Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[maury]

Zeev, (re: cold fusion) Wondered if this might interest you
if you have not already seen it. Follows the link plus the first and last paragraphs of the article.
Cheers,
Maury

http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-4/p27.html

DOE Warms to Cold Fusion

Whether outraged or supportive about DOE's planned
reevaluation of cold fusion, most scientists remain deeply skeptical that it's real.

The cold fusion claims made in 1989 by B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann didn't hold up. But they did spawn a small and devoted coterie of researchers who continue to investigate the alleged effect. Cold fusion die-hards say their data from the intervening 15 years merit a reevaluation-- and a place at
the table with mainstream science. Now they have the ear of the US Department of Energy.

....... omitted .........

"The critical question is, How good and different are [the cold fusion researchers'] new results?" says Allen Bard, a chemist at the University of Texas at Austin. "If they are
saying, 'We are now able to reproduce our results,' that's
not good enough. But if they are saying, 'We are getting 10
times as much heat out now, and we understand things,' that would be interesting. I don't see anything wrong with giving these people a new hearing." In ERAB's cold fusion review in 1989, he adds, "there were phenomena described to us where
you could not offer alternative, more reasonable explanations.
You could not explain it away like UFOs."

Toni Feder
2004 American Institute of Physics