> A lot of things that were science fiction have
>become hard fact in the last few years. Another
>thing you may find hard to believe is
>teleportation, which has been done in several
>labs now. (Not the Star Trek type, but very real
>nevertheless.)

This isn't hard to believe for anybody who knows anything about Quantum Physics, though. Quantum teleportation happens all the time. Scanning Tunneling Microscopes (the devices that make it possible to "see" atoms) use the principle of quantum tunneling (wherein a particle disappears on one side of a barrier and reappears on the other side without ever having passed through the interveneing space). Call me when somebody makes something macroscopic teleport. That'll be news.

>There are two reasons why such things are
>typically not widely reported. One is that most
>reporters don't have the science background
>needed to realize why such stories are important,
>and the other is that most people would not
>understand them anyway.

I too cringe at the ham-fisted way many reporters approach science stories. But trust me, anything truly revolutionary and world shattering would be shouted from the rooftops if need be.

> Cold fusion is still being worked on, and there
>are some top-rate scientists who believe that it
>is very possible.

This is true.

>They just don't say much, for
>fear of having their reputations ruined. Science
>is like religion, in that it has orthodoxies and
>heresies. The dirty secret of science is that
>most scientists are not nearly as open-minded as
>they want people to think they are. Right now
>cold fusion is a heresy, and anybody who speaks
>out in favor of it is shunned.

This is bull$%#&.

You know what happens when you do an experiment that is repeatable and rigorous, and disproves a long-standing theory?

You win a Nobel Prize.

Einstein turned physics on its head with Relativity. Did he get sentenced to 50 years in physics jail for "disproving" the great Issac Newton? No, he became lauded as the greatest scientist of his generation, perhaps of all time. Did Planck and the gang that devised Quantum Mechanics get hounded out of town for daring to promote the heresy of QM? Nope, Planck won a Nobel Prize for his work, and so did many others who followed.

If Pons and Fleishman's work had been both repeatable and scientifically rigorous, I guarantee they'd be Nobel Prize winners by now (It takes the committee quite awhile to recognize work sometimes, specifically because they're waiting to see if the work stands up to scrutiny and repeated tests). Because it wasn't, and because whatever is going on in those palladium rods is still not understood and still isn't reproducable every time, nobody doing cold fusion research has any Nobel Prizes yet.

The cold fusion researchers (and many of them, let's face it, are crackpots) whine all the time that the hot fusion researchers get all the funding and all the attention because hot fusion is "big science" and is "sexy" and part of the "scientific mainstream" whereas their research is done by one or two guys with a few test tubes and less than $50,000 worth of equipment. I say that's bunk. The *real* reason hot fusion researchers get the money and cold fusion researchers dont is hot fusion research has produced results that are verifiable and repeatable, whereas cold fusion research has NOT. I read an article awhile back that claimed a company was getting ready to market a hot water heater that ran on cold fusion pretty soon. When they show up in Sears, I'll be the first in line to buy one. Until then, I'll remain very skeptical about the claims of cold fusion. I've read enough to have my curiosity aroused about the issue, and to think that there sure seems to be *something* anomolous going on inside those palladium rods (at least some of the time) if any of the anecdotal evidence is to be believed, but it's just not science until someone can do an experiment that other scientists can reproduce and verify.

But to say science has orthodox ideas and heretical ideas is just foolish. The fastest, best way to make a name for yourself in science is to come up with a theory that challenges the "orthodox beliefs" and stands up to scrutiny. You get *rewarded* in science for being a "heretic", not punished! You *do* have to follow the rules, though. But those rules are pretty simple. Your experiments have to be repeatable by other scientists and shown to have results not explainable by the existing theory. If you're proposing a theory about something, it has to make predictions that are testable--otherwise, it's just so much speculation. Follow those rules, and you'll win your Nobel Prize if you succeed.

-- Dave