't already), PBS's "Spacetime". Much in the manner of Sabine's show, the host takes a lot of really gnarly stuff and breaks it down into, "these are the theories between certain ideas physicists are toying with, minus the crazy math."
Sabine's video is probably one of the most balanced and enlightening discussions on cold fusion that I've seen. Well done!
“It’s not just that lab life is lonely and neutrons are better than nobody” you’re awesome. I love your videos
cold fusion is the ultimate fantasy energy source
I feel like there needs to be a large tattoo proclaiming "LAB LIFE!" across the abdomen of a particularly smug researcher...😉
@@TyMoore95503 please don't give them ideas like that🤣
@@TyMoore95503 are you like a badger just taking resources or something?🤣🤣
@@raven4k998 Honey Badger don't care! 😁
According to Sabine, there is only one problem with LENR: Labs aren't blowing up left and right.
Finally somethings about physics that I can understand.
Not left and right, but there have been anomalous explosions, from the nano/micro-scale up to SRI losing one of their researchers in a lab explosion that COULDN'T possibly be accounted by a H + O or D + O or any combination thereof.
I remember this being described as ‘the dead graduate student problem’ (i.e. there should be explosions if this was working)
@@PeterAndrewsVermont Schrodinger's lab intern?
I never entirely understand what’s going on in these videos, but they give me such excellent research rabbit hole fodder. I get to be confused about so many new, exciting things. Thank you, truly!
You have to be careful with cold fusion, it is easy to waste time on rabbit holes. Actually I've watched a bunch of stuff about it and I've never seen a better explanation than this video...
I've learnt rather a lot that I'm more confused about in these last couple of years than my entire life beforehand, regarding physics. 😆
@@CAThompson that is called the beginning of the enlightenment phase. Once you reach that stage, you stop working but continue talking.
Yeah show some caution with this particular rabbit hole. Theres a *lot* of crazy persons messing up what little sanity is in the field of cold fusion. There well may be something legit going on with the purported phenomena, but ever since they started teaching small children why perpetual motion machines will always be impossible, the crazy-person brigade seems to have moved over to cold fusion instead.
See also Alcubiere Warp Drives (on paper possible, in practice probably impossible), EM drives (on paper impossible, in practice mixed results) and pretty much anything out of Eagleworks labs (NASAs mad scientist division, the guys who investigate hetrodox propulsion ideas on the understanding that 90% of what they look at is nonsense, but 10% *might* change the world)
As luck would have it, I actually knew Pons and Fleischmann back in the early-to-mid 1980s. I have reason to believe that, based on a cryptic remark the two of them once made to me, I think that they had already started their work on cold fusion at the time they made their remark to me. Martin Fleischmann died a few years ago. The last I heard Pons was still working on cold fusion at an undisclosed site, probably in France.
There is another small fusion device called a fusor. It's not exactly cold fusion, but the devices can be quite small. The inventor (or perhaps one of the inventors) of the fusor was Philo T. Farnsworth, who was more famous for inventing television. Farnsworth was my grandmother's second cousin, and I once met his widow at a family party. I am actually in possession of one of Farnsworth's fusors, not the complete device but parts of it. The parts are sitting in my garage.
The demonstration a few days ago of hot fusion exceeding the break even point was exciting. There is an old joke about nuclear fusion which goes something like this: practical fusion is just 20 years away, always has been, always will be. I heard that joke about 35 years ago, and it still applies.
A solid-state diode was in use for radio reception long before science explained how it worked. It was found that a metal wire in contact with a crystal of galena could perform rectification on weak amplitude-modulated signals. It was used simply because it worked.
Yep, it highlights the difference between science (knowledge for knowledge sake) versus technology (tool making). Blacksmiths were making metal, not just metal objects, thousands of years before metallurgy became a thing. Science and technology are now linked, because science is a tool that technologist can use to make their wares. They are still separate disciplines. Just because you use a computer does not make you a computer programmer.
Ha! You bring back old memories. I read an article in Popular Mechanics or some similar publication on how to build a crystal radio using galena. A friend of mine was a rock collector and gave me a small crystal of galena. I remember heating a lump of lead with my father's gasoline blowtorch and dropping the crystal in it. Then I needed to make an inductor. It turns out that Quick Quaker Oats came in a cylindrical container of the right diameter. I pestered my mom to make me Quaker Oats for breakfast.
When the tube was finally empty, I asked my mom if I could have it. The next problem was finding wire to wind the inductor. It turns out that old power transformers from radio and TV sets had a lot of wire. I used some to make the inductor, and some heavier wire to make the antenna. Now that everything was together I found a sensitive spot on the galena crystal, and lo and behold I heard voices!
The signal was much stronger than I expected, so I got on my bike and followed the road down to the end. There sat radio station CFRB, a 50,000 watt station on 1010 kilocycles. The friendly engineers let me in and took me on a tour of the station. I was completely fascinated and returned many times for more explanations of how the station worked. This started a lifelong career in electronics. I am now 80 years old and retired with a total of 6 United States Patents and numerous inventions. All thanks to a small crystal of galena from a friend.
We probably run out of low hanging fruits that can be found just by clumping stuff together, and some luck.
@@stevewilson5546 : Your story deserves to be recorded.
@@stevewilson5546 I used a cat whisker on the Galena crystal using some tungsten wire, which I obtained by cracking open a 100 W lightbulb.
But OA91 diodes become available not long after...
Fanbloodytastic video! You're an absolute star. Your videos should be part of the school curriculum, they're pitched at just the right level for kids who have any interest in science with just the right amount of detail to make them want to know more without overcomplicating it. And you're a born entertainer!
Pitched at kids? I'm 47 and don't understand any of it 😂💖
@@KerriEverlasting I think diogenesagogo is referring to her methods of presentation. The particular points she makes, could be simplified for a younger audience.
Fred
@@KerriEverlasting I understand enough to go and ask Sabine and her other more knowledgeable followers random questions later. :)
Don't worry Sabina: your exquisite sense of humor shields you completely of that "bad reputation effect"! I've been laughing all along with your review. I'm being "infected" by your deep German/Physicist/ Geek humour. Thanks a lot.
nopons here.
Her absolute best line so far was about string theory: "... which means that if you tune the parameters right the theory will prove that the universe does not exist. This is of cause in conflict with observations". It doesn't get more deadpan than that, and I laughed hysterically for way longer than I should have.
Excellent video thank you very much Sabine. We humans aren't great at admitting that we don't understand something and I'm totally with you that there may be an interaction between chemical & nuclear reactions. As you say though we haven't ever been able to boil a kettle with cold fusion, yet.
*I love Cold Fusion.* It brings me back to my university days when Fleischmann-Pons first made their 'announcement'
I remember so many people setting up their own experiments, and faxing, yes faxing each other their results(or non-results)
I hate to break it to you, but fax machines are still widely used. Xerox on the other hand..
@@Lady_Phoenix Indeed. We were warned, a long time ago, that it was always important to practice "Safe Fax" and use a cover sheet. 😊
Fax machines pre-date the telephone, and are still widely used today. I just faxed someone yesterday.
Reasons for use today often involve faxing legal documents, which are recognized in law as something close to the original for legal purposes, and also that a hard copy is necessarily produced in normal fax communications.
*_"There was just one FAX?"_*
😊😊😊
Hey. Hey there. Some of the Floridonians’ electrical cars caught fire when hurricane Ian flooded the salty sea water up to them. It was salty seawater. ohmigod. Why’d they catch fire BECAUSE of water? OhmiGAHD! I don’t know why because I’m a casual savant, and I didn’t look up shit.
So much information, thank you!! About the Fleischmann cold fusion, what struck us like hell was the simplicity of their set up in the lab. It was at secondary school level. It was hillarious. My uncle demonstrated us kids cold fusion using two little blocks of ice in a glass of whisky. After several tries and tasting the whisky, it really felt hot. My aunt threw us out of the the kitchen.
More Germanic humour. Love it.
Obviously it worked! There's just one problem. Auntie isn't funding any more experimentation! Ronn :)
I didn't know that scientist have sense of wicked humor.
Just one problem: no one has been able to stop reproducing the results and have all ended up as alcoholics.
That's got me thinking what might whisky taste like if it was made using heavy water.
The "there is just one problem" got me EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
A highly reproducible phrase
There are not many people who could pull that off. This is the first of her videos I have seen (won't be the last!) and I adore her delivery. Lively enough to keep us listening, and punctuated enough to know when we are taking a sharp turn.
Yes, priceless isn't it? Bordering on profound!
CF is a catalyzed nuclear reaction that occurs by tunneling. It can be done using any of the D8 transition metals Ni Pd or Pt. The strongest resonance transition is with Pd. What happens is the electrons from the deuterium tunnel to fill the gap 9'10 D transitions giving Pd the configuration of Cd. When this occurs the hydrogen briefly forms an intermetallic alloy that nullifies the space charge. This drags the nuclei within the capture radius via quantum tunneling. A curous effect of this reaction is that it will preferentially create 3He and a free neutron rather than 4He and a gamma ray. It was studied as a potential source of tritium production. The major issue is that the reaction damages the lattice of the palladium partly by mechanical dislocation and partly by activation. The energy isnt enough for serious power generation and is self terminating. The best catalyst for the reaction are carbon nanotubes loaded with palladium nanocrystals in deuterium. Trigger with a magnetic field and an accoustic shockwave. Your choice of matrix deuterium at high pressure, lithium deuteride, or deuterium oxide. The first two options require an explosive to pump it, the last one can be done using ultrasound. With plain D2O you get dim blue flashes in the sonoluminescent cavitation cell, with carbon nanotubes the same but sometimes greenish white, with pd nanocrystals you get blue flashes and occasionally a brighter than normal and while flash. With Pd loaded nanotubes it will make the blue and greenish white flashes and occasionally very bright pinkish white flashes with detectable nuclear radiation both gamma and neutron. 🤓
This was fascinating. I had previously been under the impression that cold fusion simply doesn't work, but it sounds like it really just has the same problem hot fusion does: taking more energy to cause the fusion than you get out of the reaction.
That does make it annoying that it doesn't see research and investment the way hot fusion does.
the problem is much worse: we dont actually understand what the problem is because we dont understand the mechanism. it gets worse than that though: we dont understand the mechanism because we cant get it to work consistently enough to start isolating variables. unfortunately, we dont understand why we cant get it to work consistently so we arent making progress on isolating those variables, therefore we cant figure out the mechanism, and thus we cant figure out how to get it to work consistently. its a real conundrum, and quite unique afaik.
@@jonathanodude6660 All I would like to know if there is good experimental confirmation (peer reviewed, clear enough) that anything nuclear happens in these experiments. That there is (delta)E=(delta)mc^2 kind of energy release and creation of isotopes that were not there to start with in the experiment. If so- then all the power to experimenters. But I'm afraid that we don't have such confirmation(none of cited sources in video). Am I correct?
And the problem is much worse. Due to the reputational risk, we don't have many scientists entering the field or money being used to investigate it (outside of Japan, initially), or even trying to replicate it. By the way, there were many people who did claim to replicate it, but due to the reputational hit to the field, these people were written off as "true believers" despite their previous experience as scientists. Storms was a good example. It didn't help that the field was also influenced by some folk that did have all the traits of true believers.
I don’t know why, but all fusion sounds “hot” to me.
yes--- because you believed the onslaught of propaganda used to discredit Fleishman and ponds. Because the establishment controls the media.
this is the funniest physics channel on youtube. Maybe its because I'm also german, but the "punchlines" are perfectly placed to be funny without really interrupting the flow of information.
How many Germans does it take to change a lightbulb?
One, they're efficient.
Wow! Nice job Sabine. Incredibly comprehensive information on this subject! Learned quite a bit here. And thanks for mentioning my recent video on the Strong Force. Incredible
Thanks for watching 👆 msg my trader Jeremy tell him I referred you he will introduce you to an investment with big profits if you are interested.
I have come to greatly enjoy your programs. You explain complex issues and problems, with no dumbing down. That takes great skill and a thorough understanding of the subject. I may just be a bohunk Georgia boy, but I am not an ignoramus. I think you respect the intelligence of every viewer.
0:00 It's not working
0:30 Fusion release Energy
1:23 Hot Fusion Eats Up Energy More Than It Releases
2:17 Replace Electrons with Muons - Neuron Catylized Fusion
5:56 Palladium and Heavy Water
7:16 Reputation Trap
8:29 2019 Google, Japan
9:09 Low Energy Nuclear Reactions LENR
11:02 Nano-Cracks, "unable to replicate finding."
13:18 "Something's going on, we don't know what"
14:30 The Strong Nuclear Force becomes weaker at high energy
15:34 16:26
17:16 1991 method, ongoing inexpensive research
18:16 Basics of Physics w/Brilliant
Nice work, man. Thanks 👍🏻
Cool thanks
Good.
we see what you are doing here (everywhere?) - much obliged and keep up the good work sir 🙂
5:40 since the 1920's ,,,
Bring back the palladium night club!
Or maybe the Petro giants has sabotage all research ,after all they buy all governments?
Great summary. I'm an engineer and I have experience measuring temperature and heat. As you say it is difficult to make precise measurements in this area. I think it was Feynman who warned about effects just on the borderline of experimental precision. It is unfortunately common in science for experimentalists to ignore data that disagrees with their pre-conceived ideas.
Thank you Sabine as always for the great summarization of the field of research, and for being appropriately skeptical but at the same wise enough to realize that LENR has significant potential in the theoretical as as well as applied physics and engineering to understand that something interesting is going on at this energy regime, and that these devices can be used as laboratory devices to probe this area of research.
This is definitely worth investigating for the science alone, and the possible payoff in knowledge and possibly energy.
Not to mention those who make advances can ether be bought off to shut up and pretend their research 'couldn't be replicated' or threated into silence so they don't suddenly disappear... Even if they are willing to bite the bullet to push forward anyway most people fold if you start threatening their family, friends, and other loved ones. To figure out why research is buried/halted or 'reputation' damaging, just think of what corporate or political orgs would lose billions or go bankrupt if such a breakthrough is created.
@@awakenedpersona6488 That could be true when you look at the backlash toward climate change science but I don't know if any scientist has been threatened because of this research. Hanson (cannot remember his first name) the republicans tried to silence him I know. With climate change research there are so many scientists agreeing that it would be hard to threaten them in mass and get away with it. In LENR there is only a few scientists at present so the situation might be very different.
Know this, Sabine: I think I speak for many, many people when I say to you, we love you. You provide true value, and that, nowadays is a precious commodity. I utterly enjoy your content. I salute you.
Back in the day I used to pay people with sweets to act as 'friends'. I was so glad to discover nuclear physics because with neutrons there's no charge.
Haaaaa. Good one 😂
Sabine is literally one of the most respectable creators on the platform
With "Mutti" gone she is the next star to make waves!
I wish my high school science, chemistry, and physics teachers had been as effective as Sabine in communicating complex ideas.
Definitively! If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough - Albert Einstein.
@@augustlandmesser1520 As simple as possible, as complex as needed. - Albert Einstein
I wish mine had been as good as Sabine in communicating how _interesting_ science is!
They made it so boring, so I didn't even want to try to understand.
@augustlandmesser1520
To me, this implies that we can only understand simple things!
It worries me though that Albert Einstein said it.
I love this channel, does anyone know any other similar science channel similar to this one? (just straight science and no fluff)
Stanley Pons introduced cold fusion to the American Chemical Society in Dallas in 1989. It was very exciting. Later attempts to replicate were like trying to play basketball when the air goes out of the ball. One person at Texas A & M explained that in their further work, when it seemed to work, there was a lot of heat and the palladium rods would distort. And, that pure palladium would not work; it had to have impurities, possibly if i recall 5% platinum. Something was happening, if not cold fusion, but possibly neutron capture? Very obvious is that if we stick to known channels using known paradigms, we will not discover new worlds. Kudos to those who continue this work. Thank you Professor Sabine, for an insightful presentation.
Sabine: There's just one problem...
Me: Wow. Only one problem remaining to solve? That's fantastic!
Sabine: It's not working.
Me: ...oh
"there's just one problem" x 30
I'm reminded of Isaac Arthur's favourite catchphrase: "The first rule of warfare is..."
Reminds of Colombo, "There's just one thing..."
Well... it *might* work, it just hasn't been replicated :P
hahahaha yeah :D shes always funny to the bone:D
Even if LENR never produces significant amounts of energy, surely research in this energy will produce significant amonts of knowledge. Basic research is never wasted.
Sadly that is not true, billions of dollars have gone into various cold fusion efforts and produced nothing usable at all, both at a theory level or practical level.
Standard conclusion of nearly all research: "More research is needed."🙂
Good summary. In 1989 I didn't think there was any breakthrough but it has come to mind from time to time and I don't dismiss the idea of cold fusion anymore.
As an old guy from Utah that remembers the Pons/Fleischmann flash and fizzle news events, I'm glad to hear there is still research going on in cold fusion. It is one of those things that *seems* like it should be feasible and we just need that first breakthrough. We are sort of at that post electric but pre lightbulb era. Where we know enough to conjecture and try out a bunch of things, but it's mostly just guessing from millions of permutations. Once we have a small success, we can focus on a narrower set of parameters.
As Sabine pointed out very well, scientists ought to be cautious as not to become too overconfident that we believe we know that cold fusion is impossible, as chemistry cannot do such a thing. Science has shown in the past how easy it is to be too overconfident about presumptions. We have to acknowledge that we do not know everything and still have quite some gaps in our knowledge about materials science. A cold fusion method that we did not yet invent may just be lurking around the corner.
"if" we have a small success :) even with the unknowns, it may still turn out to not be viable way of extracting energy.
@@Guido_XL if the scientific elite had put more effort in high temp MSR_fission_reactors, we would have plenty of energy with little residual actinides (wastes ! ,?) available by now! The technology of FLiBe salt would be well known and established or chloride-salt-based fast reactors would be running and feeding on old nuc wastes, completely eliminating the need for long term safe storage facilities! Fission is easy, Fusion is hard.
Time's up. They had 30 years and produced nothing, time to move on.
I was a post doc in the Chemistry department in the early to mid 1980s and I knew Pons and Fleischmann. Perhaps you and I know each other back then.
Education and comedy a great combination there is just one problem, very few brilliant people have a sense of humor like Sabine. She brings a smile to my face each time I watch a video of hers. 😁👍👍
Or a laugh-out-loud moment. I love how she blindsides you by slipping in a silly image/idea into the middle of a serious technical stream ala Dave Barry. 3:56 "It's not just because lab life is lonely, and neutrons are better than no company"
@@GntlTch The deadpan delivery of that one was perfect.
I am retired now, but back in the day, I spent a lot of time studying the channeling phenomena of MeV alpha particles in single-crystal silicon.
The channeling phenomena widens and becomes less pronounced as you decrease the incident particle's energy. It often struck me that if you aligned a single crystal substrate with a low-energy deuterium beam the beam would be focused to the center of the channel. as the deuterium piled up in the center of the channel the incident beam would be focused on that deuterium, effectively "Increasing" the d-d cross-section. It seems to me that an optimum energy and crystal substrate could be found to get a enhanced reaction going. There are some other tricks with two crystals you can do, but I digress
What I like most about your channel is that you are open to the possibility the conventional interpretation is wrong where evidence permits.
Thank you Sabine for a Cool Cold Fusion review! I love your take on it.
I remember when I was an undergrad at my community college (College of the Redwoods) in Northern California, in 1989 there was a flare of excitement over Stanley Pons and Robert Fleischman's claims. One of the chemistry professors was like "yeah we've got the equipment, let's take a shot at it..." I got wind of the attempt, and asked to see the professor. I pointed out to him that since we really had no idea what was going on, that potential radiation hazards should be considered. I merely showed him that even a 1 W source of fast neutrons could produce a hazardous situation (a whole class of students getting fast neutron flux seemed to horrify him.) I asked that they slow down, obtain some additional radiation monitoring equipment before they attempt it. The suggestion was well taken, and the first experiment was done with a Geiger counter borrowed from the Geology department, and a closed circuit television system (borrowed from the Media and Broadcast Dept,) and a bunch of plastic barrels full of sand behind a maintenance building. First experiment only elicited a small twitch on the Geiger counter...so it was considered safe enough for the lab...
It was just interesting how the Chemistry Dept did not even consider the physics involved in nuclear fusion. Just a little bit of caution....
Yeah. One of the red flags in many of those experiments was that there were people around active "Cold fusion" apparatus and they weren't dying of Radiation Poisoning.
An off-the-shelf Geiger counter doesn’t cut it to detect neutrons, as they work by detecting charged ionizing radiation.
They can be specially built for neutron detection though. By making a tube filled with a gas that will undergo a nuclear reaction with incoming neutrons.
Out of a general curiosity about how networked into the wider science community a community college was back in the day...
Do you remember if they were using such a specialty tube?
@@NullHand No. But the college rented a scintillometer for the experiment. The Geiger counter was for detection of ionizing radiation.
Oh well, if we lose a few college lives it is for a good cause. We will set up memorial college scholarships in their names.
I saw it happening before - people are trying to prepare so much for failing with an experiement that sometimes it don't even occur to them what if it actually works as predicted? Or what if it works even more than predicted?
When typing this somehow the expression "Castle Bravo" came to my mind. Strange.
I agree that skepticism about getting practical cold fusion power is well-placed. I also agree that there's enough we can't explain, to make these lines of inquiry worth pursuing.
We may not get world-saving amounts of energy, but we'll probably get some new understanding of physics out of it.
Fred
The mysteries are what keep us interested. _Something_ is there, and if it is not what we are hoping to find it is still something we can find. That is good enough for now.
Skepticism? All LENR results have been characterised as "fraud" in the past, but now it becomes accepted, slowly but surely. Sabine has a short memory.
Just thank you for your objectivity, clarity, and competence. If you'd fool me I won't realize so keep up with your sense of responsibility. I count on you for honest scientific information!
Okay, coming back to this, because I watched it when it first came out, and youtube just proposed it to me again, and it made me laugh.
That "there is just one problem"...
Sabine is a very talented educator and communicator. We need more of her. In fact, we need at least one of her in every school.
If you make your lessons interesting and engaging, students will learn. If you bore them to tears, they won't. It really is that simple. Of course, simple is not easy, and finding a good educator is an endlessly frustrating task.
During my entire schooling I had... I think two teachers who were both engaging and effective. I had a great one that taught me next to nothing, because he was engaging but not very good at teaching, and none that were great at teaching but not very engaging, because the latter is a prerequisite for the former. Over the course of two decades, that is a very small number.
Sabine, I love your videos. Your sense of humor is awesome. You not only have deadpan face, but a voice to match too! You would make a great stand-up comic. You guessed it. There is just one problem - it doesn't pay too well...
Happy you finalized with serious scholarly thinking - there is something going on that we don't understand. Much better than simply stating that given current knowledge it is impossible, even though that kind of sober judgment is necessary, well in boring and costly situations... Pleasure to see your presentation.
There's no one so low-key and dry who can make me laugh so hard I have to stop the video😄. A rare gift. Also, I can understand the content! Very grateful.
ENG8 just had their catalyzed fusion device validated by UL laboratories in the UK to producing 5x electric power output vs input In previous validation tests in Portugal last year transmutations were discovered on the electrode....
Once again Sabine sheds light on something I had written off as a fraud. Watching the presentation I came to the same conclusion, something weird is going on that we don't understand. Cold fusion may not be possible but digging into this phenomena ought to add to our wealth of knowledge. Not to mention the notion of physicists and chemists working together, shades of Ghostbusters.
Really good explanation of the "Cold Fusion" concept.
And clearly if there is gaps in our knowledge, even if it does not end up with an energy source, we should spend money exploring it.
Later this knowledge may branch into many new valuable aplications.
The team that comes up with the patches for the "cold fusion" exploits deserves a round of applause. To come up with bug-solutions on such short notice is really impressive.
I stumbled upon her videos when a discussion of the pros and cons of nuclear power were discussed. I fell in love with her lectures because she does her best to avoid hype and present the material with humor and in terms I can understand. It’s like having a good professor.
It sounds like the palladium issues could be attacked by the significantly less-sexy fields of metallurgy and crystallography. It would be interesting to see whether the grain structure of the palladium influenced the decay products (checking the material defect hypothesis) and whether the crystal structure of the palladium was significantly changed after irradiation (checking the palladium decay hypothesis).
Many experimenters have found “micro pitting” on their electrodes after successful runs and none after unsuccessful runs.
My guess is that palladium's electronic field properties are connected with why it's such a standard catalyst in so many reactions as well as being useful in rudimentary cold fusion. It seems to me that if we are going to discover a way to generate energy-positive low-gravity cold fusion, we will need to find some way to exploit electron fields in order to breach their repulsive effects. We cannot simply push the nuclei together against the outward electron degeneracy pressure. Converting the electrons into muons is a good example of finding a way around the degeneracy pressure. Apparently palladium has some way of slipping past it as well, and I would wager good money (if I had any) that it's connected to palladium's use as a catalyst. Perhaps research into platinum, another major catalyst, could yield more insight. Maybe we can engineer a metamaterial with far stronger catalytic properties which could assist with the process to a greater degree.
@@TheReaverOfDarkness I'd think that any potential contribution palladium might have would be crystalline lattice confinement of deuterium atoms.
As for defects, annealing would help illuminate any such contribution by altering the defects in either direction.
Probably end up with another neutron source, rather than an energy source.
The problem of repeatability seems to be reoccurring issue. And that may be due to the ignored non-repeatability of the materials used to repeat the experiments.
It is very possible that to repeat the experiment, the confirming/debunking lab needs to use the very same substrate samples that the original labs used to observe the anomalous phenomena.
The 'magic' that is being missed might be contained in the rare and fortuitous piece of palladium used in the first experiments. Such debunking/confirming efforts must be done using the same original materials used originally.
@@GeeTrieste from what I've observed, it may well come down to techniques used in construction of the unit under test.
That's been borne out in every field over the years.
It is hard to express how relieved I am to learn that there is only one, single problem to be solved before we can enjoy the benefits of safe, reliable, and limitless fusion power. Thank you, Dr. Hossenfelder.
I am quite sure the "Save the Earth" crowd as well as the great unwashed will be venomously against it . . .
Is that figuring out the order of the Dr. Russell's cards?
The Large Hadron Collider pumps a lot of energy into proton collisions. This is why understanding the strong nuclear force in LHC collisions is quite simple, by which I mean a PHD in particle physics will do. Thank you Sabina, this is good to know
people get beam-time for 1/2 hour once a year. rest of the year they just publish papers.
The studio lighting in this video is superb, really makes your eyes pop. And the scientific content is great, of course.
I've just finished reading Keith Tutt's The Scientist, The Madman, the Thief and Their Lightbulb, which adds another dimension to what Sabine so ably explains here. Well done.
Even if we don't get net energy gain, it's still a relatively inexpensive way to explore some fundamental physics. Love your videos.
This was one of the most fascinating (and humorous) videos yet! Keep up the good work Sabine!
When the music popped in I almost spit my drink, I'm used to these types of videos being boring so I let my guard down ahahaha
I think so many of us who watch this video are fans of cold fusion and we admire your courage above other things.
Thank you so much Sabine. Now I increased my understanding of cold fusion and the inherent problems abounding.
We already have a working fusion reactor at safe distance, all we got to do is to install and improve the equipment to harvest its energy and find ways to make that energy source less intermittent, ie find ways to store that energy more easily (aka more efficiently and more economically).
There's just one problem...
This channel has become my go to when I want to have a complicated idea explained to me in a way I can (almost) understand.
I think Sabine is one of the few scientists that look at facts objectively instead of throwing a tantrum whenever something doesn't fit into the classic science frameworks
Yes, there is something profoundly wrong in science academia if just making this video could damage your reputation. Those people are the same types of people that in a different time would have thought autopsies were necromancy and shun any who attempted such research. Thank you for going through with this video.
I agree. The science is never (truly) settled.
Or this is just cozy excuse for not doing good science aka making experiments that can actually proof or disprove the thing, and following the data. And it there are only negative results- calling it as it is- not existing phenomenon (tentatively as everything is, until someone provides the proof). One can make dozens of "theories" about how thing can be explained but I would like to see first proof that "the thing" actually happens.
@@msxcytb As she said, something IS happening. We just don't know what.
@@scottslotterbeck3796 indeed. The excitement about cold fusion exists because of assumption/hope that some sort of nuclear transformations take place. Without it it is some other sort of "interesting"
Wow Sabine! Thank you for this.
You really make such clear, precise and easy to understand content ( relative to topic difficulty ofc ).
I cannot imagine combing through all this information / papers / news articles on my own.
She's hot as well.
Sabine you are up there with the greats of science communicators on TH-cam. I love your videos, thank you so much.
Thank you for this very balanced view. It is a good antidote to the frankly, anti-intellectual folks who say “it is impossible because of physics“. As if all of physics is a settled matter. the number of times in the history of science, where people said something was impossible, and turned out to be possible is huge.
Didn't expect the college in my town gets a shout out for doing something good on this channel. I hope UofM is successful in reproducing those results
"...by which I mean a PhD in Nuclear Physics will do."
Love the snark - this really helps with the discussions as it helps to keep me engaged when Sabine talks about stuff that's nearly always going over my head.
Thank you for this video. You are reminding us of what good science does; neither curtly dismissing nor blindly accepting, but keeping an eye out for the gaps in our knowledge and looking more closely to fill them in.
I've told people about Sabine, as a good way to explain scientific ideas objectively... it's always a treat, in the US, for people to try and sus out what her political agenda is. That's how lost the discourse is here (for a lot of people): the idea of objective criticism is so foreign to them, they can't really wrap their minds around the idea that someone would create media WITHOUT an implicit political bias. Thank you for that :^)
Worked on Cold fusion at MIT in the late 80s....we had made some progress and when were ready to publish initial positive energy results the professor was told he would loose his DOE grants and funding....pressure came from the DOE fast and furious.
MFMP on YT hosted by Bob Greenyer is heating up cold fusion. The science and tech are developing rapidly. Cheers.
Do you have documentation for that claim? I find it very hard to believe, unless he was using grant money for something for which it was not granted.
Build something useful first, and then publish it so others can duplicate it.
As valuable as your knowledge in these areas is for your audience, your open-mindedness and honesty are with 100 times more. Please keep it up.
Brilliant communication skills. Your videos are always a 'Learning Experience'!
The stellar engine within the Electrostatic (ES) and Electrogravitic (EG) Model is self-explanatory.
- The Aether has 3 energy level space fabrics and 3 string (loop) theory
- The Matter has 3 energy level space fabrics and 3 string (loop) theory
The stellar engine is a supercompacted supersolid star core of gravitons
- The stellar engine's photosphere is a supercompacted region of Aether space fabric COLD FUSING (NON-NUCLEAR) of Hydrogen to Iron
- The photosphere uses the 3 energy level Aether space time fabrics of 3 strings (and loop) theory graviton-tensor-graviton-tensor-graviton ...
- Aether Gravitons, Electrino gravitons, and Small electron gravitons are positron-positron pairings producing gravitational force
- Aether Graviton tensors, Electrino tensors, and Small electron tensors are electron-positron pairings having dual electrical force and gravitational force
- The Aether space fabric strings within the stellar engine's star core massive gravitational force of the photosphere converts these multiple 3 positrons into their respective energy level supra gravitons producing pressure, ... and the multiple electrons into their respective energy level supra electrons producing ionization
- These supra gravitons and supra electrons are the actual active fusion agents within the stellar engine photosphere, fusing Hydrogen up to Iron
- The normal deep space Aether space fabric has sub-quantum entanglement and is in a cosmic steady state tension, with the tensors having dual gravitational force holding the other gravitons together (preventing cosmic expansion), and the electrical force pushes away the gravitons (preventing cosmic collapse)
- Aether space fabric operates within wave physics and QM QED
- The stellar engine photosphere has emissions of radio eaves, microwaves, and infrared
- The Lord (radio waves, microwaves), Humphrey (infrared), and Pfund (infrared) electron transition series operate within the Aether realm
- **** This, by mechanical definition, is Cold Fusion, as a non-nuclear Hot Fusion radioactive (Uranium series et al) mechanism
- The stellar engine's chromosphere is a supercompacted region of Matter space fabric COLD FUSING (NON-NUCLEAR) of Cobalt up to Element 91 non-radioactive Protactinium
- ** and only higher nuclear radioactive HOT FUSING happens with Uranium up to Element 118
- The chromosphere uses the 3 energy level Matter space time fabrics of 3 strings (and loop) theory graviton-tensor-graviton-tensor-graviton ....
- Matter electron gravitons, Muon electron gravitons, and Tau electron gravitons are positron-positron pairings producing gravitational force
- Matter electron tensors, Muon electron tensors, and Tau electron tensors are electron-positron pairings having dual electrical force and gravitational force
- The Matter space fabric strings with the stellar engine's star core massive gravitational force of the chromosphere converts these multiple 3 positrons into their respective energy level supra gravitons producing pressure, ... and the multiple electrons into their respective energy level supra electrons producing ionization
- These supra gravitons and supra electrons are the actual active fusion agents within the stellar engine chromosphere, fusing Cobalt up to Element 91 Protactinium, ... and then into the higher nuclear fusion of Uranium up to Element 118
The normal deep space Matter space fabric has quantum entanglement and is in a cosmic steady state tension, with the tensors having dual gravitational force holding the other gravitons together (preventing cosmic expansion), and the electrical force pushes away the gravitons (preventing cosmic collapse)
- Matter space fabric operates within light/particle physics and QM QCD
- The stellar engine chromosphere has emissions of visible light, UV rays, [x rays], gamma rays
- The Paschen (visible light), Balmer (UV rays, [x rays]), and Lyman ([x rays], gamma rays) electron transition series operate within the Matter realm
- *** This, by mechanical definition, is Cold Fusion of non-nuclear elements, ... and Hot Fusion radioactive (Uranium series et al) mechanism
Here is the real truths of the Sun's stellar engine and processes.
It is the same for the (wrongly worded) Black Hole, which is not a black HOLE, not portal, nor wormhole to multiple dimensions. A black body is the naked remains of a former (super)nova star explosion's star core or star core fragment. The black body is reattempting electrogravitic accretion of its surrounding space debris in evolving back its photosphere, and eventual chromosphere. The event horizon is the photosphere--chromosphere boundary. There is no spaghettification effect, and no light capture, other than the Aether variable light speed photinos which remain captured (and still glowing) in the photosphere. The event horizon is the corollary of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, where the photosphere's electron transition series of radio waves, microwaves, and infrared are emitted. A black body is also conducting Cold Fusion within its evolving photosphere.
I love the use of meme music every time "there's just one problem" is said :D
8:15 This Australian is Dick Smith, who started out as a home grown version of Radio Shack, selling electronic components and kits to hobbyists. He was the first person to fly a helicopter to both poles, and started the Australian Geographic Society.
Dick Smith hates Germans but his middle name is Harold!!!
He came to my highschool in a helicopter back in my senior year, I cannot remember what it was for I think for some speech about leadership and perseverence.
@@Moonchild15225 Clearly his speech wasn't about memory :)
@@LawpickingLocksmith Harold is a pretty common name, albeit not so much for younger people.
That explains that. I'm glad Sabine dismissed him as 'some Australian', I think he's not as important as he wishes he was in public life, apart from his contributions to knowledge.
I'm glad that there are people out there willing to get their hands dirty and risk their reputation exploring this topic, the potential is so huge that is a shame that there is such a stigma in the science community. Even if the probability is 0.001% for this thing to work, it seems dumb to not spend a few bucks investigating it. Glad Sabine has a positive attitude towards this, who would have thought! 😉
Even if cold fusion doesn't work, the precise mapping of materials properties is worth the investment. Who knows what we can do with this knowledge?
Barely a century ago nuclear physics was an unproven field. Today even minor league physics geeks know the names of the pioneers.
@@NorseGraphic and the more important - it has much more opportunities, areas and directions of study than hot fusion, for which the main and almost only possibilities - is to increase the temperature and the size of the reactor
The same argument can be made for investigating UAPs (UFOs). But...there's just one problem.
Avi Loeb has repeatedly called for more investigation of UFO, same for Michio Kaku
16:05 Although it's logical think to think that an imperfection in a grid
can be the cause of fusion not happening, it can also be reverse.
Not saying this is true, but what if the imperfection itself
is the cause for the fusion, like when pushing too many deutrium nuclei
into the 'faulty' material, which then forces some of those irregularities
to bring the deuterium nuclei even closer together, or somehow
turns them at a perfect angle for fusion ?
In that case the reason for the failure is a correct material grid, and the reason
for succesful fusion is the failure in the material grid.
Once again, not claiming this to be true, but looking at it logically this may be true.
An amorphic structure usually has interatomic spaces that vary in size.
I don't think this will actually solve anything, but you know, maybe it helps.
One of the best standup performances I've seen in years! Laughed my brains out!
I had come across a couple of the examples you had hear about cold fusion that actually works, but the papers were WAY above my level. This video is an accessible explanation of cold fusion. And, that unknown "nuclear resonances" is definitely going in some fiction. Subscribed.
Resonances are potentially a key factor, if it's true. See the Mossbauer Effect, also, more speculatively, Peter Hagelstein's ideas on applying Dicke superradiance to crystal lattices.
It's not a problem, it's a challenge!
Indeed 😅
That's what corporate suits always told us... "don't think of them as problems, think of them as challenges! Positivity!" Makes me physically ill to remember 🤣🤣
@@jamesduncan6729 Yes, the positivity that formulated corporate speak reinforces the cult in corporate culture.
@@albirtarsha5370 One of us... one of us... 🧟♂️
I have a serious drinking challenge!
This is far more interesting than I expected. I came to hear about cold fusion research, but I was intrigued by the particle physics questions.
Thanks for bringing us so much knowledge in easier ways to understand. You're amazing!
Sabine does her homework so thoroughly before each video. A consummate scholar.
Wrong. Her Rossi story is a ludicrous mashup of what that "cold fusion" fraudster really did. Anyone who knows anything about Rossi and his pathetic "Energy Catalyzer" scam could have done better than she did.
@@fredzoepfl9585 Would you care to enlighten us?
@@CAThompson Sure. How much time does "us" have? Rossi began lying about "cold fusion" after he got out of prison for his awful "waste-to-oil" scam, not before. He lied to everyone for years about "nickel to copper transmutation" and "proton lithium-7 fusion." He sold a "1-MW cold fusion reactor" to an incredibly gullible and ignorant investor for US$1.5M.He sold the same sucker a "non-exclusive license" for another US$10M. He didn't just disappear. Even today, he's claiming that he invented devices that run on "zero-point energy." He did abandon CF/LENR, but he's still grifting.
This is an extremely well done video! Thanks for treating this seriously; anytime we find something we don't understand we should drive the investigations to a conclusion.
This was a good article. yet to many people associate cold fusion with heat instead of a tool to use with energy. Think of encryption, the computer does the work and together they produce a finished product.. This relationship will be used to advance force fields, teleportation ,cellular and genetic reconstruction.
Excellent mixture of dark [redacted] humor, basic knowledge and up-to-date information about cold fusion. Worth to be watched, even multiple times.
I watched the original congressional hearing on cold fusion in the 80's. Even then, it was clear that the initial target should've been knowledge, not cheap energy.
You can't ask for both?
@@gilian2587 No, not as the first target. They had an anomaly that was already well worth investigating -- as an anomaly. Selling it with hopes of cheap net energy was a disastrous mistake.
Muon-catalyzed fusion was a successful experiment that taught us about previously unknown physics, not a failed attempt to generate cheap clean energy. Obviously we hoped all along for both, but an investigation almost always benefits from staying focused on "learning something" before moving on to "doing something". Cold fusion should've taken the same approach.
@@WilliamDye-willdye How does one go about substituting electrons for muons on an atom? I suppose that if one could collect muons in a container of some kind; then one could take the target atoms; ionize them, move them through a container that gets muons injected into the container; then one could expose those treated atoms to deuterium you could make it happen under specific laboratory conditions. But... you aren't going to get much useful energy out of that. How would one go about collecting/synthesizing muons? Sounds like a lab setup roughly as difficult to set up as what Wieman did with his Bose-Einstein condensates research. Maybe worse; the only way I know of that might allow one to synthesize muons would be to use a particle accelerator in addition to a special negative charge filtration then mass filtration setup -- like a kind of "distillery" for elementary particles with charge. Find a mechanism that produces more energy than that consumes? Not with the piddling laboratory setup I described.
Edit -- looks like one can take a narrow beam of high energy protons; collide it with a metal like titanium to generate pions which will decay into positive and negative muons. Again... this sounds like an accelerator setup.
Edit edit -- then there's the problem of muon containment. Once they collide with a normal material, there's a good chance of muon loss, right? So one would need an EM field of some kind in the container to maintain the muon plasma and minimize losses.
Edit edit edit -- It looks like cosmic muons are constantly being generated. Perhaps a collection mechanism could be devised from that?
All of these ideas sound like something of a reach.
@@gilian2587 I hope Dr. Hossenfelder reads this thread if she decides to create a video about muon-catalyzed fusion. It provides good examples of what her audience might be wondering as she describes the process, so it's useful feedback.
You asked some worthwhile questions, but I'm going to pass on trying to answer them in a TH-cam comment thread. The scientific instruments I help create are designed for biology, not particle physics. There are surprisingly strong similarities in how both fields collect data (it seems that everything we know came from a voltage differential), but your level of curiosity deserves a better tutor. Besides, YT has a nasty habit of deleting and hiding comments without warning or notification.
You're on a good track, tho'. I'm confident you can find good answers elsewhere.
@@WilliamDye-willdye Well... I'll see if I can track down some info/publications on muon-catalyzed fusion. Like you suggested, I doubt that net positive energy generation would be feasible from it.
You wouldn't happen to be a polypeptide chemist, would you? What types of instruments do you build?
Thanks so much for covering this. I didn't know just how ignorant I was about cold fusion and thought it was completely impossible, but the titanium experiments show otherwise. Who knows, maybe some metamaterials can lower the Colomb barrier much further.
Right, me too. I didn't know about the titanium substrate methods, and that they are even a commercial product for generating neutrons. I didn't know the variations on the theme of cold fusion, little about the muon catalyzed fusion, or the depth of how careers are threatened just by talking about it.
@@GeeTrieste I've been a big skeptic of fusion for years. Even if we are able to break-even and generate energy with it, there is no guarantee it will be economically viable.
But having seen Sabine's video, I see hope in cold fusion. Compared to hot fusion it's an area that has remained relatively unexplored.
I was in grad school (in math) when Fleischmann and Pons made their announcement. Shortly after the announcement, just as cold fusion seemed to be going down the tubes, I was at conference, and a well-known mathematician from the University of Utah (who was good friends with the cold fusion dudes) was there. He was fairly confident that there was something to cold fusion, and that something would eventually come of it. But, the thing that this math guy was most animated about was the way that other scientists reacted to the announcement. He claimed that most of the big researchers working on hot fusion had people present in Utah for the announcement, and that they went to great lengths to denigrate the idea, concentrating their effort on the press. Apparently, the purpose of this was to preserve the funding for hot fusion at all cost.
In any case, it's nice to know that cold fusion (i.e., LENR) has made enough of a comeback so that it can at least be studied once again.
I like the idea of finding nuclear catalysts. I hope researchers are able to develop them.
A very good and neutral approach to this controversial subject. Thanks for this video. Ten years ago, many were hoping these phenomenons would solve our energy (and thus climate) problems. Today, it seems it is just some interesting scientific question without any immediate benefits, but that's still something that needs to be investigated.
This whole cold fusion thing is starting to remind me of the research into extra-sensory perception (ESP) in the mid-20th century. Those researchers also had all these rationalizations as to why no one else could duplicate their results and why ESP seemed to come and go. A simpler explanation was that it was all due to experimental error. And so it is with cold fusion. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
This Video is so incredibly funny, I love the sad Violin music. I'm no scientific genius, just a retired electronics repairman. But I've been reading science journals since I was a child and I know enough to appreciate the humor.