cold fusion

In nuclear physics, the supposed fusion of atomic nuclei at room temperature. If cold fusion were possible it would provide a limitless, cheap, and pollution-free source of energy, and it has therefore been the subject of research around the world. Few physicists believe it is possible.

In 1989 Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons of the University of Utah, USA, claimed that they had achieved cold fusion in the laboratory, but their results could not be substantiated. The University of Utah announced in 1998 that they would allow the cold fusion patent to elapse, given that the work of Pons and Fleischmann has never been reproduced.

Cold Fusion

Application server used in conjunction with a Web server to link a database to a Web site. Using its own scripting language, CFML (Cold Fusion Markup Language), the application server extracts the database information and incorporates it into a Web page each time the page is requested by a Web browser. The Web site therefore contains ‘live’ data, and does not have to be maintained separately from the database. Cold Fusion is thus particularly useful for electronic commerce (e-commerce) systems.

CFML uses a set of special markup tags that are included inside HTML documents. If CFML is included in a document, the file extension is designated as ‘.cfm’. When the Web server receives a request for a file with such an extension, it diverts the request to the Cold Fusion application server, which then assembles the required information. The information is then sent back to the Web server in HTML format, and delivered to the browser.