Fusion now?

[aramis]

No, I can't.

What I can point you to is that, in the early 1990's, several posters on alt.sci.coldfusion with fingerable credentials and verifiable IP's were posting replications of Pons-Fleischman's experiments. They came to the newsgroups to recover lost daily data... since DOE and the FBI had seized their data locally.

I can also point you to examining the various threads on piezo-nuclear fusion and platinum-catalyst energetic systems.

Most of the websites that discussed the issue have since either deleted all references or gone away.

There was also a TV news journal which reported on the difficulties of finding funding for fusion research in the US.

 

[Straybow]

Yes, people duplicated P&F's results. Although some heat is produced there is no detectable fusion product (He/alpha particles) or byproduct (neutrons/positrons).

 

[redwalker]

Originally posted by Straybow:
Yes, people duplicated P&F's results. Although some heat is produced there is no detectable fusion product (He/alpha particles) or byproduct (neutrons/positrons).

P&F showed, or claimed to show, Helium. That was one big reason why they got crucified. So if no one has duplicated the Helium, no one has duplicated Pons and Fleischman.

Then again, if I find some researcher and say that he's *claimed* to have produced Helium, it could just be taken as prima facie evidence that said researcher must be lying...

...it's a shame Eugene Mallove isn't here to straighten me out on who's credible and who's not. It's so anomalous that he got killed...

 

[aramis]

Science may be Trial and Error...

but Technology is Science filtered through the bureaucrats AND businessmen...

 

[sgbrown]

Originally posted by Aramis:
Science may be Trial and Error...

but Technology is Science filtered through the bureaucrats AND businessmen...

Very nicely put!

The end result is that good ideas are not always recognized or marketed and bad ideas are sometimes bought hook, line and sinker. I don't think that's the norm - but it happens often enough that it can't be discounted as a possibility.

I figure the greater the political or economic impact of the new tech, the more likely "pure" scientific motives will lose out to other interests. Cheap workable fusion would have HUGE impact.

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by Aramis:
Science may be Trial and Error...

Science is very rarely trial and error. At a minimum, it tends to be highly directed trial.

 

[aramis]

Anthony: go read enough Psychology or Medical studies and you'll realize it's often the unexpected confounding factors that lead to new discoveries.

Likewise, vulcanization of rubber was by trial... but the errors lead to some spin off technologies.

Half of good science is examining the errors and odd results, and seeing if it's worth a damn. Far less so in the "pure sciences" (eg Physics, Astronomy), far more so in chem and pharmacology.

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by Aramis:
Anthony: go read enough Psychology or Medical studies and you'll realize it's often the unexpected confounding factors that lead to new discoveries.

Yes, unexpected results are important (if you always get the expected result, your theory is working and you don't need anything new), but it's still not generic trial and error. You don't just try random things -- you try things that you expect have a high chance of giving interesting/unexpected results.

 

[aramis]

Anthony:

Random, no. Semi-random, yes.

certain medical studies are doing just that...

Collect random samples of microbes from far away, then expose known pathogens and pathogenic cells (microbes, cancers) to them to see the results, for good or bad. Expected result is no useful impact. They hope for 1 in 1000 to have a notable impact. Random enough for me.

Vulcanization and Bakelite were discovered by semi-random experimentation. The goal was known, and random methods were tried until one worked, spinning off several other lines of research in the process.

Hell, even the early atom smashing was "crash and see."

LOTS of science has been done with the "What happens when we do X to Y" model, without a working theory first.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

LOTS of science has been done with the "What happens when we do X to Y" model, without a working theory first.

Especially late at night, after a few beers...

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by Aramis:
LOTS of science has been done with the "What happens when we do X to Y" model, without a working theory first.

Of course. When you have a model with a known hole, you try to plug that hole. That doesn't mean exactly the same thing as trial and error.

 

[TheEngineer]

Hi !

Guess the approaches to get some results are just very diverse.

From my own experience, I e.g. had to make experiments dealing with the ability of different bacteria to get along in soils contaminated with hydrocarbons.
Well somehow this was a trial and error setting, but anyway everything happend in a very controlled and documented way.
OTOH we made experiments to optimize shielding for medical x-ray devices. Here the whole setting was clearly defined and the actual results just represented a kind of practical confirmation.

Generally I would assume, that people know what and why they do something during research.
I'm really not sure which major breakthrough in the last century really was just a result of a random event/luck (ok, penicillin somehow appears as such)... mostly it was perhaps still intensive and directed work and the "discovery" merely a question of time.

Regards,

TE