Do Not Disrespect The Cold Fusion Reactor

Just in case you thought all scientists were a bunch of eggheads who never did anything but invent gadgets for James Bond and write on chalkboards, meet Italian scientists Andrea Rossi and Sergio Focardi.  They’ve just unveiled what they claim is a cold fusion reactor, and reading about it in this article, Italian Scientists Claim To Have Demonstrated Cold Fusion, it sounds like expressing any doubts or even asking the wrong kind of question might be a decent way to get your ass kicked.

In case you’re a big, stupid blogger who didn’t know what cold fusion was until Shawn emailed this story to me twice and then explained it to me using sock puppets and a Kermit the Frog voice, cold fusion is a way to achieve energy by cramming two nuclei into a single, bigger nucleus, which releases a bunch of energy for some reason. 

It all happens at about room temperature and it doesn’t create any CO2 and there’s no radioactive waste when you’re done, so it beats the hell out of most of our current ideas, which usually involve eating something we’re runing out of and then crapping it into our own drinking water.

Of course, the scientific community in general is very skeptical of this new cold fusion claim, for a variety of deep, scientific reasons, and by all means, head on over there and check them out.  Usually all I do is summarize things, and it’s hard to summarize what you don’t understand. 

Here’s all you need to know – mainstream science says this isn’t going to happen, these two guys say hell yes it is, it’s happening right here on this table in our new cold fusion reactor.  And if you don’t believe them, they’re willing to step outside and settle it like men.  Are you disrespecting our cold fusion reactor?

No, no, no – I’m asking you a question.  Are you disrespecting our new cold fusion reactor?  I don’t see any other cold fusion reactors around, so you must be talking about ours, right?

These short-fused, hardass, bareknuckle scientists are from the University of Bologna, which if you ask me is a hilarious place to unveil whatever you invented which no one believes.  If I ever get my time machine working, I’m going to hold a big press conference in Horseshit, Ohio, so everyone can see how it works.

Rossi and Focardi – who already have enough problems without sounding like a sparkling wine – are getting pretty tired of everyone disrespecting their cold fusion reactor.  Like when they went to apply for the patent on it and were told, basically, we’re not giving you a patent on something if you can’t even explain to physicists how it works.

You better believe that makes their Italian blood boil.  How does it work?  It works just freaking fine, that’s how it works.  We’ve had one running for two solid years already, heating an entire factory.

Oh? Said the scientific community.  Do you have more information on that one?  The one in the factory that’s been working for two years?

No, Jessica Fletcher, we don’t, they reply.  If you want to write a book about our cold fusion reactor, then you’re going to have to make it a mystery.  We don’t explain fusion reactors, we sell them.  Find yourself an egghead if you want to hear some numbers. 

After they say that, they find a way to accuse everyone of wearing skirts and then they do that kind of Low Five hand slap, where they don’t look at each other, you know?  Just Low Five each other behind their chairs, slouching.

Later they explain that the new solution to the world’s energy problems is incredibly simple.  You turn it on by flipping a switch, and then the cold fusion comes out here into this bucket.  Mmmmmm, cold fusion.

That’s weird, says another scientist.  Because it looks a lot like another reactor another guy made a while back, which wasn’t very impressive.  What’s the difference between that guy and you two?  Do you have any proof it’s not the same one or that it’s even cold fusion at all?

Which then causes Rossi to smack the side of his cold fusion reactor right there on the table in front of him.  “The proof is that I am making operating reactors.  He is not.”

No one really seems to know what to make of these guys.  Going all type-A on a bunch of scientists might actually be a stroke of genius.  What’s the matter, Rest of The Scientific Community, something wrong with your eyes?  Are you blind or stupid?  You can’t see the cold fusion reactor sitting right here in front of you?  Yo, McFly – I’m talking to you.

The scientific community – which in general is not looking for a fight – tries to be polite.  Listen, guys, I don’t know how things work at the University of Baloney, but you’re going to have to prove the stuff you’re saying if you want to convince us it’s real.  That’s how science works.

That’s not the way Rossi sees it, though.  Right from the article:

“We have passed already the phase to convince somebody,” Rossi wrote in his forum. “We are arrived to a product that is ready for the market. Our judge is the market. In this field the phase of the competition in the field of theories, hypothesis, conjectures etc etc is over. The competition is in the market. If somebody has a valid technology, he has not to convince people by chattering, he has to make a reactor that work and go to sell it, as we are doing.”

There you have it.  Take that, science.  They’re finished explaining things to people – it’s right there on the table in front of you.  If you don’t believe them, feel free to buy one and turn it on.  Or don’t, they don’t care.  If the cold fusion reactor isn’t really a cold fusion reactor then the market will reject it.  

It’s not science, it’s bidness.  Don’t you guys know anything about bidness?

It turns out a lot of scientists don’t understand bidness, see, but I’ll bet they understand knuckle sandwiches.   I hope they hurry up and slap a Cold Fusion Reactor sticker on the side of this thing, so we don’t have to find out.