Discovery of the Cold Fusion Phenomenon
Dieter Britz,
1999
Abstracts and review of:
Hideo Kozima "Discovery of the Cold Fusion Phenomenon" and Tadahiko
Mizuno, "Nuclear Transmutation: The Reality of Cold Fusion".
I'll deviate from my practice these days of not
posting updates here, as I used to do, and will post my latest updates of the
Books file, having just read the two Japanese books below. Here are the
abstracts that went into the file:
Kozima Hideo; "Discovery of the
Cold Fusion Phenomenon". Subtitle: "Development of Solid Stat-Nuclear Physics and the
Energy Crisis in the 21st Century". Ohtake Shuppan Inc.,
** Kozima is associated in the cold fusion area
with his TNCF (trapped neutron catalyzed fusion) theory, and this book focuses
on the theory. Kozima was one of the first to attempt a replication of
the FPH paper, immediately he received a telefaxed
preprint of the FPH89 and the Jones group's paper in 1989.
He was
fortunate also to get results at the first attempt, in the form of neutrons. He
soon realized that the process(es) are/were
stochastic, and therefore difficult to repeat at will. The early history,
starting with Paneth & Peters in 1926, is given, then moving on to
Fleischmann and Pons and on from there. The major groups and their
findings/claims are gone through, problem areas are identified, such as the
"riddles of cold fusion", summarized succinctly at the end of chapter
9.
Then in
chapter 11, TNCF is outlined and all the riddles treated with the theory.
A single parameter, the density of trapped neutrons in the reaction space, is
required to Quantitatively account for a large number of
observations. The neutrons come initially from cosmic infall,
later from the reactions leading on from the initial reactions of neutrons with
various species. There is at last a table of 53 cases, where TNCF explains
observations reasonably well. Other proposed theories are then also described,
critically. There are hundreds of references including close to 100 by the
author himself.
Some additional remarks:
It is interesting (to me) to compare the two books.
Kozima's is sharply focused, being a long outline of how his TNCF theory fits
most of the observations, which are first listed in detail, followed by the
problems (riddles) they throw up. These are then solved by the application of
TNCF, all by the adjustment of a single parameter (different in the different
cases).
Both books are very persuasive in their different
ways. Kozima persuades by the seemingly universal applicability of TNCF; I did
get a slight feeling of unease, however, whether I was perhaps being lulled
into acceptance by the omission of problems with that. For example, TNCF does
not explain how all those nuclear products, most of them highly energetic, get
away without giving rise to a host of secondaries. Kozima acknowledges the
problem and is working on it. One thing that gives one an "Aha!" is
Kozima's suggestion of a reaction of neutrons with ^{6}Li;
this immediately explains the sometime claim that CNF works in LiOD
electrolyte, but not in NaOD. Kozima is not
uncritical of others' work, although I wonder at his easy acceptance of Kervran's nonsense - which seems to have a long history
going back to 1799, and that is another interesting aspect of Kozima's book.
But he does appear to make a good case for his theory.
Kozima's book was done by the man himself and the English was checked later by
someone else, I believe. There is a strong accent. Oddly, this makes the
text quite punchy in its rather informal way, not at all awkward to read.
We have been told often that the Japanese are
running away with cold fusion that the
All in all, a couple of interesting
books, well worth getting and reading. I have been asked whether these books change
my opinion of CNF at all. I am not sure about that; but that question,
and reading these books, crystallized in my mind the thought that the term
"skeptic" is not, and has not been, very appropriate to me. A better
term would be "agnostic"; I simply don't know, and I leave it at
that.
-- Dieter
Britz alias db@kemi.aau.dk; http://www.kemi.aau.dk/~db