"Bad Science" by Gary Taubes

I think we should it's small group and an informal group. Before I introduced him let me just say a techinal comment. After the lecture We're going to have reception for Mr. Tauber and everybody in the audience is invited to stay and have some cookies and coffee or punch. So please stay and visit with Mr. Taubes when he's finshed with his lecture and with each other. Okay now our speaker today is Gary Taubes, a science writer from New York he has a degree from Harvard in Physics, a degree from Stanford in engineering, and a degree from Columbia in journalism. So scientific background is broad and deep and he's the author of magazines such as the Atlantic and Discover magazine and also in scholarly Journal such as Science magazine. He's the author of a book called Nobel Dreams which was published in 1987 and this is about the 1985 Nobel Prize which was awarded to Carlo rubia and Simon Van Der Meer for the discovery of the wnc particles. I'm sure that all Nobel prizes are a big deal, especially to the recipients, but this was one of the more brilliant of the Nobel Prize is because the wnc's are critical particles in the electroweak theory and electro electric what we consider to be sophisticated modern theory of the structure of the universe so this was a very important Nobel Prize and this is a story. So so this was an important and it was interesting also because it was one of the first of the really large collaborations. So what Mr. Taubes did in his first book, Nobel dreams, was to actually go and live inside this collaboration and find out how very large, modern, big science experiments are done. So there's a tremendous amount of Sociology of Science in this book and it's extremely entertaining as well as a very fine discussion of the physics involved. Now in his second book that we're going to hear about tonight,which I have not yet read, is called Bad Science: the Short life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion. And as i said to him earlier, your first book is really a triumphal book. So I will let him tell us how he feels about his second book. Mr. Taubes [Applause]. That's about the most technical this nights gonna get.[pause] This is what my lecture used to be called. Back before I gave it to an audience, including my family, and they fell asleep. I just put it up because I'm a journalist and I write about science and sometimes scientists have trouble dealing with this. And I gave a lecture at the Gordon conference. Which a very exclusive conference held in New Hampshire every year. They don't even allow journalists in let alone have them lecture. And so when I put up this as a topic they listen to the dilution of cold fusion. [inaudible] [laughter] Another forgetting notice, in order to do my book. I wrote this book, it took me 3 years, I thought it would take me 9 months, just like underestimation. In the process of doing this I interviewed 260 some scientists. and now I lecture on it and wherever I go I meet physicist who want to tell me what really happened. Because they're sure they know and I don't, so I also put up a list of the people I interviewed so you get an idea would like 260 people look like. [laughter] and then I tell these guys I know a thing or 2. No to refresh your memory cold fusion, that's the remaining of [inaudible] This is the Wall Street Journal article of March 24th 1989, front page. Two scientists claim breakthrough in quest for fusion energy. These two fellows at the University of Utah, Stan Ponds and Martin Fleischmann, claimed that they can essentially take the power of a hydrogen bomb nuclear fusion and control it and do it with batteries in plating wire in a glass of water, okay. this is a a picture of a cold fusion reactor ala Stan Ponds and Martin Fleischmann. This was actually drawn by them and it looks very impressive and they made it look very impressive. Basically it is a glass filled with heavy water, which is a kind of water. and it's got a couple of electrodes in it. This wire they crisscross is an electrode this things comes down the electrode, they plug it into the wall. So essentially what you got is a glass of water plugged into the wall with two electrodes in it. They claim you can get nuclear fusion out of this.Now, three years later, what I'm gonna explain to you, basically, what happened with nuclear fusion to understand just a little bit about the weirdness of it. Last October there was the third International Conference on cold fusion, held in Japan. This is a summary of the conference and basically you can get the hint from the last chapter since. In the last paragraph it says cold fusion will be come the most important subjects in science. and it not a matter to be studied by one single enterprise or nation, but will become the greatest asset as an eventual energy for mankind that will be shared among the world It sounds very impressive. This is a list of the countries that participated in the 3rd international conference on cold fusion. The number of people, and there were 300 scientists and business people there, and cold fusion is still a very viable science. People are doing it their lobbying congress for funding. The Canadians recently did a CVC television show about how real cold fusion is. And the amusing thing about it is that of cold fusion as a phenomenon is non existent, okay. That's how I'm gonna explain it to you, there's no such thing as cold fusion never has been never will be. So how did these people discover it? It was on front pages of newsapapers and now people are still doing it. And now all 300 of those people would say I'm crazy. Including the fellow who drew up this diagram. This is a primer on fusion. Two kinds of nuclear energy that we are aware of. Nuclear efficient when you take a huge Adam like uranium and it splits apart into two equally, almost, two very radioactive elements and they give off energy. In the process you have nuclear fission. Nuclear fusion you take two small, very small, atoms, protons in hydrogen atoms witch are one proton, or deuteron, to the heavy form of hydrogen which is a proton and a neutron and you fuse them together and in the process you get more energy out. Um Einstein took mc squared energy to the speed of light squared which is not as heavy as the original product [inaudible]. This is like the basic primer of nuclear fusion. It takes place in it takes place under extraordinary BE power and the reason being. Hold on these are my favorite charts. Force is at work and infusion acts you start off with the Deuteron, 1 proton and one Neutron. they're both positive charge that repel each other by electromagnetism and they attract each other by the strong force is strong but it's very very short range so you've got these two things from far apart are repelling each other and don't want to get together and clothes together. If they close enough the strong force will take over and pull them together in the fuse so what happens in the sun if you got extraordinary decompression these things are zinging around when they smash into each other there's enough energy there to push him close enough in strong force and fuse them together. so how close they have to get to fuse? And the answer is the answer is .0001 nano-meters. A nano meter is a billionth of a meter. So they have get .0001 billionth of a meter together to fuse. How close it this? The answer is very close. Deterrent gas which is D2 or 2 of these deuterons locked together. They're separated by a distance of 2.074 nanometers would you can see 740 * this distance. Playdium lattice ala cold fusion, I forgot to explain cold fusion because I'm operating on a full stomach. How this thing worked. We're back to cold fusion. that water you got to bladium electrode and a platinum electrode they put a current hit in the heavy water is made of deuterium and hydrogen is breaks up and then determine is sucked into the palladium lattice attitude with such extraordinary approximately 0.3 atoms. Which is 4 times greater than the separation between gas, and 30000 times greater than the separation of fusion we're saying by the way is basic nuclear physics very well-established okay so How likely is Fusion occur under the circumstances 4 - 64 fusions per second per molecule this was a calculation of my fellow account hacked if you just expect these things to fuse spontaneous closer together it's number 10 entirely out of Return of gas it would be okay so how does this explain contemplations results explained that they were getting noticed nuclear energy out of these cells regenerate should I give you in the short course physics is the fact that with pond supplies for claiming was 54 orders of magnitude greater than Fillmore choosing fax how big is 54 magnitude not on the reception decillion but under numbers okay the difference between the diameter of a proton that they're probably like South Africans okay so why does contemplation believe the bed and uses their Fusion because we now working they believe that the pressure induced inside the playthings 10th and 27th Avenue a billion billion 10 million billion times greater than the pressure at the sun center of the Sun what they did is they took a they had to figure out something like pressure and suck the circumstance play music but said they decide they really work for this great inside Electro think about every action has an equal and opposite reaction they just called and they testify in Congress that it's wrong by Keb the 23rd orders of magnitude and a fellow from Lawrence Livermore laboratory point out that lying about something in Congress figure out how much what the pressure is inside of lading lattice easiest way to do it if you stick the lattice and a canister 15000 which is a lot but it's not enough what we have 54 is a magnitude wave everything Brothers press conference theoretical okay that means they pump in a certain amount of energy I got plugged into the wall going to the electrodes in their measuring temperature coming out the temperature and they figure generation of excess Anthem p.m. lady in Rod cap has expressed as percentage of break-even values and people saw this chart and they said this is excess hitting percentage of rain I saw these numbers 286% of Breakeven 1224 percent of break-even it's 12 hunts Montana what's going in today times nobody in America turn down to me these numbers convince the world of chemistry they calculated what would happen if they had a perfect cell the laws of thermodynamics such thing as a free lunch these were the numbers Text Gamma ray Photon particle of light very high-end and they're all around the glass samurais coming out of concrete in nature that are mildly Radioactive and this was saying is they have another little detector like a geiger counter and then a few more Spectrum turns out all around us that are in matched passing 40 so do you set up a detector in this room and you get the Spectrum you can see gamma rays coming out of exactly this energy from a test in 4 days and then there's bismuth-214 and so what happened he saw this original chart he said this is my business so one of the things you did there was a camera Spectrum I realize I should be happy there wasn't it how to play with Robaxin atraso was a scoundrel Spectrum and another letter to Nature provoking them even more this is proof this is the real Spectrum this is their Spectra they really do see gamma rays and here is a valley and the password for tp-link and they said here's the peak for their gamma rays at 2.22 and Evie and this they identified is out of what despite fear this is what happened and this is awesome these are noise and by this time the world can read this back and forth the Nature music video yeah what happened was I convicted family protected until Spanish Scott Flo Progressive Siri what's 54 + 2 and no experimental however after they went nuclear fusion in a glass of water heavy water Charles Martin the guy who called Stand two best friends are Sam cons you time they Lewis and what does calorimetry uses measure are people who actually measure heat in and out of experiments in chemistry measuring Friday night in Kuwait April way tonight you start seeing more heat coming out of the stuff and he starts his birthday party goes back to my laboratory triple checks experiment the next morning they decide they going to write a paper mate write a paper on Saturday the next one the next one first confirmation cold fusion Sunday afternoon I was up his buddy are you doing this account active trolls and I need to have you wanted me to play for that's what gets me through Fusion exactly what they should guess what and if you go big brother press touch the experiment start running other controller pick up play music 8 hours going public turns out it's foolproof electronic and they were so James McCann Georgia Tech Research Institute Buddy's ground clearance what are the causes for humidity sensor I have to realize today New York Times cover much better cold fusion and that one reporter Jerry Bishop he was coming and faithful a getting it all right at least atoms with an atomic mass of 564 proton and a neutron 6 with carrier and they went public and it got in the Wall Street Journal headline was graduate students fill in missing puzzle and within an hour after they were Terraria what's the score anyway didn't they come in all different shapes and sizes doesn't post electric current through heavy water if you'd suck more how does an increase in cases he convinced right he also has a Sanford put it back program 80% wax let it dry so they discharged the water Dick's store they said they were trying to get General Electric financier research of Utah to buy into cold fusion General Electric said they do it if they let the General Electric cameras check play take it back to Schenectady Hugo Rossi wizard first record had to report to the Utah State Legislature Utah legislature and so he wrote scientist General Electric after login when they went public March 23rd 1989 step it Protonix controversy around electromagnetic New York Los Alamos Texas A&M a pointed out to me this is a size 12 expected to what is cascara Republic how can we afford an okapi does God exist this is the application form for fourth International I have several conversations best friend about how much money is being spent annually on future America I got to go back to but if it had not how to cross somebody there are other princesses press wants to throw one time stop the Wall Street Journal reporter 99 Honda princess Cosmic balance turn the is there a 9900 science