This is a picture of the sun, taken in the UV part of the spectrum by NASA's STEREO telescope. You can't see UV, so it's coloured blue for your viewing pleasure.
Why am I boring you with blue suns? It's a metaphor. Forgive me.
Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the cold fusion announcement by Pons and Fleischmann. The idea is, basically, that you can release nuclear energy by the same process the sun uses, but without all the drama. Since the American Chemical Society was meeting, today’s cold fusion pioneers took the opportunity to present their latest results. I think they make pretty interesting reading.
When Pons and Fleischmann made their first announcement (boy, what an error of judgement that was), everyone basically said, “where are all the neutrons?” Nuclear fusion reactions are meant to give out high energy neutrons.
Well, now it seems they’ve found the neutrons. As this report from New Scientist says:
The team used a low-tech particle detector: a plastic called CR-39 that is otherwise used for spectacle lenses. When CR-39 is bombarded with subatomic charged particles, a small pit forms in the material with each impact.
The researchers placed a sample of CR-39 in contact with a gold or nickel cathode in an electrochemical cell filled with a mixture of palladium chloride, lithium chloride and deuterium oxide (D2O), so-called "heavy water". When a current was passed through the cell, palladium and deuterium became deposited on the cathode.
After two to three weeks, the team found a small number of "triple tracks" in the plastic – three 8-micrometre-wide pits radiating from a point (see diagram, top right). The team says such a pattern occurs when a high-energy neutron strikes a carbon atom inside the plastic and shatters it into three charged alpha particles that rip through the plastic leaving tracks. No such tracks were seen if the experiment was repeated using normal rather than heavy water.
Read the whole report – the case for taking this seriously is getting more and more persuasive with each publication these guys make.
But - and here's where the metaphor kicks in - there’s also a report on the BBC website, which quotes noted cold fusion critic Frank Close. This provides a near-perfect example of someone in an entrenched position being pathologically unable to assimilate new information.
He says:
"Nothing's really changed in 20 years.”
Erm, so not true.
"It is an interesting date in the calendar of wrong results that claim to be science."
Erm, meaningless.
"If I come up with a weird phenomenon and call it cold fusion, I know that reporters will be interested. Convincing the scientific community is another matter entirely."
Ah, the old character assassination move. (Actually, I met these researchers during research for 13 Things, and the one thing they are really not interested in is reporters. I had a very hard time getting their attention even when I was in the same room).
If you think the progress of science is all about a careful weighing of the evidence, boy, you really are 20 years behind the curve…
(Frank Close's book on Antimatter is very good, by the way...)
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