Can cold fusion be ruled out by theory?

[Karmo]

Could somebody explain me if there's a theory, axiom, law or something that can refuse the possibility of "Cold Fusion" in experimental basis?

Thanks a lot.

Karmo

 

[OmCheeto]

Could somebody explain me if there's a theory, axiom, law or something that can refuse the possibility of "Cold Fusion" in experimental basis?

Thanks a lot.

Karmo

The way I interpret the following:

Proposed mechanisms
Many years after the 1989 experiment, cold fusion researchers still haven't agreed on a single theoretical explanation or on a single experimental method that can produce replicable results and continue to offer new proposals, which haven't convinced mainstream scientists.

is that no one knows how to do it.

I'm not sure you can prove that it can't be done, which is probably why Sidney Kimmel provided a $5.5 million grant to fund its research in 2012.

 

[cgk]

OP, you are asking the wrong question. A theory can NEVER invalidate an experimental outcome. If a theoretical model is inconsistent with an experimental fact, that means that either the model is wrong, used outside its domain of applicability, or someone applying the model made an error or has failed to include all relevant physical effects. It is impossible to disprove an experiment with a theory.

Of course, if an experiment is incompatible with well-established theoretical expectations (in this case: that in room-temperature matter it is very unlikely that enough energy can be concentrated in a single point to initiate a nuclear reaction), it should better be very well executed and evaluated. And this is precisely what did not happen in the cold fusion case, which has lead to the sorry state the field is in. But a few physicists still believe the effects are real (there even are still conferences on "low energy nuclear reactions", how the field is called, nowadays). And who knows? Maybe they turn out to be right in the end, and some strange combination of physical effects no one thought of before (and thus did not include in her theoretical model!) actually can initiate the reactions.

 

[Drakkith]

I think CGK's post is a good way to end the thread. Unfortunately cold fusion is a banned topic here on PF, even for the purposes of refuting it. Thread locked.