I’d have written this article sooner, but I carry the weight of being a day job scientist and engineer, so I had to actually read the damn thing before I dared to stick my neck out. Gotta keep my street cred intact y’know.
My initial impression after reading the paper is positive. Science, along with Nature are among the most prestigious journals, so right off the bat you know it’s to be taken seriously. Secondly, I know of the technique they used (more later) so it’s not quite so out of the blue as the failed Pons/Fleischman technique.
I’m going to remain cautious until the replications start rolling in. I do not expect it will take many days before that occurs as the published experimental technique does not require any terribly specialized equipment(1). I imagine grad students around the world already are madly digging gear out of closets and throwing their own test beds together. They will want their lab among the first to say Aye or Nay. I would not be surprised to hear the first tentative reports within a few days.
I must admit it was a complete surprise. I’ve been in bull sessions about cold fusion over the last decade or so and cavitation has been one of the ideas that came up again and again. I remember standing around in a conference hallway in 1995 in a circle with 3 or 4 others while Dr. Robert Forward talked about it. As the years have rolled on I assumed people had tried the idea and it hadn’t worked.
I’m sure there will be a lot of hype if replications pour in. But here’s my reality check for you. A few excess neutrons coming out of a beaker is a very, very long way from an economical power generating plant. Even if it works, it could be decades or never before it amounts to anything.
I’ll be watching this one very closely.
(1) Well… I admit the neutron source might be a bit dicey to get hold of.
