Overseas organisations include Japan's Hokkaido National University, Osaka National University, the Tokyo Institute of Technology and Nippon Telephone and Telegraph corporation. Fleischmann and Pons are working for the Japanese-backed Technova Corporation based in France. Gene Mallove left MIT to found Infinite Energy Magazine. Mitchell Swartz now edits Cold Fusion Times.
Equally illuminating were the remarks of professor John Huizenga who was co-chairman of the U.S. Department of Energy's panel on cold fusion and who came down against the reality of the process. In a recent book on the subject, professor Huizenga observed that 'The world's scientific institutions have probably now squandered between $50 and $100 million on an idea that was absurd to begin with.'
The question is, what were his principal reasons for rejecting cold fusion. Professor Huizenga tells us; 'It is seldom, if ever, true that it is advantageous in science to move into a new discipline without a thorough foundation in the basics of that field.'
When you consider that his committee's sole function was to advise whether or not research funds should be spent to investigate an entirely new area of physics and electrochemistry, and that this statement is one of his principal reasons for deciding not to invest such research funds, his statement takes on an almost Kafkaesque quality. It is unwise to invest research funds in any new area, unless we already have a thorough foundation in the basics of that new area? How could anyone ever get any money for research out of professor Huizenga's committee?
By proving that they already know everything there is to know?
A more rational approach is that of Dr. Edmund Storms, formerly with the Los Alamos nuclear research laboratory who said, 'Science grows by competition between two possibilities. One is based on a very imperfect imagination for new possibilities. The other is based on a tested understanding of our world which we all agree to enjoy without conflict. Each has its role in intellectual evolution and its strengths. However, to function properly, the relationship needs to be based on mutual respect, as is the case with all relationships. This respect leads to questions not declarations, to discussion not conflict, and to seeking a mutually satisfying goal, not an arbitrary conclusion. In the cold fusion partnership, these requirements are not being followed and, as a result, the marriage is on the rocks.'
You can read the full story of the Cold Fusion affair and its aftermath in Alternative Science.
Cold Fusion is the perfect exemplar of "Alternative Science". It runs entirely counter to intuitive expectation produced by the received wisdom of physics; it is a discovery by 'outsiders' with no experience or credentials in fusion research; its very existence is vehemently denied even though Fleischmann and Pons have demonstrated a jar of water at boiling point to the world's press and television; and it is inexplicable by present theory: it means tearing up part of the road-map of science and starting again.
Much more will become available on Cold Fusion, including how to reproduce the effect, soon.
