Cold Fusion again
From the
NY Times with a hat tip to
DangerousMeta:
bq. U.S. Will Give Cold Fusion Second Look, After 15 Years
Cold fusion, briefly hailed as the silver-bullet solution to the world's energy problems and since discarded to the same bin of quackery as paranormal phenomena and perpetual motion machines, will soon get a new hearing from Washington.
bq. Despite being pushed to the fringes of physics, cold fusion has continued to be worked on by a small group of scientists, and they say their figures unambiguously verify the original report, that energy can be generated simply by running an electrical current through a jar of water.
bq. Last fall, cold fusion scientists asked the Energy Department to take a second look at the process, and last week, the department agreed.
And more:
bq. "What's on the table is a fairly straightforward question, is there science here or not?" Dr. Hagelstein said. "Most fundamental to this is to get the taint associated with the field hopefully removed."
Interesting. Cold Fusion is one of these things that refuses to go away. The original Pons and Fleischmann work came into serious question but other people have been reporting anomalous activity. It should be simple enough to check this once and for all...
A related subject is the Farnsworth Fusor. This was invented by Philo T. Farnsworth who's main claim to fame was the invention of modern-day television.
Read about it
here and
here and
here
Posted by DaveH at March 25, 2004 10:36 AM