Chapter 14 Energy Crisis in 21st Century and the Cold Fusion Research – Science, Technology and Education –

14.1 Technology and Science in History

The cold fusion phenomenon has been successfully applied to generate the excess heat, to reduce radioactivity, and so on.

The relation between the science and the practical applications that emerge is a highly complex and interesting subject. Technology tends to go first, then science follows it, as history has shown. A typical example is the steam engine. The invention of the modern condensing steam engine which was patented in 1769 by James Watt preceded by more than a half century the discovery of its basis, the Carnot's theorem, by N.L.S. Carnot in 1824, and its proof by R.J.E. Clausius in 1850 after the proposal of the conservation of energy by J.R. von Mayer in 1842. The great practical importance of Watt's engine encouraged scientists to look into this matter, with the result that the new science of thermodynamics emerged. The establishment of the Second Law of Thermodynamics by Clausius in turn has provided a solid scientific basis for considering any engines, from then on sparing mankind's time and energy.

On the other hand, the scientific discoveries tend to stay unknown until an application is noticed, as the discovery of semiconductivity has shown. In 1839, M. Faraday in England discovered the semiconductivity in Ag₂S by observing a peculiar temperature dependence of its electric resistivity. Furthermore, in 1874, K. Braun in Germany discovered non-Ohmic V-I characteristics in PbS crystals. Until the establishment of Quantum Mechanics, the properties of electrons in vacuum under the electromagnetic field were investigated, thereby substantially extending the life of the vacuum tube age.

The phenomenon in solids was explained quantum mechanically in 1931 by H. Wilson of England, who calculated the band structure of energy spectrum of an electron in solids. The discovery of point-contact transistor by W.H. Brattain and J. Bardeen accomplished the application of the non-Ohmic characteristics of crystals to electronics. The quantum mechanical understanding of the semiconductor made possible the exploding development of microelectronics in late 20th century.

When scientists sit around ignoring a new phenomenon which is difficult to understand using conventional concepts, a new technology has to be developed through long trial-and-error processes. To speed up the recognition of new technologies which could be important to the world, we have to encourage scientists to be sensitive to new possibilities.