Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/CETI Patterson Power Cell


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result was Keep. The Placebo Effect (talk) 21:45, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

CETI Patterson Power Cell

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Clearly a type of perpetual motion device and therefore subject to our rules surrounding the inclusion of fringe ideas, this article is about something which has received no mainstream recognition, popular press coverage, or even criticism/debunking. As such, it cannot be properly sourced except for by proponent websites which fail reiliability and verifiability tests. I think that this article is functioning as a soapbox for the claims of the inventor. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:47, 5 December 2007 (UTC) Keep. The article cites references and does not make any unreasonable claims: it gives a strong impression that the thing doesn't work. The thing has been discussed in a number of sources and therefore seems to be notable. By the way, cold fusion is not a perpetual motion machine. Fusion gets energy by changing deuterium into helium. The deuterium is the fuel, which eventually gets used up. Fusion is a well-known scientifically established source of energy. "Cold" fusion has not been shown to be possible, but it's inaccurate to refer to it as a "perpetual motion machine". --Coppertwig (talk) 17:25, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Delete Delete. Why does this stuff continue to show up? Per the nomination, this has a WP:FRINGE problem. In addition, the conspiracy to hold back this information clearly has successfully kept all mention of this breakthrough out of any reliable sources, so we'll just have to wait until some courageous person reveals THE TRUTH. Xymmax (talk) 15:13, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak keep Keep and improve with the available sources Usually gadgets such as this are invented by a farmer in his barn. This one has as one of its investigators Prof. George Miley, professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Illinois, and winner of the 1995 Edward Teller Medal from the American Nuclear Society .He has a track record in developing small scale fusion technologies (although they are not apparently net energy producers). The device operates with metal coated beads in an electrolytic chamber. It is not fringe science to study small scale (with eneergy loss) fusion as a neutron source. Whether it produces net energy, or whether it operates by fusion, are not clear. The article is a poorly written stub. The area is outside any expertise I might claim, but I find substantial discussion of it in reliable non-fringe, non-hype sources such as , ,  and . Even if disproved to be producing fusion, it  satisfies WP:N, even if it turn out to be just more pathological science like the earlier cold fusion claims.Edison (talk) 15:41, 5 December 2007 (UTC
 * Delete Keep. While initial searches revealed a fair amount of sources (potential reasons to keep the article), they all most lack credibility on further examination. I'm skeptical of the IEEE article as a scientific source because its authors are from the New Energy Institute (publishers of the New Energy Times). The article is only worth saving as Edison seems to have shown a sufficient level of notability, not on the basis of any scientific merit (as per WP:N) as Edison has rightly stated. It also seems to have been featured on "Good Morning America" on June 11, 1997 . In any case, it'll need a lot of work to remove the soapboxing. St3vo (talk) 16:27, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment I see this as satisfying the notability requirement, but not at all as a proven scientific fact. If it produced all that excess energy in 1995, why can't I power my car and heat my house with them today? The article badly needs the attention of someone with expertise in nuclear physics. Even science that doesn't pan out can satisfy the requirements for an article, such as N ray or Polywater. The thing that is needed is to fix the article by removing POV claims and soapboxing and stick to reporting what is stated in the sources. Edison (talk) 16:43, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep: extensive coverage in popular press: Wired, Scientific American, Physics World. Also user Edison thanks for valuable input, basically user ScienceApologist is doing sloppy research before submitting articles for deletion and that is not the first time!. V8rik (talk) 18:32, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Unless this article merely says that this device is entirely impossible in theory and practice then it should be deleted. Perpetual motion machines cannot work and any claim otherwise is unverifiable because it must always be untrue.  It would be wonderful if cold fusion actually worked but the very fact that the inventor of this device isn't the richest man in the world right now shows that his machine doesn't do what it claims. Nick mallory (talk) 09:49, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment The scientific validity of the claims is irrelevant, although the article should certainly reflect the overwhelming expert opinion against the claims (as it does now). Importantly, however, the inventors of the device do not claim it is a perpetual motion machine any more than a nuclear reactor is a perpetual motion machine - they claim that the energy output comes from nuclear reactions happening at room temperature (that is, cold fusion). Bear in mind, I do not believe the device works, but it is unfair and simply incorrect to set up the perpetual motion straw man. St3vo (talk) 18:01, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * But it is a perpetual motion machine in theory and it's not a straw man to say so. It supposedly produces more energy than it uses and, if it worked, would just go on working forever.  It doesn't use uranium as fuel in the same way as a nuclear reactor does - of course in reality it doesn't use uranium at all, but that's not the point.  Patterson doesn't like to call it a cold fusion cell, although that's what it clearly claims to be as well.  It violates the same laws of thermodynamics which make perpetual motion machines impossible.  If you took this thing to the patent office and tried to patent it, they'd say no because it's a perpetual motion machine.  That's the point of describing it as such. If you'd invented a machine which produced, essentially, unlimited amounts of free energy with no pollution wouldn't you patent it?  Fusion is incredibly difficult because of the energies involved - notoriously it's always 20 years away from being mastered - and for this device to claim it can do it with 1.5 watts contrary to the whole of established physics and with no experimental data to justify it is just laughable.  I was the one who bothered to rewrite the article and I still think it should be deleted.  Nick mallory (talk) 08:49, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Please see my comment on the article's talk page, where I think the discussion of the device as a perpetual motion machine is more appropriate. Also, thanks for the rewrite - although I disagree with a few points, it's a tremendous improvement over what was there previously. St3vo (talk) 16:52, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

It would be better to delete, but Keep per notability (above). I deleted a bunch of OR and redundancy and claims that there is some connection between cold fusion and perpetual motion.... that is, most of the article. —— Martinphi    ☎ Ψ Φ —— 06:44, 9 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment as cold fusion uses a fuel for fusion, clearly not a perpetual motion machine. Unless a star is also a perpetual motion machine. Or even a coal fired powerplant. (more energy is produced consuming coal, that is used to feed coal into the boilers). 132.205.99.122 (talk) 21:45, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes but the 'inventor' of this thing says it's not a cold fusion device. The fact is, it's not anything but a figment of his imagination. Nick mallory (talk) 12:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * CETI avoids the term "cold fusion" to avoid the stigma associated with the Pons and Fleishman debacle, and because they claim not to know whether the alleged nuclear reactions are in fact "fusion." The bottom line is that they state that some form of nuclear reaction is the source of the energy, and nuclear fuel is (or would be) consumed in a finite amount of time. St3vo (talk) 15:56, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Keep. Appears to just about satisfy notability criteria. Unclear on its face if it's perpetual motion or a variant on cold fusion, but either way fringe science and the balance of the article must reflect this (and, whilst much improved, I think further edits are required to this effect). LeContexte (talk) 11:04, 11 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.