by Pamela Mosier-Boss, a U.S. Navy researcher, isn’t willing to climb out on that limb just yet. But she says that her lab has produced “significant” results, including the generation of highly energetic neutrons, an important byproduct of the fusion process.
Other researchers, including Rice University’s Paul Padley are justifiably skeptical – the Pons-Fleischmann debacle was a mere 20 years ago, after all:
“Fusion could produce the effect they see, but there’s no plausible explanation of how fusion could occur in these conditions,” Padley said. “The whole point of fusion is, you’re bringing things of like charge together. As we all know, like things repel, and you have to overcome that repulsion somehow.”
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“Nobody in the physics community would believe a discovery without such a quantitative analysis,” he said.
Also worth noting is the fact that Mosier-Boss has collaborated with on at least some of her Navy research, notably this part of this paper in which their work was unrelated to cold fusion. Still, it wouldn’t be far afield to wonder if there hasn’t been some cross-pollination of ideas at a minimum.
At any rate, Mosier-Boss seems to be playing her cards close to her vest by framing her results modestly and announcing them well at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society where her work will be featured.
