• Question: Do you think a cold fusion can be formed

    Asked by loch2591 to Stephen on 11 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Stephen Rhatigan

      Stephen Rhatigan answered on 11 Nov 2017:


      I don’t know much about this so I had to google it.
      Apparently cold fusion became a big thing in the late 1980’s because some scientists used it to explain some weird results they got in their experiments.
      Efforts to reproduce the results of those experiments, which is a very important part of the scientific method, failed. So the excitement turned to disappointment and the claims of cold fusion came to nothing.
      Nuclear fusion is when nuclei of smaller elements are fused to form larger nuclei and large amounts of energy are released. This happens in stars under immense pressures and temperatures. Large energies are needed to start this reaction because nuclei are positively charged and repel each other.
      So getting a fusion reaction to work at room temperature would be really impressive.

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