Cold Fusion Redux?

Posted on May 26, 2008
Filed Under Science |

Put this one in the “I’ll believe it when someone replicates it” category. PhysicsWorld reports the Japanese have made a big cold fusion breakthrough. Those of you old enough might remember after all the hype and then backlash that some claimed cold fusion worked only with palladium from certain mines where some odd microfissures were found in the metal. It was speculated that these “holes” allowed fusion to take place.

While for the most part cold fusion became the kind of science that could taint your career in Europe and the US there was some military funding and then a few folks who were careful to publish ambiguously titled papers no obviously related to cold fusion. However in Japan researchers were able to continue researching with (reportedly) less stigma than in America. So these new claims from Japan perhaps aren’t that surprising.

What will be interesting is to see if this turns into the mess that claims from the University of Utah (and to a lesser extent BYU) were.

It’s not entirely clear from these initial reports if they are merely creating a matrix of fissures akin to what may have been occurring in some mined palladium.

And, as with the University of Utah reports, it’s not clear if other people will measure the same excess of heat.

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