This subject really won't die. There's going to be another government study of the issue of Cold Fusion to put it to bed for all time.
That might be a mistake. You cannot kill this thing unless you have a wooden stake.
Anyway, a search of the blog mentioned reveals a Rice University Professor's blog---NanoScale News. I did a search of his blog for
posts on the subject of Magnons... Here's the search and results.
1/16/20: The original post, which in itself is a re-post of a 2010 post:
Boots and Oil Blog: What are magnons?: Good morning. This BECNF theory is on my mind this morning, so I'll start with that as my first post. I found the blog below in my qu...
I've seen a lot of clicks on the old cold fusion posts. Here's a video that discusses Kim's BECNF theory. It relies upon Bose-Einstein condensate ( BEC ) theory as a foundation for a theory on how cold fusion takes place.
The blog covered the topic for awhile, but moved on.
There seems to be an interest in the topic, so here's what GAB AI had to say about it.
GAB AI chat about cold fusion
There was a sensational claim in the eighties about "cold fusion". What
happened to that? Were there new developments? Please give the history
of this topic up until this very day.
Answer:
The story of "cold fusion" is one of the most famous controversies in modern
science, beginning as a global sensation and settling into a long-standing
stalemate that persists even today.
The 1989 Sensation
In March 1989, two reputable electrochemists, Martin Fleischmann (University of
Southampton) and Stanley Pons (University of Utah), announced in a press
conference that they had achieved nuclear fusion at room temperature.
They claimed their "tabletop" apparatus—a glass cell filled with heavy water and
a palladium electrode—produced more heat than could be explained by any known
chemical reaction. They hypothesized that deuterium nuclei from the heavy water
were being forced together within the palladium lattice, releasing energy.
Because fusion (as seen in stars and hydrogen bombs) typically requires millions
of degrees of heat, the scientific community was initially stunned and then
deeply skeptical.
The Immediate Backlash (1989–1990s)
The global attempt to replicate the results yielded a series of failures. Within
months, independent laboratories—including MIT and Caltech—reported that they
could not detect the "excess heat" or the nuclear byproducts (such as neutrons)
that should accompany fusion.
- Methodological Flaws: Critics identified significant errors in the duo's
calorimetry (heat measurement) and nuclear monitoring.
- DOE Review: In November 1989, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) panel
concluded there was no convincing evidence for the phenomenon, effectively
halting federal funding and labeling the research as "pathological science."
- Academic Isolation: Fleischmann and Pons left the University of Utah for
France in 1992, and the field largely disappeared from mainstream academic
journals.
The "LENR" Transition and Continued Research
Despite the scientific consensus, a small, dedicated group of researchers
continued the work, often renaming the field Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR),
Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (CMNS), or Lattice-Assisted Nuclear Reactions
(LANR) to move away from the stigma of "cold fusion."
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, this community continued to publish in niche
journals and advocate for funding, claiming they had identified repeatable
experiments, though none achieved the level of rigorous validation required for
acceptance by mainstream physics.
Developments and Current Status
The scientific establishment has revisited the topic periodically, but rarely
with a change in outcome:
- 2004 DOE Review: A second DOE review, which looked at new data, again found
that the evidence was not compelling. The panel was evenly split on whether
"excess heat" occurred, but the majority remained unconvinced that a nuclear
reaction was taking place.
- The "Break the Stalemate" Effort: As of August 2026, the field has seen a
notable, if cautious, injection of interest. In February 2026, the U.S.
Department of Energy’s ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy)
announced $10 million in funding for eight new projects. The specific goal of
this initiative is not to "prove" cold fusion, but to finally "break the
stalemate" and determine—once and for all—whether LENR holds any scientific
merit or if it can be definitively debunked using modern, state-of-the-art
materials science and diagnostic tools.
Summary
Today, cold fusion remains a fringe subject. While it is no longer considered a
"hot" topic for mainstream physics, it has not been fully extinguished. The
current scientific position remains that there is no accepted theoretical model
for how such a reaction could occur at room temperature, and historical claims
have not been robustly replicated. The ongoing ARPA-E projects represent the
most significant formal scientific engagement with the topic in two decades,
reflecting a desire to move beyond the 1989 controversy toward a final, data-driven
conclusion.
Comment:
Some things never change. However, one thing that does puzzle me... Why didn't Fleischman and Pons not get any neutrons? There should've been neutrons in that reaction.
I'll ask GAB AI again as a follow-up.
I understand the scientific position, but what did Fleishman and Pons have to say about the absence of neutrons in their original experiment?
Answer:
Fleischmann and Pons were aware that the lack of detected neutrons was a major problem, as conventional fusion theory dictates that deuterium-deuterium (D-D) fusion should produce neutrons as a primary byproduct. Their response to this discrepancy evolved as they faced increasing scrutiny:
1. Initial Claims of Detection
In their initial March 1989 announcement, they claimed to have observed neutron emission. However, this was almost immediately challenged by the scientific community. When MIT researchers analyzed the data Fleischmann and Pons had published, they found the "neutron peak" in their data was statistically indistinguishable from background noise and that the detector used had been calibrated incorrectly.
By May 1989, as reported by the Washington Post, Fleischmann openly admitted that the neutron graph in their published work was inaccurate due to a malfunctioning detector, though he insisted the fundamental phenomenon (excess heat) remained real.
2. The "Nuclear Transmutation" Hypothesis
Once it became clear that the expected neutron flux was not present (or was at best several orders of magnitude too low), Fleischmann and Pons were forced to hypothesize a different, non-standard mechanism for their results. They suggested that the fusion occurring in the palladium lattice was fundamentally different from the fusion occurring in high-energy plasma (like in stars or tokamaks).
Their primary arguments included:
- Alternative Channels: They proposed that the reaction might be proceeding via a "neutroless" path. They speculated that the energy was being transferred directly into the palladium lattice as heat through a process they could not fully explain, rather than being released as high-energy particles (neutrons or gamma rays).
- Helium-4 Production: Because they were not seeing the expected neutrons, they hypothesized that the product was not a neutron and Helium-3, but rather Helium-4. They suggested that the extra energy was being carried away by the lattice itself in a "multi-body" reaction. This was highly controversial because, in standard physics, Helium-4 production requires the emission of a high-energy gamma ray, which they also did not observe.
- Screening Effects: They speculated that the dense electron cloud within the metallic lattice of the palladium might "screen" the positive charges of the deuterium nuclei, allowing them to approach one another more easily, though this theory never gained traction among nuclear theorists who pointed out the massive energetic barriers still involved.
3. The Shift to "New Physics"
Ultimately, to justify the absence of radiation, the pair and their subsequent supporters moved away from standard nuclear physics. They argued that the lattice environment was a unique "condensed matter" system that altered the behavior of the nuclei, essentially creating a "black box" where traditional conservation laws of radiation were bypassed by the metal's structure.
The critical issue remained:
The scientific community viewed these explanations as post-hoc justifications designed to save a failing hypothesis. If the reaction did not produce the energetic particles predicted by known physics, critics argued it was more likely that the "excess heat" was simply the result of flawed calorimetry (e.g., uneven temperatures within the electrolysis cell or chemical energy being mistaken for nuclear energy) rather than a novel, unknown type of nuclear reaction.
In short, Fleischmann and Pons' pivot to "neutroless" fusion was the point at which their work moved from being a "controversial physics claim" to being viewed by most of the scientific establishment as a "pseudoscientific error."
Final comment:
It appears to me that a concerted effort was made to discredit the two scientists who came up with this theory.
If Cold Fusion ever does make it to scientific orthodoxy, it wouldn't be the first time that a scientist was treated as being wrong, but eventually confirmed as being right.
For those who are so hell bent to end fossil fuels, why don't you support something like this? Anti-nuclear activists don't want to go this direction, but their reasoning doesn't hold water. Molten-salt reactors can reduce long term wastes by 99 percent. Aneutronic fusion can do even better than that. Nuclear is the way to go. Solar is not the answer. Neither is wind.
Sen. Pennachio Introduces NJ Fusion Energy Bills, Tracking Down FF-2B's Problematic Oscillations, Subscription Drive Starts, and New Contest!: https://t.co/ZX11y1mY5q
Motivated by many observations of anomalies in condensed matter systems, we
consider a new fundamental Hamiltonian in which condensed matter and nuclear
systems are described initially on the same footing. Since it may be possible that
the lattice will respond to the mass change associated with a excited nuclear state, we
adopt a relativistic description throughout based on a many-particle Dirac formalism.
This approach has not been used in the past, perhaps due to the difficulty in separating
the center of mass and relative degrees of freedom of the nuclear system, or perhaps due
to an absence of applications for such a model. We recently found a way to separate
the center of mass and relative contributions to the Hamiltonian for the many-particle
Dirac model, which leads to somewhat different expressions for the kinematic mass,
Newton mass, and deBroglie mass of the many-particle Dirac composite. It is not clear
at this time whether such a difference is reflected in experiment. This separation allows
us to reduce the condensed matter and nuclear Hamiltonian into a more manageable
form. In the resulting model, there appears a new term in which nuclear transitions
are coupled to lattice vibrations.
Comment:
It is quite abstract, alright. Some people have trouble with abstract thoughts.
That's a bit of snark as in fighting fire with fire. Comments were of the type that I've noticed recently in political discussions- they tend to ridicule ideas and topics for which they have little knowledge nor understanding. This to make themselves appear feel better, I suppose.
My reaction is that a scientific explanation for cold fusion may be in condensed matter and quantum mechanics.
Too bad there isn't any honest attempt to understand the ideas, though.
It is only our future that is at stake. What's the big deal? /snark
As is usually the case, whenever there is a bit of controversy, there'll be some challenging calls. Such was the case for this show as well.
The one that stuck out for me was when Charles called and mentioned the gamma ray issue. There is one thing that's very clear now. There aren't any gamma rays being produced by Rossi's device. The reason that you know this is because of the demonstrations shown on video. If there were any gamma rays, there'd be a lot more caution about being in the room with this device. The amount of gamma rays expected should be enough to make everyone sick, or worse.
Dr. Storms mentioned that there would be a Nobel Prize waiting for anyone who could figure out how the energy gets out of the system. How then energy gets out indeed!
The idea that sticks with me is that the phenomenon could be about waves. A gamma ray is just a wave. All matter and energy in the universe is particles and waves. And there is this phenomenon known as as wave particle duality:
Wave–particle duality postulates that all particles exhibit both wave and particle properties.
Particles can act as waves, waves can act as particles.
So, as a bit of speculation, I wonder if the explanation could be related to that. Both of the explanations necessary- one for overcoming the coulomb barrier and the other for the lack of gamma rays- could be explained by wave particle duality. For the former, I favor the BECNF Theory of Y. Kim of Purdue. But Kim doesn't provide any theory for the lack of gamma rays, only for overcoming the coulomb barrier. Bose-Einstein condensates overcome the coulomb barrier by the quantum effects of waves. Could the wave particle duality explain the lack of gamma rays?
Gamma rays are a problem because of the need for shielding. Neutrons and alpha particles can be shielded more easily. Gamma rays- not so easy. In the case of Rossi's device, the main problem is the lack of gamma rays. There should be some if fusion is taking place. This is the crux of the problem, or controversy.
It isn't just a matter of shielding in the case of the E-cat. It is the most probable situation that there are no gamma rays being produced at all. But how can there be any fusion if there are no gamma rays?
Let me repeat here that BECNF explains the coulomb barrierand some other type of wave explains the lack of gamma rays. The latter speculation may be preposterous, but who knows? I haven't gotten any further ideas on the matter. Perhaps someone else could.
Update:
Not much to add because I don't know anything about the subject. I've been educating myself as much as is feasible by reading Wikipedia articles on the subject. Below is the list:
Diffraction grating Comment: I got this brainstorm that it may be possible to attenuate harmful radiation through this means. But it now seems like a long shot. Also, an idea occurred to me that waves may be interfering with each other and therefore maybe attenuating the gamma rays. But that is also a long shot.
Update:
Still reading about waves. It is an education, as I mentioned above. Here's what I'm reading now in Wikipedia: (Starting from #4 above)
By the way, none of this may tell anything about the E-cat, but it may be useful to know.
Update:
A question has arisen. In the video below, two light bulbs are said not to have interference because they are out of phase. But what would happen if they were?
In a BEC, could they be considered from the same source, and therefore in phase?
not in phase if two separate sources
but will interfere if it is in phase ( one source or two identical sources)
I wanted to write about War, well I found this link in the Wikipedia. If I didn't know any better, this could have been written by me:
Top Ten Problems Facing Humanity Over the Next 50 Years
Energy
Water
Food
Environment
Poverty
Terrorism & War
Disease
Education
Democracy
Population
If the E-cat were to be effective, wouldn't it make sense to get it into mass production as soon as possible? If it had a patent, wouldn't it be easier to determine if it is indeed effective? This problem doesn't need a lot of money to solve, just somebody willing to take it on.
Cold Fusion in bulk, macroscopic systems is controlled by the overlap of the vibrational modes of the dissolved deuterium nuclei.
Comment: Once again, something that may be analogous to a "wave" gets connected to cold fusion. It may have little connection to this presentation, just an observation of mine. Here's another observation just now: "an overlap" of vibrational modes. Question: could these act like BEC's?
Comment: But magnetism is not a part of the BECNF theory. Palladium is paramagnetic, while nickel is paragmagnetic above the Curie point. This appears to be something of a contradiction. But this isn't BECNF theory, it is another theory altogether. BECNF is my speculation in this instance.
My latest study was of the muon catalyzed fusion and it appears to me to be somewhat doubtful proposition for commercialization. The reason being that producing the muons is a bit of a challenge. In fact, that is indeed the problem in a nutshell. If muons could be produced in quantity and at low cost, this type of fusion would be feasible. This has known that for decades, however. It doesn't make sense to withhold that invention, should economical muon production had been achieved. It is not like cold fusion, in that the science is pretty much mainstream. You can't get a patent for cold fusion devices in the US, but you could get one for muon production, provided that you can prove it.
The thought that cold fusion is impossible is a bit of a semantic argument. If muon catalyzed fusion is possible, it is already "cold" because it can take place at room temperature. Maybe even below room temperature. Therefore, the problem is in the semantics, not the facts. Cold fusion is possible in this instance. The question should be this: is there some other way around the coulomb barrier? Somebody has thought of a way- or should I say many people have thought of ways in which this might be accomplished. Yet, for some reason, mainstream science doesn't even want to consider the possibility of cold fusion. How do you resolve this contradiction? Perhaps you can start by agreeing upon a definition of what cold fusion actually is.
Being somewhat more careful than average about word meanings, if I am not sure about what the word means, I'll go look it up. Okay, so let's do that for cold fusion and see what's out there:
Wikipedia isn't too sure about it, so there's a disambiguation page to clarify it. Cold fusion seems to have more meanings than the ones I usually think of. My understanding of cold fusion relates to the science. But there are other meanings, which are not anything like the science. Let's not go there and just stick with the scientific meaning.
Even there, the wiki has four different meanings
The low temperature low energy type usually associated with Fleischmann and Pons
Nuclear fusion at high energies [ comment: that doesn't exactly qualify, does it? It does break down this further into something called "generally cold but locally hot fusion"]
The most controversial one is no doubt the first one. The others seem to be well within the bounds of mainstream science.
A lot of the confusion seems to have started with a misunderstanding between Fleischmann and Jones at the time that they had agreed upon a joint submission for publication of their respective work. Jones was working on muon catalyzed fusion:
"Cold nuclear fusion" that had been published in Scientific American in July 1987
Perhaps the confusion and controversy could have been avoided if the agreement had been kept. It would seem that the whole thing deteriorated from that point on until "cold fusion" became known as a pathological science. Any scientist caught working on this could be punished.
The curious thing about it all was that there were anomalies which should have been a good enough reason for continued study. The unfortunate thing about it was that this continued "pathological scientific research" had to continue under a cloud of controversy. The controversy continues to this very day. Shouldn't the cold fusion confusion be laid to rest?
Most people who follow the space program have heard of the term "the right stuff". There was a movie made by that name, which I've had for awhile, but watched again just recently. The movie setting begins in 1947 and that's about the time that the sound barrier was being challenged. At the time, nobody knew for certain what would happen when the sound barrier was reached. There were those who believed that this was impossible. Over history, many things that were said to be impossible weren't impossible after all.
The Wright Brothers' feat of heavier than air flight was once considered impossible too. But less than a half century after doing that impossible feat, the sound barrier was next. The men challenging the sound barrier were test pilots and it was in their spirit to push the envelope. After seeing this spirit just the other night, I was wondering, what happened? Less than a half century after the Wright Brothers the envelope was still being pushed, but nearly a half century after walking on the moon, why isn't the envelope being pushed today?
Perhaps it's because we have become something of a risk averse society. Pushing the envelope is dangerous. Many test pilots lost their lives pushing that envelope. But the rewards were great. If the envelope wasn't pushed by men like these, we may still be on the ground. You could even say that without pushing the envelope throughout history, we may alll be living in caves. Pushing the envelope is necessary to progress, playing it safe comes at a cost. Even if lives are saved by playing it safe, the safety may impose a much greater cost in the future.
With respect to progress, there are more barriers that need to be overcome that do not necessarily mean the risk to life. What about the risks to one's career or to one's financial well being? In such cases, a risky move could be one that advocates an untried method or system which may or may not work. I am thinking of cold fusion. Many scientists pushed that envelope and some paid a heavy price for their refusal to back down to the dangers of researching that field. It was a real risk because look what happened to Fleischmann and Pons, who were a bit too bold for their own good. They claimed that the heat anomaly that they observed was due to a new and unknown process which came to be known as cold fusion. They were accused of being frauds and incompetents and their careers were ruined. Yet, in spite of this, research continued. Now, with Rossi's E-cat, there may be a commercial product on the horizon. But the catcalls continue. The disbelief in this new form of energy seems to form a real barrier to progress. Some boldness is required in order to overcome the latest barrier.
Maybe we don't need astronauts nor test pilots for this, but we do need that sort of courage. Playing it safe just won't do. The envelope must be pushed.
What do you say to people who reject something without honestly looking at it?
I doubt that many of the critics at that link have even bothered to examine it with an open mind. They pronounce their judgments like it was an edict from above. So confident they are! To these people, there could never have been a surprise in the history of man, could never have been a thing that was discovered that was not already anticipated.
All things are understood, and foretold before it ever happens, amen.
