Cold Fusion - Impossible?

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samabudhi

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I found the following quotes at a sight about cold fusion:

INNOVATION

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"... after a few more flashes in the pan, we shall hear very little more of Edison or his electric lamp. Every claim he makes has been tested and proved impracticable."
[New York Times, January 16, 1880]


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AEROSPACE

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"Professor Goddard ... does not know the relation of action to reaction ... he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in our high schools"
[New York Times, January 13, 1920]

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"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
[Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895]

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"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."
[Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre]



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COMPUTATIONAL SYSTEMS

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"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
[Thomas Watson, chairman IBM, 1943]

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"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
[Ken Olson, Chairman and founder Digital Equipment Corp., 1977]

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"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
[Bill Gates, 1981]


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ENERGY

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"Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time.
Nobody will use it, ever." [Thomas Edison, 1889]

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"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will."
[Albert Einstein, 1932]

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"The energy produced by the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking
moonshine" [Ernst Rutherford, 1933]


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MUSIC

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"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
[Decca Recording Co. turning down the Beatles, 1962]


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ASTRONOMY

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"I would sooner believe that two Yankee professors lied,
than that stones fell from the sky"
[Thomas Jefferson, on hearing the report of a meteorite fall]


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MEDICINE

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"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction."
[Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872]
 
There was actually a good article New Scientist magazine a few months back, about how a group of US Navy researchers are activately and openly investigating Cold Fusion - and also reporting results. Apparently, the results so far are small, and not on the scale of Fleishman and Pons - but they do report that there is an affect of some kind, and they cannot explain it by conventional means.

Darn it that I don't have a link, though.
 
what are these... famous quotes that were proven wrong?
Click to expand...
Er..yeah. Why? Is one of them wrong?

If theres one technology that's lacking behind, it's energy. We're still using the same sources of energy we have been for the past 50 years. Medicine, biology, electronics, avionics, everything else has progressed, but we're limited by battery size and life. It's the most annoying thing. Hopefully cold fusion or some subsequent discovery can help with this.
 
samabudhi said:
Er..yeah. Why? Is one of them wrong?

If theres one technology that's lacking behind, it's energy. We're still using the same sources of energy we have been for the past 50 years. Medicine, biology, electronics, avionics, everything else has progressed, but we're limited by battery size and life. It's the most annoying thing. Hopefully cold fusion or some subsequent discovery can help with this.
Click to expand...
oh, no... i found it amusing to see the attibuted quotes and how confidently they held those views :)
 
samabudhi said:
If theres one technology that's lacking behind, it's energy. We're still using the same sources of energy we have been for the past 50 years. Medicine, biology, electronics, avionics, everything else has progressed, but we're limited by battery size and life. It's the most annoying thing. Hopefully cold fusion or some subsequent discovery can help with this.
Click to expand...
Actually, I'd argue that we're still using the same sources of energy as the industrial world has been using for more than 2 centuries: steam power. Ever major source of energy generation is sourced from the principles of steam power, though not all use water any more.

What is poignant about this is that even the Ancient Greeks knew about steam power - but they simply created children's toys to demonstrate the effects, rather than exploit it for industrial purposes.

Therefore I would actually argue that we have spent over 2,000 years trapped in the Age of Steam - of converting something to heat, and then transferring the energy from that source using pressured fluids, as our main form of energy generation.
 
ok evan if cold fusion is possible, what use is it.
i dont understand how you would use energy from it, now if it was really really hot fusion that we could use.
 
Cold fusion would mean the ability to extract energy from the environment without having to invest a lot of energy into the system first.
 
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