Monday, May 26, 2008

And Yoshiaki Arata Shall Save Us All...

When the Fleischmann/Pons experiments did not pan out in the late 1980s, the subject of cold fusion more or less disappeared from respectable scientific discourse. Nevertheless, research has continued in a kind of underground fashion, and occasionally interesting if inconclusive results have been reported.

Now, Japanese researcher Yoshiaki Arata has apparently

...demonstrated a low-energy nuclear reaction at Osaka University on Thursday. In front of a live audience, including reporters from six major newspapers and two tv studios, Arata and a co-professor Yue-Chang Zhang, produced excess heat and helium atoms from deuterium gas.

So is an era of cheap, abundant, and clean energy just around the corner? Well, a few caveats have been expressed here:

Augustin McEvoy, a retired condensed-matter physicist...has studied Arata's previous cold-fusion experiments in detail. He said that he has found "no conclusive evidence of excess heat" before, though he would like to know how this demonstration turned out.

And here is a .pdf outlining the Arata's experimental setup. Looks pretty easy, in fact. I may crank up one of these on the weekend and stick in the Cavaliere.

10 comments:

Robert McClelland said...

I see that Connie Fournier is gunning for you.

Frank said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Ti-Guy said...

What a fascist. Free speech for me but not for thee. And if you don't aggree, we'll attempt to find out where you work and harass your employer.

Frank said...

"What a fascist"

Right on. Your 'free speech' BCL just spiked my inoffensive post. Apparently your boy can dish it out but is rather thin skinned when on the receiving end.

buckets said...

Actually, BCL should delete all of these comments as off topic.

Holly Stick said...

And another FD thread;

http://www.freedominion.com.pa/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=99871

Wow, I haven't been there for a while. How pathetic.

bigcitylib said...

Yeah, I'm selling like hotcakes over there.

Ti-Guy said...

Don't forget us minions!

Unknown said...

= What a fascist. Free speech for me but not for thee. And if you don't aggree, we'll attempt to find out where you work and harass your employer. =

You mean, sounds like a left-winger. :)

You must have a better strawman then that ti-guy. Using a nut to make your case fails to make your case.

Ti-Guy said...

Using a nut to make your case fails to make your case.

The only case I'm making is that *that* nut is a fascist.

Keep up, sweetie. And read up on the difference between "then" and "than."