Aside from that, it is a great idea, like perpetual motion, flying carpets, pixie dust, and many other great inventions that have only one small fault in common:

They do NOT work!

Consider the incredible claims made by Roentgen about a hundred years ago. He claimed that a certain apparatus could take pictures in the dark, right through solid objects. This is a truly amazing claim. Within one week of his announcement, hundreds of laboratories around the world had duplicated his result.

Consider the incredible claims made not too many years ago of various complex copper oxides: They supposedly conducted electricity entirely without resistance at much higher temperatures than any previous superconductor. Oxides are generally poor conductors, yet these oxides were the best superconductors ever. Within a month, the claims were duplicated widely. Within a single year, high school kids were demonstrating their home-made copper oxide superconductors at science fairs around the world.

If Cold Fusion were real, everybody and his brother would be doing it in his laboratory or basement. Nobody is. There must be a reason why the phenomenon resists duplication so stubbornly. It simply does not work.


“Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”
“To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”
“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”
“That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.
[by Arthur Conan Doyle]


David F Mayer