high-current calorimetry measurements (using a somewhat different experimental setup)
gamma ray spectrum (indirect evidence of neutrons, via the H+n→D+γ reaction)
measurement of neutron flux (more directly)
measurement of tritium (more directly)
(Plus other things that they didn’t include in that particular paper.)
Every single one of these claims was erroneous!! For different reasons!! But I also strongly believe that they were reporting their results in good faith. (Gory details can be found in the final post of my old cold fusion blog.)
Oh interesting, I thought their announcement was based entirely on excess heat in calorimetry and they notably did not have neutron flux, gamma ray or tritium detection results. Is this a difference between the original announcement and the eventual paper, or did I just completely misremember?
This page links the press conference video. I don’t feel like watching it. However, the same page also links to the original press release, which does in fact mention measurements of neutrons and tritium. So I guess that means they already had their nuclear results by the original press conference.
Cold fusion skeptics and cold fusion advocates are united in the belief that Fleischmann and Pons’s nuclear measurements were erroneous. The advocates shrug and say that Fleishmann & Pons were not specialists in those kinds of nuclear measurements, and just messed up. That broad consensus rejection developed pretty quickly after the press conference.
However, the cold fusion advocates continue (to this day) to believe the Fleischmann-Pons calorimetry results, whereas the mainstream consensus (and also my opinion) is that Fleischmann & Pons messed up on calorimetry too.
(Today’s cold fusion advocates do think there exists direct nuclear evidence of cold fusion, but they would cite later experiments by different people; that would be Section 4 here.)
The original Pons & Fleischmann paper also had “a whole battery of tests”, namely:
low-current calorimetry measurements,
high-current calorimetry measurements (using a somewhat different experimental setup)
gamma ray spectrum (indirect evidence of neutrons, via the H+n→D+γ reaction)
measurement of neutron flux (more directly)
measurement of tritium (more directly)
(Plus other things that they didn’t include in that particular paper.)
Every single one of these claims was erroneous!! For different reasons!! But I also strongly believe that they were reporting their results in good faith. (Gory details can be found in the final post of my old cold fusion blog.)
Oh interesting, I thought their announcement was based entirely on excess heat in calorimetry and they notably did not have neutron flux, gamma ray or tritium detection results. Is this a difference between the original announcement and the eventual paper, or did I just completely misremember?
This page links the press conference video. I don’t feel like watching it. However, the same page also links to the original press release, which does in fact mention measurements of neutrons and tritium. So I guess that means they already had their nuclear results by the original press conference.
Cold fusion skeptics and cold fusion advocates are united in the belief that Fleischmann and Pons’s nuclear measurements were erroneous. The advocates shrug and say that Fleishmann & Pons were not specialists in those kinds of nuclear measurements, and just messed up. That broad consensus rejection developed pretty quickly after the press conference.
However, the cold fusion advocates continue (to this day) to believe the Fleischmann-Pons calorimetry results, whereas the mainstream consensus (and also my opinion) is that Fleischmann & Pons messed up on calorimetry too.
(Today’s cold fusion advocates do think there exists direct nuclear evidence of cold fusion, but they would cite later experiments by different people; that would be Section 4 here.)
Thanks, and I greatly appreciate you doing the homework here.