Question:
What exactly is cold fusion? Is it just a theoretical thing that
could never happen?
Replies:
No, it is the theories that say it Cannot happen. Well, all
the reputable theories anyway. There is a technique for
room temperature fusion, called muon-catalyzed fusion, that
is perfectly reputable (using a muon, or heavy electron,
two hydrogen nuclei can be made to fuse much faster than
they ordinarily would). The ruccus concerns a poorly
done electro-chemistry/calorimetry experiment in which the
perpetrators claimed to have seen a lot of excess heat
that they attributed to room temperature fusion going
on inside a palladium electrode. This was back in 1989 or so,
and they still have not been convincingly disproven, probably
because science does not have good mechanisms for disproving
determined people...
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