Cold fusion, the act of producing a nuclear
reaction at room temperature, has long been relegated to science
fiction after researchers were unable to recreate the experiment
that first "discovered" the phenomenon. But a Japanese
scientist was supposedly able to start a cold fusion reaction
earlier this week, which-if the results are real-could
revolutionize the way we gather energy.
Yoshiaki Arata, a
highly respected physicist in Japan, 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.
Arata used pressure to force deuterium gas into an
evacuated cell that contained a palladium and zirconium oxide mix
(ZrO2-Pd). Arata said that the mix caused the deuterium's
nuclei to fuse, raising the temperature in the cell and keeping the
center of the cell warm for 50 hours.
Arata's experiment would mark the first time
anyone has witnessed cold fusion since 1989, when Martin Fleishmann
and Stanely Pons supposedly observed excess heat during
electrolysis of heavy water with palladium electrodes. When they
and other researchers were unable to make it work again, cold
fusion became synonymous with bad science.
But the method Arata showed was "highly
reproducible," according to eye witnesses of the event. If
nobody calls this demonstration out as a sham, Arata might have
finally found the holy grail of cheap and abundant energy-nuclear
power, without its destructive radiation. [
Physicsworld via
Slashdot]
