------------------------- Abbot A; Nature 363 (1993) (13-May) p.107. "Italian court wrestles with cold fusion suit". ** Report of the trial of the newspaper La Repubblica on charges of defamation of Preparata, Del Guidice, Bressani, Fleischmann and Pons, who stand to gain about US$5 million (collectively). The paper had stated that cold fusion was a fraud. Douglas Morrison is the paper's scientific advisor, and Giovanni Licheri that of the court. ------------------------- Alberts AH; Chem. & Eng. News 69(32) (1991) 3 (12-Aug). "Cold fusion". ** Alberts criticises the editor of J. Electroanal. Chem. for uncritically (?) publishing the Preliminary Note by Bush et al (JEC 304 (1991) 271), without the refereeing process. Alberts writes that the critical paper by Wagner et al, pointing out a possible defect in some calorimetric experiments, should be given more attention. ------------------------- Amato I; Science 260 (1993) (14-May) 895. "Pons and Fleischmann redux?" ** Report of the P&F-93 paper in Physics Lett. A. Science has asked a number of experts for their opinions on this. Huizenga says that all P&F work shows systematic error; McKubre says that they still have an overall 6% heat excess, compared with his 3%; active cnf researcher Oriani finds it difficult to assess the paper; Nathan Lewis and Petrasso of MIT find it all too familiar. ------------------------- Amato I; Science 256 (1992) (10-Apr), 178. "Cluster fusion: Close, but no cigar". ** A first report of the demise of the cluster impact fusion affair, upon the retraction of the results that started it. The Brookhaven Nat. Lab. team Beuhler, Friedman and Friedlander had, up to now, defended their work, claiming that their beams of heavy water clusters were indeed of homogeneous cluster size; they now admit that some smaller cluster contaminants got in and caused the "anomalous" results. This is revealed in Phys. Rev. Lett. of 30-Mar. Amato writes that the researchers have not quite given up, however. ------------------------- Anderson DM; Science 249 (1990) 463 (3-Aug). (Letter). ** Referring to Taubes' "Cold fusion conundrum at Texas A&M" in Science 248 (1990) 1299, the Associate Provost for Research etc at Texas A&M charges Gary Taubes with careless reporting, claiming that there were sufficient controls in the labs of Bockris and others to eliminate fraud or other misconduct. The Administration was aware of Taubes' concerns and did, in fact, investigate. They conclude that at worst, inexperience with poorly reproducible results are to blame. ------------------------- Anderson GC; Nature 344 (1990) 277 (issue 22 March). "The party continues..." (News section). ** "Despite the urging of a recent DOE panel against 'any special funding' of cold fusion research, the department plans to double its budget next year for work in this field". $10**6 for 1990 and twice that for 1991, in order to have some carefully controlled experiments done. Also, the state of Utah is giving $5*10**6 to a cold fusion centre, essentially to Pons and Fleischmann (has Hawkins been sacked?) and the Office of Naval Research has granted Pons US$400,839 (what, no cents?) over 2.5 years. ------------------------- Anderson C; Nature (London) 353 (1991) 98 (12-Sep-91). "Cold fusion tempest at MIT". ** Report of Eugene Mallove's resignation from the MIT news office, with some of the charges Mallove levels at some MIT workers, in his letter of resignation. A MIT spokesman declines to comment but says that no complaints are dismissed out of hand. Mallove remains a lecturer in science journalism at MIT. ------------------------- Andreani R; Energ. Nucl. (Rome) 6 (1989) 8 (in Italian). "La fusione 'fredda'". ** An early discussion; among otherthings, it mentions Italian cold fusion experiments. ------------------------- Anon.: New Scientist 142 (1994)(1931), 23 (25 June). "Cold fusion rides again" (under the Patents heading). ** Reports a patent (application?) by Canon, EP 568 118, using a gas discharge between two metal electrodes in a hydrogen-filled chamber. Using magnesium or palladium, gamma emissions are claimed. ------------------------- Anon.; Nature 348 (1990) 1 (1-Nov-90). "Utah confusion" ** Comment on the "disappearance" of Pons, at the time of the important meeting of the Fusion Advisory Committee of the State of Utah, to decide whether to continue to support the NCFI. The writer notes that fusion researchers are beginning to separate into factions "professing the same beliefs but unable to stomach each other's company", and expresses surprise that the State of Utah can be completely rebuffed by Pons, yet continues to support him. ------------------------- Anon.; Science 262 (1993) 1643, 10-Dec. "Utah puts fusion out in the cold". ** After 4 years and 8 months, The Univ. of Utah licensed off its patents to the new firm ENERCO for a sum "in the low six figures". The involvement has cost UU about $0.7m in legal fees. The University will receive royalties for profits arising from the patents. ENECO's president Fred Jaeger says that they will work closely woth F&P, thus "reuniting the inventors with the invention". ------------------------- Anon.; Science 251 (1990) 1415 (22 March issue). "Cold fusion: battle of the books". ** Brief mention of the fact that Frank Close's book will be out (in the US) in May, and that there is another one on the way, by Eugene Mallove, evidently favourable to cold fusion. ------------------------- Anon.; Illustreret Videnskab no. 12 1994, p.62 (in Danish). "That's why cold fusion became a research farce". ** A short 1-page item, telling nothing new; it has a very brief resume of the cnf affair. The author states (erroneously) that physicists were on the skeptical side, while chemists believed in cnf; also that after a few months there were only a handful of believers left; and finally, that F&P now work in France for an anonymous Japanese company. The title statement is not in fact explained, i.e. why it became a farce. ------------------------- Anon.; Nature 118 (1926) 455. "News and Views" ** Report of Paneth and Peters' claimed transmutation of hydrogen to helium, see below under Paneth. Interestingly, the writer correctly pinpoints two major problems: the large amounts of energy required to fuse 4H into He, and that He could creep in as a contamination and give spurious results. The article is carefully and neutrally phrased, and its style would not be out of place in today's Nature. ------------------------- Anon.; Naturwiss. 15 (1927) 379 (in German). "Recent experiments on the transmutation of hydrogen into helium". ** The authors explain that, since there was a reprinting of their 1926 paper on the subject in this journal, it is reasonable to also publish the retraction in the same journal, as well as in the other (Ber. 60 (1927) 808). The paper, then, is the same as the original - also, for the same reason, published in Nature by Paneth (1927). ------------------------- Anon.; Nature 118 (1926) 526. "The reported conversion of hydrogen into helium". ** For non-German readers, this is a good description, in English, of the paper by Paneth and Peters (1926), see below. ------------------------- Anon.; Nature 338 (1989) 706 (News and Views, 27 April) "Fusion in 1926: plus ca change" ** A more accessible flashback to the Nature report of 1926 of Paneth and Peters' work, and Paneth's retraction in Nature. ------------------------- Anon.; Nature 338 (1989) 447 (News, 6 April) "Cold fusion causes frenzy but lacks confirmation" ** This is only two weeks after the news of CNF broke. The article reports apparent confirmation from other laboratories in Japan and Hungary, which were not heard from later. ------------------------- Anon.; Nature 338 (1989) 529 (News, 13 April) "Prospect of achieving cold fusion tantalizes" ** More confirmation reports, from Texas A&M and Georgia (USA). Also gives some background to the FPH vs. Jones+ problems. ------------------------- Anon.; Nature 338 (1989) 537 (News and Views, 13 April) "Hot-footed towards cold fusion" ** A summary of FPH's original paper in J. Electroanal. Chem., and some discussion. ------------------------- Anon.; Nature 338 (1989) 529 (Opinion, 20 April) "Cold fusion in print" ** Advance notification that the next issue will contain Jones+'s article, and the comment that the fact that FPH's paper was not - as originally intended - published in Nature, should not be misunderstood. The decision was the authors', after they received the referees' reports. This does not invalidate the work. ------------------------- Anon.; Nature 338 (1989) 605 (News, 20 April) "Scientific look at cold fusion inconclusive". ** Report of the Dallas meeting of the American Chemical Society meeting. Apparently, there were some chemists there (out of 7000!) who took CNF to be a victory of chemistry over physics. Pons makes fun of tokamak physicists. ------------------------- Anon.; Nature 338 (1989) 529 (News, 27 April) "Hopes for nuclear fusion continue to turn cool" ** Claims of success from California, India and Brazil and mass spectroscopic evidence from Pons, of He(4) production. Also a report that Pons, at a press conference on 17 April, stated that trials with normal water also produced heat - this was later to be hotly disputed by Fleischmann. Huggins found that heavy-water cells produce 15% more heat than light-water cells. ------------------------- Anon.; Science 244 (1989) 403 (This Week in Science, 28 April). "Cold fusion". ** Resume of Pool's article elsewhere in the same issue (p.420). ------------------------- Anon.; Science 245 (1989) 31 (Random Samples 7 July). "Cold fusion Couture" ** CNF T-shirts are sold at the U of Utah, showing smiling Pons and Fleischmann, a beaker with seawater and the sun. They sell like hot cakes. ------------------------- Anon. (Editor); Physik in unserer Zeit 20 (1989) 93 (May) (in German). "Nuclear fusion in an electrolysis cell?" ** After an introduction on possible fusion reactions, describes the Jones+ results and those of FPH, without drawing conclusions other than to say that we cannot hope for a clean energy source from this - even if it turns out to work - because the radiation would give rise to radioactive byproducts. ------------------------- Anon.; New Scientist 124 (1989) 25, no. 1690, 11-Nov. This Week. "Cold water on cold fusion" ** Report of the DoE report (see also David Lindley, Nature). The committee finds only academic interest and recommends no more than modest support. ------------------------- Anon.; New Scientist 124 (1989) 18 (issue 1695, Dec. 16) "Test-tube fusion fails the final test" - Science report. ** Although this report starts with mention of the two Japanese claims of success, the report is mainly about two heavily negative publications: those of Nathan Lewis, and Williams et al, and thus the title conclusion. ------------------------- Anon.; Nature (London) 340 (1989) 412. Issue 17. Aug. "Cold fusion, anyone?" (Product notice under "New on the Market"). ** The firms Thermonetics and Hart Scientific offer calorimeters and the J.M. Ney Company offers palladium electrodes to FPH's specifications, all for others eager to have a go. ------------------------- Anon.; Science 247 (1990) 36 (6. April). "Utah scientist: No cold fusion" (Briefings section). ** Report on the Salamon et al paper in Nature, and of Pons' response, i.e. that the Salamon team left out a positive result. The Salamon et al paper does discuss this, however. ------------------------- Anon.; Nature (London) 344 (1990) 365 (29. March). "Farewell (not fond) to cold fusion". (Editorial). ** A comment referring to the polemic elsewhere in the same issue of Nature, by David Lindley, and summarising the past year of cold fusion. Clearly, the editors of Nature have written off cold fusion as a real phenomenon, and talk of Pons and Fleischmann possibly "making a clean breast of it" at the forthcoming conference (see N. Hall, below) - which they did not do. The editors feel that the cold fusion affair has damaged the image of science by the associated secrecy, and suggest that the scientists involved should now come forward and tell us exactly what they have done and admit that cold fusion has no economic potential. ------------------------- Anon.; New Scientist 126 (1990) 29 (no. 1713, 21 April). "Citations track the fate of cold fusion" (In Brief section). ** Cites an issue of Science Watch, published by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), Philadelphia, and shows their graph of citations of the FPH paper from April 1989 to January 1990, in monthly lumps and divided into positive, neutral and negative citations. This shows a decline in the monthly number of papers by January 1990, citations of FPH running at about 2/month. The numbers are small and no trend can be seen in the distribution of positive, neutral and negative citations, but overall, the ratio of (+,0,-) is (0.27,0.21,0.52). ------------------------- Anon.; Science 248 (1990) 1487, 22-Jun. "Cold fusion claims a victim" (Briefings section). ** The victim is U of U's president Chase N. Peterson, because of his bungling of the $500000 "anonymous donation" affair. ------------------------- Anonymous; New Scientist 10-Apr-93, p.3. "Gotcha!" ** No, several surprising bits of news were not April Fool jokes, despite being in that issue of NS. There were a lot of phone calls, which raised some questions. Alluding to A.C. Clarke, NS writes that magic might turn into plain old science; which might explain why the US House of Reps. once more listened to pleas to put money into cold fusion research. Had they waited one more week, writes NS, it could have been an April Fool joke. ------------------------- Armstrong RD; Electrochim. Acta 34 (1989) 1287. "Editorial: The cold fusion debate". ** A plea for publication in the proper journals, giving full details. ------------------------- Bashkin S; Physics Today March 1994, p. 95. Letter. ** Following a review of Taubes' book "Bad Science" by Williams, Bashkin comments that the prehistory of cold fusion has been forgotten (which it has not), i.e. the 1926 work of Paneth and Peters and that of Tandberg in the 1930's. ------------------------- Bauer HH; J. Sci. Exploration 4 (1991) 267. Book review: "Too Hot to Handle: The Race for Cold Fusion". ** Electrochemist and science philosopher HH Bauer reviews Frank Close's book. While it compares well with the "pot boiler" by Peat, it appears to have major failings. For example, Close does not know the stature of Fleischmann, and does not explain some things of importance such as FPH's derivation of the famous fugacity of 1E27 (HHB does not mention that this is itself a doubtful concept). As for the sections of the book of a science-philosophical nature, HHB considers them very weak, and suggests a separate book on the subject. There are complaints (not for the first time) about the proofreading and editing of the book. ------------------------- Bauer HH; J. Sci. Exploration 6 (1992) 395. Book review: "Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century", J. Huizenga. ** Science philosopher and electrochemist H.H. Bauer reviews Huizenga's book. Bauer begins with the statement that cold fusion, like the magnetic monopole or gravity waves, is yet to be verified, and no concensus has been reached. Huizenga's book presents an occasion to discuss cold fusion claims, but is wrong in many ways. While being valuable in giving an account of the DOE investigation, the book fails to be as up-to-date as it could be, is dogmatic and one-sided, partisan, shallow, offensively personal, and uses innuendo. Scientists in general and Huizenga in particular do not know much about the history of science but feel free to cite it nevertheless. Huizenga's invocation of pathological science is inappropriate and his history superficial, writes Prof. Bauer. ------------------------- Bishop J; Popular Science Aug-93, 47. "It ain't over till it's over... Cold Fusion". ** Written by the reporter who broke the news in 1989 in the Wall Street Journal, this is an update of the cnf affair, giving the 4+ year old history. Apart from the academic efforts in the area, the private enterprises that have sprung out are also mentioned, such as Tom Droege's basement work, the Clustron Inc. Co. with Mallove and Rothwell as principals, Harold Fox's several enterprises and Japan's investments. Bishop writes that 4He has not been found, citing as the sole exception Yamaguchi's work, and ignoring the China Lake results. He recommends Taubes book. ------------------------- Bishop JE; The Wall Street Journal March 23 (1989) B1. "Development in atom fusion to be unveiled". ** Report, prior to the press conference given by Fleischmann and Pons, of their cold fusion claim, along with a well researched article on the background of the subject. ------------------------- Bishop JE; The Wall Street Journal June 7 (1990) B4. "Scientist says 'cold fusion' tests may have had some impure rods". ** The "nail-in-the-coffin" article, in which Kevin Wolf is reported to say that at least some of his palladium electrodes were contaminated by tritium. Bockris, however, in whose lab much greater amounts of tritium have been found, rejects this as an explanation. He is still convinced that they found tritium generated in the cells. ------------------------- Bockris J; New Scientist 129 (1990)(1752) 50 (19 Jan). "Cold fusion II: the story continues". ** Unlike Frank Close, who writes Part I, p.46, in the same issue, JB is convinced that cold fusion takes place. He concentrates on the technical evidence, and points out some strong results, such as neutron bursts correlated with a rise in tritium level. He summarises the pros and cons in a table. ------------------------- Bockris JO'M; C&EN September 6, 1993, p. 4. (Letter) ** Bockris complains that an earlier article in C&EN (June 14) was biased against cold fusion, by emphasising comments by well known opponents of cnf. Bockris writes that this is a deception, with 1000 workers worldwide, Japanese funding by $50 million, 27 Russian research institutes all for cnf. He suggests dropping the name 'cold fusion' (although fusion certainly occurs, he writes) and substituting 'chemically stimulated nuclear reactions'. ------------------------- Bockris JO'M; Science 249 (1990) 463 (3-Aug). (Letter). ** Referring to Taubes' "Cold fusion conundrum at Texas A&M" in Science 248 (1990) 1299, Bockris says that the cold fusion experiments run in his labs are very laborious and time-consuming. "What was the purpose, then, of printing a gossip-based account which, by strong innuendo, suggests that a graduate student of mine faked his results?", he asks. He goes on to say that even if there were tritium in the Pd electrodes, it would not come out under the cathodic conditions and cites 26 other labs that have found tritium. ------------------------- Bockris JO'M; Science 251 (1991) 499 (1-Feb-91). "Cold fusion results". ** A letter rebutting R. Pool's claims that the Bockris school has not found tritium for a year. On the contrary, says Bockris, 37 groups have found it and Thomas Claytor of LANL can produce it at will. Also, Bockris says that there were no irregularities in the oral examination of Packham. ------------------------- Bockris JO'M; Forum Appl. Res. Public Policy 7(4) (1992) 91. "Hesitant birth of cold fusion". ** Bockris summarises his view of cold fusion. He mentions attacks on its proponents and relates some personal experiences to show that the scientific establishment is suppressing the field of study. Peer review is in doubt. ------------------------- Borella G; Panorama 18-Apr-1993, p. 166 (in Italian). "Uova d'aqua". (Egg of water). ** A popular article, describing the latest theory of Prof. Preparata, Milano, and coworker Del Guidice, as well as the persons themselves. Water, they point out, is quite anomalous. They suggest the existence of egg-like clumps and long-range cooperative properties in water, even at ambient temperatures. They then suggest that this may have bearing on cold fusion, as well as support the claims by Benveniste a few years ago, who claimed a kind of structural memory in water, and was ridiculed, especially by the journal Nature, in which his paper appeared. ------------------------- Bown W; New Scientist 8-Jan-94. "Ancient experiment turns up on cold fusion". ** In the early 1960's, O. Reifenschweiler, at the Philips labs in Eindhoven, found that when he heated a mixture containing tritium, its radioactivity declined by 28%, as measured by the beta count. The mixture was presumably in a closed container (although the note does not say so). Now Casimir, the former research director at Philips, has decided with Reifenschweiler to publish this result and the paper should appear in the Jan. 3 issue of Physics Letters A. ------------------------- Bown W; New Scientist no. 1871, May 1 1993, p.6. "Frosty reception greets cold fusion figures". ** A commentary prompted by the news that "next week", there will appear a new paper by F&P in Physics Letters A. Bown comments that scientists who have attempted a replication of the effect have concluded that it is chemical, if anything, and of little use in any case. One of the journal's editors, Vigier, is quoted as saying that it is not fusion, as fusion products - neutrons, tritium etc - are lacking. The graph shown from the paper shows excess heat, after deuterium charging, of about the same magnitude as the heat of deuteration. This is less than claimed previously. Fleischmann himself is said to be unsure whether the effect is nuclear, but thinks it could be a new fusion process. Morrison and Williams are quoted as skeptical. ------------------------- Braun T; J. Radionucl. Chem. Lett. 136(3) (1989) 1. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 1". ** A short collection of publications relevant to cold fusion, news of which had just broken. The FPH and Jones+ papers and some newspaper reports are listed. ------------------------- Braun T; J. Radionucl. Chem. Lett. 137 (1989) 407. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 2". ** Braun lists more cnf papers he has read, and provides a rough but useful classification, ticking off heat, neutrons, gamma rays, tritium, theory and hypotheses/comments, as applicable. ------------------------- Braun T; J. Radionucl. Chem. Lett. 144 (1989) 161. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 3". ** More papers on cold fusion. ------------------------- Braun T; J. Radionucl. Chem. Lett. 144 (1989) 323. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 4". ** More papers on cold fusion. ------------------------- Braun T; J. Radionucl. Chem. Lett. 145 (1989) 1. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 5". ** More papers on cold fusion. ------------------------- Braun T; J. Radionucl. Chem. Lett. 145 (1989) 245. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 6". ** More papers on cold fusion. Braun comments that the situation is quiet. ------------------------- Braun T; J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem., Lett. 145 (1990) 385. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 7" ** Braun's selected, annotated bibliography continues. ------------------------- Braun T; J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem., Lett. 146 (1990) 289. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 8". ** Braun continues to list cold fusion articles that he has read. He notes that reports now appear in journals, rather than on newspaper front pages. ------------------------- Braun T; J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem., Lett. 153 (1991) 1. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 9". ** As the name implies, no. 9 in the series. ------------------------- Braun T; J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem., Lett. 154 (1991) 1. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 10". ** No. 10 in the series. ------------------------- Braun T; J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem., Lett. 154 (1991) 237. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 11". ** No. 11 in the series. ------------------------- Braun T; J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem., Lett. 155 (1991) 141. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 12". ** No. 12 in the series. ------------------------- Braun T; J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem., Lett. 164 (1992) 137. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 13 (the final one in the series)". ** No. 13 in the series, and THE END. Prof. Braun comments on the number 13 and its appropriateness to the cold fusion situation. He refers the reader to Prof. Bruce Lewenstein's chronology for more information. ------------------------- Briand J-P; Recherche 21 (1990) 1282 (issue 225, Oct-90; in French). "'Cold' fusion eighteen months later". ** A brief skeptical review of the cold fusion affair, with 15 references. The difficulties of weak radiation measurement and calorimetry are pointed out, and the fact that physicists are generally skeptical. ------------------------- Broad W; New York Times June 8, 1990. "Contamination at 3 Labs Casts Doubt On Results Pointing to Cold Fusion". ** Kevin Wolf of Texas A&M and Edmund K. Storm and Carol Talcott of Los Alamos all retract their tritium findings; the tritium was in the palladium they used, in the first place (they used the same source). This was reported the previous day in the Wall Street Journal. ------------------------- Bush B; C&EN p.5, Sep 7 (1992). "(4)He studies misrepresented" ** Bush criticises Huizenga's letter, in which H alleges that no evidence for helium production in cold fusion experiments exists, thereby implicating the China Lake study, mentioned in Huizenga's book. Contrary to Huizenga's rejection of this study, Bush confirms that there was a high correlation between helium and heat, the chance of getting these results by accident being exceedingly small. ------------------------- Byun JH; Hwahak Kwa Kongop Ui Chinbo 30 (1990) 86 (in Korean). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:199182 (1990). "Cold nuclear fusion". ** "Review and reflections on the controversies surrounding cold fusion, including a list of Korean organizations and personnel funded to carry out related studies are given, with 12 refs." ------------------------- Charles D; New Scientist no. 1827, 27-Jun-92, p.4 "Piece of teflon led to fatal explosion". ** Although the investigation continues at SRI, some conclusions have been reached about the cause of the explosion of a cold fusion cell in January '92, which killed Andrew Riley and injured some others. The events are th ought to have been: a loose piece of teflon near the gas outlet blocked that outlet, as some gas escaped with a rush. The same rush also wet the catalyst in the head space, consisting of some Pd spheres. After this, the cell accumulated up to 30 atm of pressure of D2 and O2, which could not recombine fast enough on the wet catalyst. When Riley moved the cell, perhaps some Pd was exposed, setting up an explosive burn of the D2 with the O2; the bottom of the cell was blown out and the cell, now a rocket, hit Riley. Charles comments that several cold fusion workers have seen Pd electrodes glow red-hot when exposed to air after electrolysis. Cold fusion work at SRI has been suspended since the accident, but researchers are asking for more funds, partly for equipment to prevent recurrence of such an accident. ------------------------- Chown M; New Scientist 144 (1956) (17-Dec-1994) 11. "Net backs probe into cold fusion". ** Reports that 'physicists' have pooled to send Tom Droege to Atlanta to examine the Griggs machine, supposed to generate more heat than the power put into it. This arose from discussions in the Usenet group 'Sci.Physics.Fusion'. More than $1000 has been raised, Douglas Morrison is quoted as saying. ------------------------- Close F; Nature 358 (1992) 291 (23-Jul). "The cold war remembered" ** Frank Close, himself the author of one the better books on cold fusion, here reviews John Huizenga's "Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century". Close likes the book and his only criticism is on a point where he believes Huizenga's history of events is out by a crucial few days. Close rightly considers Huizenga's outline of the helium episodes - Walling and Simon's publication of their paper even after P&F's helium retraction, and Pons's sabotage of the double-blind helium study - as highlights of the book. ------------------------- Close F; New Scientist 129 (1990)(1752) 46 (19 Jan). "Cold fusion I: the discovery that never was". ** A condensate of Close's book, which has just appeared. Close pronounces cold fusion dead, and goes behind the scenes to prove it. According to him, the prominent figures in this field have been less than honest on some crucial points. He dismisses the persistent small group of researchers with positive results with "... though it is still being pursued in isolated pockets around the globe". See also Part II, by Bockris. ------------------------- Close F; Forum Appl. Res. Public Policy 7(4) (1992) 84. "Test-tube fusion: The loud beginning". ** A condensation of FC's book on the subject, focussing especially on the mobile gamma peak. Nuclear effects seem to be ruled out. ------------------------- Close F; New Scientist 130 (1991) 12 (issue 1765, 20-Apr). "Frank Close replies". ** Reply to Fleischmann's commment on the same page (heading: Talking Point). The issue is the story of the gamma peak in the original FPH(89) paper, which FC is trying to explain. ------------------------- Close F; American Scientist 81 (1993) 83 (Jan-93 issue). "From farce to fiasco". ** Frank Close's review of "Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century" by John Huizenga. Close has himself written a similarly critical book on the subject, and here appears to agree with Huizenga, who will not allow any possibility that some real phenomenon might lie behind "cold fusion". ------------------------- Close FE; C&EN 70(15) (1992), 13-Apr, 2 (Letters). "Cold fusion research". ** A reply to Eugene Mallove's letter, criticising the reviews of his book on cold fusion, by Trevor Pinch and then by Frank Close. EM accused both of arrogant misunderstanding. Close replies that his dismissal of cold fusion is not due to arrogance, but to many analyses of the available evidence. Close goes on to argue that where excess heat is found, it must be due to an unknown chemical effect, as no nuclear products are found commensurate with the heat. Evidence of tritium, neutrons and charged particles are not, as EM claims, impressive but sporadic and too low in intensity. The few quality results are at variance with each other, and the simplest explanation, feels Close, is an error. EM invokes the test of history and FC is willing to wait for it. ------------------------- Coghlan A; New Scientist no. 1981, 18-Sep-93, p.20 "Just turn on the tap to fill up the tank?" ** Report of an apparatus, recently patented by one Stanley Meyer, which uses anomalous electrolysis of water to provide energy. Water is electrolysed using small ac currents (0.5 mA, 20 kV at 10-20 kHz). The energy to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen (which can then be burned to give heat, to drive a vehicle, for example) is thought (by Meyer) to come from zero point energy, so this is no perpetual motion claim. ------------------------- Cohen JS, Davies JD; Nature (London) 388 (1989) 705 (News and Views 27 April). "The cold fusion family" (Section editor's title). ** A clear outline of possible fusion reactions, muon catalysis, cosmic rays, "Moessbauer fusion", branching ratios. This commentary is also (I think) the first to refer to the Klyuev et al paper of 1986, which reported neutron emission from cracks in mechanically bombarded LiD crystals; the authors call what happens there "microscopically hot fusion". ------------------------- Collins H, Pinch T in: "The Golem", Cambridge UP 1993, ISBN 0 521 35601 6. Chapter 3: "The sun in a test tube: the story of cold fusion". ** Collins and Pinch, two sociologists of science, here more or less relate the story of cold fusion "as is", without much attempt at comment. They extract from the story the message that here, the workings of science are exposed; but that claims of greed or publicity seeking are not unusual, i.e. that in this affair, science works as usual. ------------------------- Cookson C; Financial Times (London) 23.3.1989, pp. 1, 28, 26. "Test tube nuclear fusion claimed" and (p.26) "Nuclear fusion in a test tube". ** Simultaneously with the Wall Street Journal article (see Bishop 1989), this is one of the two newspaper reports on cold fusion that startled the world in March 1989. ------------------------- Crawford M; Science 244 (1989) 138 (News and Comment, 14 April). "Budget squeeze causes fission in fusion labs" ** This is about funding problems for plasma fusion; CNF is mentioned. ------------------------- Crawford M; Science 244 (1989) 423 (Research News, 28 April). "Cold fusion: Is it hot enough to make power?" ** Discusses the possibilities. ------------------------- Crawford M; Science 244 (1989) 522 (News and Comment, 5 May). "Utah looks to Congress for cold fusion cash". ** Utah's fund raising moves. ------------------------- Crawford MH; Science 245 (1989) 705 (Briefings 18 August). "Utah keeps the faith" ** A 9-member panel at the U of Utah voted $4.5 million for CNF. A chemist on the panel voted against; Wilford Hansen of the physics dept. abstained. ------------------------- Crooks RM; Science 263 (1994) 106 (7-Jan). "Cold Fusion revisited". Review of Taubes "Bad Science". ** RMC says straight-out that this is far and away the best book written on cold fusion; the others were either rushed into publication or serve as a soap box. He goes on to describe the book, and has few complaints except that Taubes appears to have geographic prejudices against some universities "in the provinces". RMS has talked to 10 out of the 257 persons interviewed by Taubes, and these 10 vouch for the correctness of the rendition ("80 to 90%"). ------------------------- Czirr JB, Harrison BK, Jensen GL, Jones SE, Palmer EP; American Scientist 80 (1992) (Mar-Apr), 107 (Letters to the Editor). (no title) ** Polemic response to Rousseau's article in a previous issue of this journal, in which he names cold fusion as an example of pathological science, and mistakenly associates the Jones group with the FPH group. The present writers point out that they have repeatedly distanced themselves from the claims of FPH and do not subscribe to measurable amounts of excess heat. Also, all of their work has been properly peer-reviewed and they have not engaged lawyers to threaten others. Some of Rousseau's chronology is also in error (to do with the Jones/FPH collaboration ideas). The writers then describe the history of their involvement with cold fusion, as evidence that the work is standard science and not pathological. Nascent fields of science, they write, should not be branded as pathological purely because they produce unexpected results, inevitable for a nascent field. There are many contemporary examples of such fields and they are not commonly called pathological. See Rousseau, ibid Jan-Feb 1992, p. 54, and a response in this issue, p.108. ------------------------- Dagani R; C&EN, 14-Jun-93, 38. "Latest cold fusion results fail to win over skeptics". ** Report of the FLeischmann and Pons paper in the journal Phys. Lett. A, which has fuelled the controversy on cold fusion. There are comments by McKubre, Noninski, Huizenga, Bard, Morrison and Hagelstein, all taking the expected point of view. The authors themselves could not be reached by Ron Dagani. Vigier, an editor of the journal and the person who facilitated the paper, is cited as believing that "very tight electron orbits" are the underlying mechanism for the excess heat claimed. ------------------------- Dagani R; C&EN News Jan. 14, 1991, p.4. "Cold fusion: Utah pressures Pons, Fleischmann". ** Fritz Will, the director of the Cold Fusion Institute at Utah, tells C&EN that have been severed from it and that their funding will be cut off unless they disclose certain data and fully cooperate with a new review committee. The council has, however, approved the release of the remaining 0.9E06 $ to the CNFI. ------------------------- Dagani R; Chem. Eng. News 68(16) (1990) 28 (April 16). "Advocates, skeptics alike still puzzled by cold fusion". ** Report of the 1st Annual Conference on Cold Fusion, March 1990, Salt Lake City, Utah. Most attendees appeared to be either positive, hopeful or at least openminded; very few real skeptics attended (Petrasso and Kellogg were there). Pons insisted that he keeps getting excess heat, up to 100-1000 times what is expected from conceivable chemical reactions. F&P also still claim tritium but give no details. Forthcoming publications are promised, one (July) in Fusion Technology and a 100-page article in J.Electroanal.Chem. (there is no mention of whether this has been accepted; 100 pp is a big slice of that journal). Nine labs claim tritium; Murphy of Texas A&M claims both D2O and Li are necessary. Problems are obvious, such as the strange ratios, e.g. T/n should be unity but isn't, etc. This leads to desperate suggestions: some delegates suggest that there might be several different nuclear reactions occurring, some in the bulk (producing heat), some at the surface (tritium?). These chemists are aware of the fact that He, if formed in the Pd, would be trapped there, and F&P have had their electrodes analysed for He - none was found. ------------------------- Dagani R; Chem. & Eng. News, 18. June 1990, p. 5. "Cold fusion dogged by more controversy". ** A round-up of the recent troubles, mentioning the resignation of Univ. of Utah president, Chase N. Peterson and the background to this; the legal threats to the Salamon team by lawyer Gary Triggs (and his retraction of the threats) and the tritium contaminations, as well as the doubts about Bockris' high tritium levels. ------------------------- Dagani R; C&EN 67 (1989), April, p. 4. "Fusion confusion: New data, but skepticism persists". ** An early update on the CNF affair, then only one month old. F&P confirm all claims, including the detection of 4He by mass spectrometry. RD writes that a preliminary note was published in "a Swiss electrochemical journal"; JEC is meant. Pons is quoted saying that "Recent tests ... produced about eight times more energy than is consumed as electricity". ------------------------- Dickman S; Nature 338 (1989) 529 (News, 27 April) "1920s discovery, retraction" ** Description of the work of Paneth and Peters in 1926 and -27, giving all the references; mentions also Tandberg's Swedish patent application. ------------------------- Donne AJH, Oomens AAM; Nat. Tech. (Netherlands) 58(2) (1990) 118 (in Dutch). "Sun on Earth. Trends in fusion research". ** A descriptive survey of fusion research, ending with a small section on cold fusion, without reference to the FPH paper. ------------------------- Douglas J; EPRI J. 14 (1989) 20. "In hot pursuit of cold fusion". ** An early, thorough article on cold fusion. ------------------------- Ebert K; Nachr. Chem. Tech. Lab. 37 (1989) 470 (in German). "Elektrochemisch induzierte Fusion von Deuterium" (Electrochemically induced fusion of deuterium). ** Early comment, reporting on the initial F&P press conference and the paper in JEC. The article is not very critical, raising only a slight doubt as to the applicability of the Nernst equation to an overvoltage (the famous 0.8eV). ------------------------- Elbek B; Kvant 1(1) (1990) 3 (in Danish). "What has happened with cold fusion?" ** Bent Elbek, one of the first to comment on The Affair (albeit only in a local journal, like this one), does another roundup, after 18 months. He waxes a little philosophic on the topic of burden of proof (it's on those who make cold fusion claims, not on the skeptics) and mentions muon catalysis. At the end, he censures cold fusioneers for their unscientific publication habits, like press conferences, and sees the possibility of "cold fusion in the future, but hardly in the form one briefly believed in in 1989". Aug-90 ------------------------- Fleischmann M; New Scientist 130 (1991) 12 (issue 1765, 20-Apr). "Cold fusion: reply to critics". ** Fleischmann commments on Frank Close's statements with respect to the gamma peak in the FPH(89) paper. This peak was later shifted and deformed, and the circumstances surrounding this are obscure. FC has pointed out the confusion, and MF here writes that the change was simply due to a different kind of interpolation, and that FC has not looked at the literature properly. ------------------------- Fox B; New Scientist 128(1742) (1990) 12 (10-Nov). "Patents blow the lid on cold fusion". ** Having applied for a string (7) of patents on cold fusion in the USA, Fleischmann and Pons have now also applied for an International patent (application WO 90/10935), which reveals all. Interestingly, the Utah chemists Walling and Simons (the "innocent chemists") have their names on the patent, for their "theory" of what might be happening (i.e. the process, for some unknown reason, leads to (4)He and gamma emission). Hawkins, the coauthor of the seminal paper, who was inadvertently left out of the author list in that paper, does not appear in the patent. Barry Fox states that the patent's wording is vague throughout. ------------------------- Frank A; Exploratorium Quarterly (Winter 1991) 12. "Fooling ourselves". ** Adam Frank, a graduate student in (presumably) one of the natural sciences, here expands on his interpretation of how scientific cheating might come about. In many cases, he writes, it is the researcher fooling him/herself. Some celebrated cases are cited, such as Summerlin (who knew he was cheating), Baltimore (who probably didn't want to know his postdoc was cheating), Blondlot (who fooled himself), and Pons and Fleischmann, who also engaged in wishful thinking, says Frank. He also cites Kepler, echoing other recent reports that Kepler might have massaged some of Tycho Brahe's numbers; this is in fact an old chestnut, and a misunderstanding. Kepler did not massage, he corrected known errors. ------------------------- Freedman DH; Science 246 (1992), 24-Apr, 438. "A Japanese claim generates new heat". ** A report of the results of Takahashi, who has caused a stir "even in a field where eyebrows have become permanently raised". DHF reports that the claim is for 100 W for months at a time, or up to 40 times the erergy put into the cells, and more power than is generated in an equal volume of fuel rod in a nuclear reactor. Takahashi used small sheets of palladium, and a varying electrolysis current. Neutron emissions were not only very low but inversely proportional to the heat emissions; this "closes the door" to a nuclear explanation of this, according to Petrasso, who was asked for comment. But Takahashi favours an exotic four-body reaction. ------------------------- Garwin RL; Science 254 (1991) 1394 (29-Nov). Book review: "Fire from Ice". ** Garwin reviews Eugene Mallove's book at some length. Garwin makes a hobby of debunking false claims and has scored in the areas of gravity waves and polywater. He stresses here that experimental results are of primary importance, which Mallove also says in defense of cold fusion in the face of its theoretical rejection. However, the experiments cited by Mallove are found, on closer examination, to be inconclusive. Garwin writes that cold fusion may, after all, be an example of pathological science. ------------------------- Garwin RL; Nature 338 (1989) 529 (News and Views, 20 April) "Concensus on cold fusion still elusive" (Section editor's title). ** Report of Erice (Italy) meeting, where Fleischmann as well as Jones and Czirr were present. Garwin correctly pinpoints the problems with the heat measurements of FPH and the lack of accompanying radiation, and is skeptical. ------------------------- Goldhaber M; Science 257 (1992) 310 (17-Jul). "Cold fusion: not nuclear". ** M. Goldhaber comments on an earlier issue of Science, in which one David H. Friedman asserts that the Hagelstein theory has it that neutrons are absorbed by the Pd. Goldhaber writes that this can only be the Pd nuclei, and such absorption would release secondary products such as radioactive Pd isotopes, beta- and gamma rays, all easily detected. They have not been, and therefore the process does not occur. In fact, since neither tritium, helium or neutrons have been found, nuclear explanations of excess heat in cold fusion electrolyses are not due to nuclear processes. ------------------------- Goodstein D; Amer. Scholar 63 (4) (1994) 527. "Pariah Science. Whatever happened to cold fusion?" ** A 'cold fusion' skeptic gives some impressions of the field, and concludes that cnf has not been treated fairly. Goodstein knows Scaramuzzi personally and knows that he is above scientific reproach. Nevertheless, Italian physicists are scathing about his preoccupation with the subject. He also notes that while excess heat claims are dismissed, the lower-level neutron claims are considered possible ("good" and "bad" cold fusion). ------------------------- Gough WC; Fusion Technol. 22 (1992) 188. Book review: Too Hot to Handle: The Race for Cold Fusion, by F. Close. ** WC Gough finds this book exciting, as a mystery story, and he keeps up this metaphor throughout the review. The "murder" is the fact of cold fusion. He comments on scientists' belief system, and its role in the weakening of the peer review process. G implies that this has worked against cnf research. Close is criticised as detective for jumping to conclusions. The true culprit, i.e. the real explanation of cold fusion, has yet to be found, says Gough. ------------------------- Grad P; Engineers Australia 64(14) (1992) 24-Jul, p.18. "Cold fusion still controversial". ** Triggered by the upcoming cold fusion conference in Nagoya in October, this report sums up the field. Grad believes that the conference will be a more sober affair than the previous conferences, and many participants, he thinks, will avoid the term "cold fusion" altogether. While Huizenga is quoted against the phenomenon, Grad writes that too much evidence now points to some real nuclear effect, and lately experimenters have achieved some degree of reproducibility, he believes. He quotes a recent statement by Wada, as well as describing his original experiment, which is shown in a figure. Takahashi is also quoted, claiming excess heat, neutrons and tritium. Tritium has also been found by Dr. Will, at 50 times the background, but Will regrets the lack of solid evidence for excess heat. Hagelstein's theory is mentioned. ------------------------- Greenberg DS; Nature (London) 346 (1990) 326 (26. July). "Cold fusion and other matters". ** An interview by Greenberg with the legendary (i.e. mythical) Grant Swinger, published in The Grant Swinger Papers, 2nd Ed. Science & Government Rept, 6226 Northwest Station, Washington DC 20015: 1990, $8.95. Cold fusion gets a good mention here. Swinger is impressed with the way money has been obtained but notes that others do the same thing. E.g. tokamak fusion gets $4E08/a and - just like cold fusion, but now for 30 years (!) - has not shown a thing. There are lots of other money eaters with flimsy bases. ------------------------- Hadfield P; New Scientist 136 (1992) (31-Oct) 10. "Lukewarm reception for Japanese cold fusion". ** PH reports from Tokyo, having been to several meetings, among them the Nagoya cold fusion cenference. He mainly reports the new results of Yamaguchi, who has had some news exposure with his Pd platelet, coated on one side with Pd oxide, charged from the gas phase with D2 and then coated on the other side with Au. (4)He then appears after some hours, claims Yamaguchi, who however detected no neutrons; this is a different kind of fusion. Hadfield refers to what must be mass spectrometry of emitted particles, quoting a 0.64% mass difference between D2 and He atoms. Yamaguchi repeated this experiment five times, successful every time. Critics suspect that the He came from the glass. ------------------------- Hagelstein PL; Fusion Technol. 26 (4T) (1994), xi. "In memory of Julian Schwinger". ** One of three dedication pieces on the occasion of the death of Julian Schwinger, Nobel Prize winning physicist, who before his death strongly supported 'cold fusion' on theoretical grounds. ------------------------- Hall N; New Scientist 126 (1990) 25 (no. 1711, 7. April). "Utah keeps embers of cold fusion aglow". (This Week section). ** Report on the first annual conference held at the National Cold Fusion Center at the University of Utah. About 200 people attended, 40 gave papers of positive results. However Petrassi, who was there, said that none of these show the expected number of nuclear particles, indicating non-nuclear effects. Nevertheless the Center's director Fritz Will speaks of solid progress, pointing to excess heat consistently found (10-30%) as well as x-rays from bombardment of PdD with charged particles. The Salamon et al paper is also mentioned in the report. ------------------------- Hamilton DP; Science 255 (1992) 153 (10-Jan). "A lethal 'cold fusion' blast". ** The first report in this journal of the explosion at the SRI labs. Not much is known at this point, and there are conflicting accounts: either it occurred while three people were placing a steel cyclinder, containing the experiment, on a shelf; or someone attempted to open a jammed valve on a deuterium gas cylinder. ------------------------- Hansen PG; Nature 361 (1993) 501 (11-Feb). "A shattered halo". ** This gives a summary of what is known about the (11)Li isotope, anomalously stable. (10)Li decays instantly but (11)Li does not. Two of the 8 neutrons in this isotope lie outside the nucleus, and tunnel effects render this arrangement relatively stable. This has been known for 5 years, and Hansen gives a description of both old and recent work. ------------------------- Herbert R; New Scientist 136 (1992) (31-Oct) 45. Book Reviews: Paperbacks. ** RH briefly reviews the Penguin paperpack edition of Frank Close's book Too Hot to Handle. He writes "The story caused jaws and work to be dropped", but reports that it gradually became clear that it [cold fusion] cannot be done. RH likes the book, and recommends it as a thriller for a plane flight for some appalled delight. ------------------------- Hines TM; Skeptical Inquirer 17 (1993) 201. "Cold fusion and pathological science". ** Psychologist Hines, on sabbatical in a biological institute, reviews the book "Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century" by Huizenga, and finds it by far the best book on the subject. He likes the very detailed cold fusion history of the first two months, and accepts all Huizenga writes. This is seen from quote marks around "discovery", and phrases like 'spurious reports' or 'near religious zeal'. He agrees that this book is a useful addition to the literature on pathological science. ------------------------- Hodgkinson N; The Sunday Times (London), 27-Jun-93, page 9.2 ff. "Nuclear confusion". ** The latest on Fleischmann and Pons in their labs near Nice, where they are forging ahead with cold fusion. They say that a 10 kW generator could be ready "within a year". Hodgkinson provides a succinct history of the field up to the present, and cites several experts, such as Dr. Bewick, a colleague of Fleischmann, and Frank Close, author of one of several books on this subject, as well as Prof. Bockris, prominent electrochemist and cold fusion researcher, and Dr. McKubre, prominent for his cold fusion results, as yet unpublished. Unavoidably, there is some focus on the controversial nature of cold fusion. There is full-page photo of F&P, looking through one of their calorimeter baths. ------------------------- Holden C; Science 245 (1989) 1192 (Briefings 15 September). "The selling of cold fusion" ** Two new ventures, capitalising on CNF, have sprung up. One is a weekly newsletter published by the Fusion Information Center at Utah U; the other is the Princeton Fusion Report, selling for $647. ------------------------- Horgan J; Sci. American May 1992, p.17. "Japan, cold fusion and Lyndon LaRouche". ** Horgan writes that cold fusion is dismissed by the vast majority of scientists as pathological, but it is receiving support in Japan. Now this fact is being used to promote US funding; Fleischmann made some veiled hints to that effect. On paper, it does seem as if there are 100 Japanese researchers working on cnf but the subject is nevertheless not respectable in that country. Ikegami's employer, the Nat. Inst. of Fusion Sci., does not provide funds for it. The surprising claims of Takahashi are unconfirmed by others. Pons and Fleischmann are sponsored not by Toyota, as some believe, but by Technova, Inc., a Tokyo-based think tank. Finally, Fleischmann quotes 21st Century as a good source of information. LLR, who own this magazine, believes that the British Queen heads an international drug cartel. ------------------------- Huizenga J; C&EN p.3, July 20 (1992). "Cold fusion". ** John Huizenga's reply to the letter by Cheves Walling in C&EN, 29-Jun. He writes that far from being exonerated of naive behaviour, Walling and Simons' paper is even worse, now that Walling has corrected the history. Furthermore, what they write violates known nuclear physics. ------------------------- Huizenga JR; Forum Appl. Res. Public Policy 7(4) (1992) 78. "Cold fusion labeled 'Fiasco of Century'". ** JRH here condenses what he wrote in his book. CNF is an example of bad science, which cost $50-100 million to be found wanting. But science remains healthy. ------------------------- Huizenga JR; Physics Today March 1994 p. 94. Letter. ** Reply of John Huizenga to the Letter by Mallove, disagreeing with Williams' review of Taubes' book "Bad Science". Huizenga agrees with the book, too, and writes cnf off as bad science. ------------------------- Ikegami H; Oyo Buturi 60 (1991) 212 (in Japanese). "Present and future of cold fusion - nuclear products from cold fusion". ** Hot fusion is at a turning point, and FPH's announcement of cold fusion came at an opportune time. This article discusses magnetic fusion research and summarises cold fusion results. There is an English-abstract section of this Japanese-language journal. ------------------------- Jones D (alias Daedalus); Nature 338 (1989) 529 (Daedalus, 27 April) "Blow the fuse!" ** Tongue-in-cheek suggestion that, once D is packed into Pd, and surrounded by explosive charges, this could make a splendid and elegant hydrogen bomb, with no lasting fallout. Another idea is a fusion-powered watch. ------------------------- Jones SE; Forum Appl. Res. Public Policy 7(4) (1992) 94. "Cold fusion: Need to keep door wide open". ** Drawing on his experience of muon catalysed cold fusion, Jones has no problem accepting the reality of cold fusion. He describes some of his own involvement, going back to 1985. He appeals for more tolerance by the majority for this nascent area of physics. Researchers should be encouraged to publish, so that results can be scrutinised. ------------------------- Fogle PW; Forum Appl. Res. Public Policy 7(4) (1992) 98. "Media and science: Differing perspectives". ** The director of Public Relations at the U of Utah looks at some issues in cold fusion, such as peer review, media coverage, secrecy, the role of law, patent issues, reporter objectivity and the personal heat engendered by the field. ------------------------- Joyce C; New Scientist 128(1741) (1990) 17 (3-Nov). "Cold fusion pioneer shuns the limelight". ** A report of the current situation, being that both Pons and Fleischmann are in Europe (in Pons' case, it was not known exactly where), at the time of a couple of meetings between the Cold Fusion Institute and the cold fusion advisory committee, which is to assess the case for future funding of the Institute. The absence of the two men from at least the first meeting (Pons did eventually attend a second one) caused rumours to fly. ------------------------- Joyce J; New Scientist 1 July 1989 "This week", p. 34. "Unlucky break for the friends of cold fusion" ** Among other things, a report of the DOE's advisory board meeting, where skepticism evidently reigned. Pons was absent but others reported negative findings. Menlove reported accoustic emissions from Pd and Ti under pressure of D2, but no neutrons. ------------------------- Joyce C; New Scientist 126 (1990), no.1721, 16-Jun, p.22. "Gunfight at the cold fusion corral". ** A summary of the recent troubles at the U of U; i.e. the "anonymous" donation by the University to the cold fusion institute, and the legal threats to the Salamon team. ------------------------- Kenward M; New Scientist 129 (1991) 54 (issue 1759, 16-Mar). "A close look at fusion" ** Review of Frank Close's book "Too Hot to Handle". Kenward, an energy expert and former editor of New Scientist, reviews some of the past history of cold fusion (going back only to Frank, 1947), muon catalysed fusion and the recent furore over electrolytic cold fusion, which Close's book documents. ------------------------- Koshland DE Jr; Science 244 (1989) 753 (Editorial, 19 May). "The confusion profusion" ** Notes that peer review is shown again to be the best way to publishing. Also, the CNF affair shows that fraud is not easy - results will be checked by others, as has been the case in CNF. ------------------------- Lewenstein B; Publ. Underst. Sci. 1 (1992) 132. Book Review: "Too Hot to Handle: The Story of the Race for Cold Fusion". ** Science sociologist BL reviews Frank Close's book on cold fusion. It comes in for some criticism. BL classes it as the popularisation of science, which Close will be pleased to read. BL considers the book timely and clearly written by a professional but complains of wordiness, repetition and muddiness, in part the fault of poor editing. The rejection of cold fusion is perhaps too facile, based largely on FPH; the over 600 articles now public present much more than this early slim evidence for the phenomenon. A scholarly analysis of the place of public communication of science in this affair remains to be done, writes BL. ------------------------- Lewins JD; Nucl. Eng. (Inst. Nucl. Eng.) 30 (1989) 181. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:66464 (1990). "The fusion trail goes cold". ** "A discussion with no refs on the scientific and political controversy concerning recent (Fleischmann et al, 1989, Jones et al 1989) and historical (Paueth [sic] and Peters, 1926) reports of cold fusion. ------------------------- Lindley D; Forum Appl. Res. Public Policy 7(4) (1992) 104. "Role of the press in cold fusion saga". ** David Lindley, an editor of the journal Nature, which has distanced itself from cold fusion, gives an account of the story of the (non-) publication, and comments on press coverage vs peer review. High temperature superconductivity is compared with CNF; the former also received press attention, but proved itself by means of demonstrable results, unlike CNF. Attention by the press does not put peer review out of action. ------------------------- Lindley D; Nature (London) 339 (1989) 4 "News" (4 May). "More than scepticism" ** Report of the late-night meeting of the American Physical Society. Much scepticism was expressed by Koonin, Lewis and Meyerhof and others. Jones was present and was politely listened to. Lindley concludes that participants felt that fusion was dead. ------------------------- Lindley D; Nature (London) 339 (1989) 84 "News" (11 May). "Still no certainty" ** Report of the Los Angeles meeting of the Electrochemical Society, with Fleischmann and Pons present and defending their heat output results, but retracting other aspects. Lewis criticised their heat results. Huggins reported consistently greater heat output from heavy water cells compared with light water cells. Fleischmann denied that some of their light water cells also produced heat. Steven Jones says that it is vital to detect radiation as well as heat in order to claim CNF. ------------------------- Lindley D; Nature (London) 339 (1989) 325 "News" (1 June). "Cold fusion gathering is incentive to collaboration" ** Report of the Santa Fe meeting, and some research politics. ------------------------- Lindley D; Nature (London) 339 (1989) 567 "News" (22 June). "Double blow for cold nuclear fusion" ** Harwell investigation is stopped, after achieving no CNF, and collabora- tion of Pons and the U. of Utah with Los Alamos breaks down. ------------------------- Lindley D; Nature (London) 340 (1989) 174 (News 20 July). "No new money from US government?" ** A panel asked by the US Dept. of Energy to assess CNF (chairmen: Huizenga and Ramsey) was not convinced by experiments so far. It did grant academic interest to the phenomenon but will probably not recommend money for it. ------------------------- Lindley D; Nature (London) 341 (1989) 679 "News" (26 October). "Noncommittal outcome" ** Report of the meeting "Anomalous effects in deuterated metals" in Washington, 16-18 October, organised by the National Science Foundation and the Electric Power Research Institute. The aim was to help the NSF deal with the flood of grant applications for CNF, not to pass judgement on CNF. ------------------------- Lindley D; Nature (London) 342 (1989) 106 "News" (9 November). "No evidence for neutrons at Yale/BYU" ** Steven Jones and Moshe Gai give evidence to the DoE of their joint experiments, exposing Ti chips to D2 gas. No neutron bursts. Jones, however, says that the experiment went for 77 hours, and that another lot, jointly with Menlove at Los Alamos, running for (collectively) 13000 hours, emitted neutron in bursts at such a rate as to give a 50% chance of detecting a burst in the 77 hours. ------------------------- Lindley D; Nature (London) 342 (1989) 215; 16-Nov-1989. News section. "Official thumbs down" ** The DoE report. Huizenga, one of the committee's co-chairmen is quoted as being impatient with people still claiming excess heat; none of the calorimetric measurements were of good enough quality and, in any case, heat alone proves nothing. This leaves only Kevin Wolf of Texas, who repeatedly found tritium, whose origin, however, is a mystery since, if it comes from CNF, it should be accompanied by secondary neutrons and other radiation; Wolf finds none of these and this argues for a low-energy origin of the tritium. ------------------------- Lindley D; Nature (London) 342 (1989) 870 (issue 6252, 21/28 Dec.) "Sitting on the fence" - Book Review. ** Review of the book by F. David Peat "Cold fusion: The Making of a Scientific Controversy". Mr Lindley is not happy, Peat has done a rush job and made some mistakes. ------------------------- Lindley D; Nature (London) 344 (1990) 375 (29. March). "The embarrassment of cold fusion". (Commentary). ** An incisive and acid summary of the year's cold fusion. Lindley sums up the cold fusion affair, taking it apart bit by bit, citing the diminishing claims of Fleischmann and Pons, the Salamon measurements, Petrasso's criticism, the anomalies necessitating a new physical process, the contradictions (did the controls with H2O produce heat, or didn't they?) and the He apparently found but which should have stayed inside the palladium. He also throws cold water on virtually all theories that have been advanced to explain cold fusion; they all appear to make a lot out of tiny effects or invoke effects that cannot operate under the relevant conditions. As far as David Lindley (and Nature) is concerned, cold fusion is not only dead, it never lived. ------------------------- Lindley D; Nature (London) 345 (1990) 561 (14 June). "Utah faculty protest cold fusion dealings" ** Report of the controversy at Utah about the legal threats to the Salamon team and the not-so-anonymous donation of $500000 to the cold fusion institute. Interestingly, this report now also makes it clear that Nature rejected FPH's original manuscript, unless it were revised (their lawyer Gary Triggs attempted to change their minds); an earlier Nature editorial had stated that the non-appearance of this article in Nature should not be seen to imply anything about the article's quality. ------------------------- Lindley D; Nature (London) 345 (1990) 561 (14 June). "Disappearing tritium" ** Report, without citations, of the withdrawals of the tritium results of Kevin Wolf of Texas A&M and Storms et al of Los Alamos, and the consequences to the cold fusion debate. ------------------------- Lindley D; Nature (London) 346 (1990) 303 (26 Jul). "Cold fusion. Second round". ** A sneak preview of the second, long-awaited FPH paper - only now there are more authors (and Hawkins has not been left out) - in J. Electroanal. Chem., 25 July issue, 1990. Only electrochemistry and calorimetry is mentioned, no word about emission of nuclear particles or radiation. Evidently the team still believes they have something. ------------------------- Maddox J (Editor); Nature (London) 338 (1989) 701 (27 April). Editorial. "What to say about cold fusion" ** Raises broader issues such as the public image of science, publication, secrecy, control experiments. ------------------------- Maddox J (Editor); Nature (London) 340 (1989) 15 (6 July). Editorial. "End of cold fusion in sight" ** A summary of the CNF affair, concluding that it was all a mistake. ------------------------- Maddox J; Nature (London) 345 (1990) 652; 21-Jun. "An apology". ** John Maddox, the editor of Nature apologises to I.M. Klotz and J.J. Katz, both of the USA, who had submitted what appears to be a sociology of science paper, in which they compared the cold fusion affair with the alleged discovery, in the last century, of Acarus crossii. There was an editorial foul-up, a reviewer ended up with a paper on the Acarus affair and Klotz and Katz were left high and dry. Maddox apologises. ------------------------- Mallove E; C&EN 10-Feb-92, p. 2. "Cold fusion" (Letter to the Editor). ** Eugene Mallove objects to the review of his book, Fire From Ice, by Trevor Pinch, in a previous issue of C&EN. EM says that Pinch, like Close, do not understand that the evidence favours cold fusion and points to the journal Fusion Technology as a source. Only his book tells the true story of how cold fusion was dismissed arrogantly by the scientific establishment, writes EM. ------------------------- Mallove G; Physics Today March 1994 p. 93. Letter. ** Mallove criticises the review by D. Williams of the Taubes book "Bad Science", in which he agreed with Taubes. Mallove does not, and states that cnf is alive and growing with many attending the Nagoya conference, 24 laboratories working in Russia, etc. ------------------------- Marshall E; Science 249 (1990) 14 (6 Jul). "Science beyond the pale". ** This is a somewhat general article about scientists who - rightly or wrongly - find themselves at odds with the scientific establishment. The astronomer Halton Arp is the main example. Wegener gets a mention. Cold fusion is mentioned in the context of "most screwy ideas just turn out to be screwy ideas" and Robert Park executive director of the APS complains that between $50-100 million have been spent disproving this preposterous idea. ------------------------- Martin FF; Corriere della Sera 17-Mar-92 p.28 (in Italian). "Pons confirms cold fusion" ** A seminar titled "Cold fusion, three years later" was organised in Torino this year, and Pons was interviewed there. He confirmed that he and Fleischmann are working in Nice, financed by the Japanese firm Technova. He claims that they are using a Pd alloy and with it, obtain 1 kW/cm**3, with 100% reproducibility. He cites the d+d--> (4)He reaction as a possible explanation and points to Prof. Preparata's theory of superradiance for support. The object of the work is a prototype of an energy source to be presented to the public. Prof. Bressani confirms that his group, too, has positive results and that cold fusion is, without doubt, a real phenomenon. ------------------------- Martin FF; Corriere della Sera 17-Mar-92 p.28 (in Italian). "Defamation and denunciation" (Orig.: "E in attesa piovono diffamazioni e denunce") ** FFM reports the legal defamation charge of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica which, in Oct and Nov 1991, called cold fusion "scientific fraud" and then went on to compare a fraudulent scientist with a fornicating priest, or a pedophile schoolmaster. The scientists named by the paper: Fleischmann, Pons, Preparata, Bressani and Giudice, are claiming damages of, respectively, 2, 2, 1, 1 and 1 billion lire for defamation. ------------------------- Massaron M, Lamperti F; Tecnol. Chim. 10 (1990) 98 (in Italian). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:199183 (1990). "Cold fusion". ** "An introductory with 4 refs. A chronol. summary of the developments is given with particular emphasis on the expts. of Scaramuzzi at ENEA, Italy. In these expts., n were counted in D2 after passing it through a column filled with Ti chips". ------------------------- Matsumoto T; Fusion Technol. 26 (1994) 1337. (Letter to the Editor) "Two proposals concerning cold fusion". ** Matsumoto, a frequent author in FT, states that up to now, 'cold fusion' papers have enjoyed special status in FT, not being reviewed as strictly as other papers. This status has now been removed by the editor and Matsumoto agrees. However, now he would like to submit papers on ball lightning, in which he claims 'cold fusion' takes place, and proposes that such papers should enjoy that special leniency. His other proposal is to set up an international bench marking project on nuclear emulsions exposed to 'cold fusion' environments, and urges interested parties to contact him. ------------------------- Miles MH; Chem. & Eng. News 69(39) (1991) 4 (30-Sep). "Cold fusion". ** Miles rebuts Alberts' letter in the same journal, 12-Aug. Miles was one of the authors of the paper criticised by Alberts. Miles denies the possibility of an artifact in all reported isoperibolic calorimetry experiments on cold fusion. Miles writes that there is too much emphasis on possible error, thereby missing what may prove to be the discovery of the century. ------------------------- Miles MH; Science 255 (1992) (13-Mar), 1335, Letters. "Cold fusion: China Lake results". ** A reply to Gary Taubes' earlier piece 'A cold fusion deja vu at Caltech', ibid 254 (1991) 1582, in which GT mainly focusses on Fleischmann and Pons but also sums up the state of cold fusion as he sees it. Among other things, GT claims that the China Lake (4)He results are likely to be due to contamination. Miles here points out the unlikelihood of this: in 8 out of 8 cells producing excess heat, He was found; in 6 out of 6 cells not producing excess heat, no He was found. This coincidence is not likely to be due to chance, having a probablity of 1/16384, writes Miles. ------------------------- Miley G; Fusion Technol. 26 (4T) (1994), vii. Editorial. ** The editor of FT here explains this special issue, containing 65 (by my count) papers delivered at ICCF-4, Maui, 1993. He mentions a review process, taking more time than expected; thus we can take it that these papers were reviewed. ------------------------- Miley G; Fusion Technol. 26 (4T) (1994), viii. "Dedication to Julian Schwinger". ** One of three dedication pieces on the occasion of the death of Julian Schwinger, Nobel Prize winning physicist, who before his death strongly supported 'cold fusion' on theoretical grounds. ------------------------- Miley G; Fusion Tehcnol. 26T (1994) iii "Comments". GM makes some remarks on two rather different papers published in this issue of FT, i.e. papers about carbon rod arcing. They are thought by some to have relevance to 'cold fusion', and GM states that because these papers are bizarre, four referees were used and they were mostly neutral, not finding any errors. So GM took them, partly because of their provocative nature. ------------------------- Miley GH; Fusion Technol. 16 (1989) 115. Editor's response to 'Comments on cold fusion' by Bill Nevins. ** The Editor of Fusion Technology explains that he has several reasons for opening a cold fusion section in the journal. Among these are the fact that it is a potentially valuable technique if it can be verified, and the fact that Miley himself is involved in cold fusion experiments and is personally convinced that something interesting and real is going on. ------------------------- Morrison DRO; Nature 366 (1993) 29 (4-Nov). "The rise and fall of the 17-keV neutrino". ** This Progress Paper reports the interesting story of the 17 keV neutrino, whose existence has been controversial; it is now considered an artifact. Morrison here tells the story. At the end, he muses on the difference between the scientific and legal approaches; with the former, each researcher must carefully consider all points of view, even those of the critics/opponents. In the case of this purported neutrino, the approach triumphed. DROM finally comments that there are always a few who cling to an artifact, and cites cold fusion as such an area, where some still believe in the phenomenon; in fact, some hundreds of researchers continue to work in the field, despite the fact that the scientific community has turned away. ------------------------- Morrison DRO; Physics World 3(2) (1990) 35. "The rise and decline of cold fusion". ** A critical status report written in Feb-90. Among other things, it lists the possible known D-D fusion reactions (which the facts refuse to fit), gives the "milestones" in a separate box and a critical assessment of all the important results and claims. The author gives away his leanings by ending the article with a paragraph on pathological science, clearly putting "cold fusion" in the same category as n-rays, and pointing out an interesting correlation between the attitude towards cold fusion and geography - it seems that this issue, like so many others, it's "us vs. them". ------------------------- Mundell I; Nature 359 (1992) 5 (3-Sep). "BAAS embraces role of educating public". ** Report of the recent annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Scientific outliers appear to have been on the agenda, such as a hominid aquatic past, and a presentation by M. Fleischmann on cold fusion, followed by a noisy press conference. No questions were asked after F's lecture, despite the presence of distinguished chemists. ------------------------- Murbach W; C&EN 9-Mar-1992, p.3 "Cold fusion" (Letter). ** WM comments on the SRI explosion, pointing to an old inorganic chemistry text (Therald Moeller, 1952), which notes that hydrogen is released explosively from palladium hydride when the electrolysis current is turned off. Also, he points out that ignition in hot fusion has not been easy to achieve, and reckons that this gives an exceedingly small chance to cold fusion, in principle. ------------------------- Myers FS; Science 257 (1992) 474 (24-Jul). "Where there's heat there's yen". ** Another report of MITI's decision to fund some cold fusion research in Japan. Unlike the one in Nature (Swinbanks), this one is fairly certain that this will go ahead, "barring last-minute objections by the Japanese Ministry of Finance". MITI does not subscribe to the reality of cold fusion but is just being pragmatic in the face of excess heat reports. This report mentions figures of $1-$3 million, and a consortium of Universities and about 10 leading Japanese utility, electronics and metallurgical companies to do the work, over a 5-year period. ------------------------- Nevins B; Fusion Technol. 16 (1989) 115. "Comments on cold fusion". ** "Do you really want to rapidly publish a bunch of 'halfbaked' work on cold fusion? I expect that Pons and Fleischmann will find the error in their power balance within the next month or so, and all those authors will be desperately trying to withdraw their papers". This was written April 22, 1989... See GH Miley, the Editor's, response. ------------------------- O'Neill B; New Scientist 137(1859) (1993), 24 (6-Feb). "Fusion at a pinch". ** Pinch fusion was the first method to realise fusion, writes O'Neill, but has been superseded since its heyday in the 1950's by the two now major methods, magnetic and inertial confinement, requiring large and expensive equipment. These two have disappointed many workers during the decades, and some are now looking again at pinch fusion, where the plasma is confined by the magnetic field generated by the current going through the plasma itself. Technical advances now favour another look at this old technique, and an experiment is under construction at Imperial College, London. ------------------------- Oyama N, Hatozaki O; Oyo Buturi 60 (1991) 278 (in Japanese). "Present and future of cold fusion - nuclear fusion induced by electrochemical reaction". ** Another wrap-up paper. This one appears to give some background information on electrochemistry, and summarises cold fusion results such as emissions and heat observations. The journal has an English-language abstract section. ------------------------- Passel TO; Fusion Technol. 26 (4T) (1994), xxii. Preface. Fourth International Conference on Cold Fusion. ** T.O. Passel, of EPRI, who was instrumental in shaping this special issue of FT, here prefaces it with a few remarks. Like the editor, G. Miley, he establishes that the papers were reviewed and that many did not make it through this process, or were not submitted to it. He comments that this could be a comment on the reviewing process as much as on the papers. There is a Shakespeare quote. ------------------------- Picasso LE; Acc. Inoss. 56 (1989) 5 (in Italian). "Fusione: Fredda o calda?" (Fusion: Cold or hot?) ** General comment, summarising orthodox fusion approaches such as plasma fusion with magnetic or inertial confinement, muon catalysed fusion, and the surprising unorthodox chemically induced fusion. Prof. Picasso concludes with the hope that after the preliminary rush to reproduce and explain the results of Jones+ and JPH, there will now follow a period of more considered investigation. ------------------------- Pinch T; C&EN January 13., 1992, p.28. "Cold fusion fiasco". ** Trevor Pinch, an associate professor of the sociology of science and technology, compares the cold fusion books of Frank Close and Eugene Mallove, respectively "Too Hot to Handle" and "Fire from Ice". He finds them both good accounts of the story and the technical details, but wanting in the authors' attitude to how science is done, and considers both authors biassed. Close praises the negative experiments, while Mallove considers lack of evidence as proof of cold fusion. ------------------------- Pippard B; Nature (London) 350 (1991) 29 (7 March). "Footnote to history". ** A purported review of Frank Close's book "Too Hot to Handle". The actual review takes up less than 20% of the article, and is scanty. Close is upbraided for being repetitious and at times irritating. The contents of the book are not discussed. The other 80% of the article gives BP's view of the cold fusion affair. An interesting point made here is that, despite P&F's claim to have been working on cold fusion for 5 years up to 1989, there was very little to show for it. BP does not mention - as does Close - the puzzles remaining to be explained by skeptics. ------------------------- Pool R; Science 262 (1993) 1367 (26-Nov). "Alchemy altercation at Texas A&M" ** "Four years ago it was cold fusion, now it's alchemy" is the opening sentence in this report of Bockris' involvement with shady characters purporting to be able to change silver into gold. One Joe Champion apparently convinced Bockris that he could do it; however, the repeated successes could not be repeated after Champion left. The man was later goaled, and this casts bad light on some $200,000 he procured for Bockris, from a gullible investor. Bockris is then quoted as saying that he is now working on transmutation of carbon into iron. ------------------------- Pool R; Science 250 (1990) 754 (9-Nov issue). "Cold fusion: Only the grin remains" ** "Like the Cheshire Cat, cold fusion has slowly faded away" says Pool, and the grin is on the faces of the researchers around the world who continue to find neutrons. Pool has been to the Utah meeting on cold fusion at Brigham Young, and reports. SE Jones wishes not be associated with FPH. One new result made public at the meeting was emission of charged particles, perhaps tritium ions. But Douglas Morrison was not impressed and continues to regard cold fusion as pathology, says Pool. ------------------------- Pool R; Science 250 (1990) 1507, Dec. 14. "Cold fusion at Texas A&M: problems, but no fraud". ** "A 4-month-long internal review of cold fusion research at Texas A&M University has resulted in a report critical of the way many of the scientists involved in that research behaved, but it found no direct evidence of scientific fraud". Carelessness, lack of objectivity, personal frictions and unusual treatments of a dissertation (Packham's) were charged. Smiles all round, as the message appears to be "science takes care of itself", and no fraud is found. ------------------------- Pool R; Science 251 (1991) 371 (25-Jan). "High noon in Utah". ** Pons has to deliver half of his data to Wilford Hansen of the review committee, by Jan 15, and the rest by Feb 1. If the data is not convincing, the 20% funding of the CNFI going to Pons, will be cut off. ------------------------- Pool R; Science 251 (1991) 499 (1-Feb-91). (No title). Response to Bockris' response on the same page. Pool points out that the report of TAM itself states that no tritium has been found there for some time, and that a review panel found that serious breaches occurred, concerning Packham's examination. ------------------------- Pool R; Science 243 (1989) 1661 (Research News, 31 March). "Fusion breakthrough?" ** A sober report of the FPH and Jones+ results. ------------------------- Pool R; Science 244 (1989) 27 (Research News, 7 April). "Fusion followup: confusion abounds" ** The mad scramble to reproduce FPH's results; Bockris invoking unusual branching ratios to explain the lack of neutrons; some politics. ------------------------- Pool R; Science 244 (1989) 143 (Research News, 14 April). "Confirmations heat up cold fusion prospects" ** Heat was generated at Texas A&M; Hungarians find neutrons, too; Walling of Utah has a possible explanation. ------------------------- Pool R; Science 244 (1989) 284 (Research News, 21 April). "Skepticism grows over cold fusion" ** More results coming in, contradictory. ------------------------- Pool R; Science 244 (1989) 420 (Research News, 28 April). "How cold fusion happened - twice!" ** "Inside story of how two little-known electrochemists achieved the breakthrough, or the disappointment, of the decade - and how it may all have been discovered before". The "before" refers to Tandberg, 1927. Gives some personal details about Fleischmann and Pons, and also some of the background for the FPH/Jones+ interaction. ------------------------- Pool R, Heppenheimer TA; Science 244 (1989) 647 (News & Comment, 12 May). "Electrochemists fail to heat up cold fusion" ** Report of the meeting of The Electrochemical Society in Los Angeles, 8 May. Strangely, it seems that only people who had positive results to report, were welcome. Nathan Lewis got in, but had to fight for it. Both Pons and Fleischmann were there to reiterate their claims, and Huggins reported 40% greater heat output when using heavy water D2O than with H2O. Lewis's charge that inadequate mixing in FPH's cells caused hot spots and thus false heat readings were rebutted by Fleischmann who showed videos of fast mixing in their cells. See also Kreysa's report in section 5 (unpub- lished writings) of this bibliography. ------------------------- Pool R; Science 266 (1994) (16. Dec) 1804. "Can sound drive fusion in a bubble?" ** Report of recent work on sonoluminescence, where indirect evidence indicates temperatures between 10^5 and 10^6 K, just 2-3 orders of magnitude below that required for deuterium fusion to achieve interesting rates. The workers hope to fine-tune the setup to reach these levels. They take care to distance themselves from 'cold fusion'; if fusion is achieved here, it will be hot. ------------------------- Pool R; Science 244 (1989) 774 (Research News 19 May). "Cold fusion: Bait and switch?" ** Apparently there was a rumor about Fleischmann and Pons's secrecy, to do with chemical changes in their Pd electrodes, which could possibly explain their results and in themselves be valuable processes. ------------------------- Pool R; Science 244 (1989) 1039 (Research News 2 June). Cold fusion: End of Act I". ** Report of the workshop at Santa Fe in the week before. No concensus was reached, no changes of mind. There was some feeling that there may be two different kinds of CNF, one producing heat, the other radiation. Huggins, having tightened up his controls after Nathan Lewis's criticism, still finds excess heat, and Appleby and Bockris, of Texas A&M, also have positive results. However, other results show that electrodes that produced heat at Texas produced neither radiation, helium or tritium, so a chemical process seems indicated. Fracture-induced fusion (see Klyuev+ in section 2) was discussed as an alternative. ------------------------- Pool R; Science 245 (1989) 256 (Research News 21 July). "Cold fusion still in state of confusion". ** A Federal (US) Government committee decided not to support CNF, in the face of widespread skepticism. However, there are still people adhering to CNF. The State of Utah, however, has granted $5000000 for research on CNF. ------------------------- Pool R; Science 245 (1989) 1448 (Research News 29 September). "Brookhaven chemists find new fusion method" ** Not cold fusion, but has some similarities. Deuterated Ti is shot at with deuterium, causing some fusion. This work started 15 years ago. ------------------------- Pool R; Science 246 (1989) 206 (News & Comment 13 October). "Will new evidence support cold fusion?" ** A wrap-up of the CNF scene at present, a week before a workshop to take place at Washington. Kevin Wolf of Texas A&M is quoted as someone trying to explain, without invoking CNF, the tritium he finds, but so far without success. ------------------------- Pool R; Science 246 (1989) 449 (Research News 27 October). "Teller, Chu "boost" cold fusion" ** At a 2.5 day workshop in Washington, DC, Teller and Chu advocated more work on CNF. Appleby, of Texas A&M, suggested that it might be an as yet unknown neutral particle, that causes CNF. ------------------------- Pool R; Science 246 (1989) 879. "Cold fusion: Smoke, little light". (News & Comment, 17 Nov.). ** Report on a meeting, sponsored jointly by the NSF and the Electric Power Research Institute, where some feathers were ruffled, because funding, rather than the science of CNF, was concentrated on. Other participants were happy, however (what else is new?). ------------------------- Pool R; Science 246 (1989) 1384. "In hot water over cold fusion". 15 Dec. ** Report on Hagelstein's talk at the annual meeting of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in San Francisco, December 1989, which has caused some controversy and may predujice his achievement of tenure at MIT. He had also irritated people with what they considered premature release of his theories on cold fusion, 3 weeks after the FPH paper; however, Pool points out that Hagelstein has always been very reluctant to talk to the press. His superiors are worried about his tenacity in holding to his theory of coherent fusion, perhaps beyond reason. Again, his own statements are more moderate than his detractors seem to think. ------------------------- Pool R; Science 248 (1990) 1301 (15 June). "Wolf: My tritium was an impurity". ** Kevin Wolf, whose evidence for tritium had been one of the hardest to dismis, has now found that it probably resided in the palladium used in his group's experiments. This, despite standard precautions to eliminate it by prolonged heat treatment before the experiments. The item includes a comment by Wolf on the suspicions of fraud with respect to the tritium results of the Bockris group in the same complex. ------------------------- Porile N; J. Chem. Educ. 66 (1989) 932. "Cold fusion as the subject of a final exam in honors general chemistry". ** Told to prepare for electrochemistry, crystal structure and nuclear chemistry, students at Purdue University were given an exam with cold nuclear fusion as the topic, then just become public. The questions were a thorough going-over of the subject; in fact, many researchers might benefit by asking themselves just these questions... ------------------------- Port O, Carey J, Buderi R, Gross N; Business Week 2-Mar-92, p.90. "Cold fusion isn't dead in the water yet". ** A lively summary of the current status of cold fusion. It focusses in particular on the theory and experiments of R.T. Bush, and those of A. Takahashi, both of which are highly controversial. Tom Droege's basement experiments round off this interesting discussion. ------------------------- Port O, Carey J, Buderi R, Gross N; Business Week 2-Mar-92, p.90. "Cold fusion isn't dead in the water yet". ** A lively summary of the current status of cold fusion. It focusses in particular on the theory and experiments of R.T. Bush, and those of A. Takahashi, both of which are highly controversial. Tom Droege's basement experiments round off this interesting discussion. ------------------------- Rabinowitz M; Fusion Technol. 26 (4T) (1994), ix. "In memory of Julian Schwinger". ** One of three dedication pieces on the occasion of the death of Julian Schwinger, Nobel Prize winning physicist, who before his death strongly supported 'cold fusion' on theoretical grounds. There is a list at the end, of JS's 8 papers on 'cold fusion', the last of them being also published in the same issue of FT. ------------------------- Rich V; Nature 338 (1989) 529 (News, 20 April) "Mixed success in East" ** Report of socialist bloc attempts to verify CNF. Hungarians are first off the mark, with positive findings; Poles are still undecided, Russians are positive at rather low temperatures. ------------------------- Romer RH; Am. J. Phys. 60 (1992) 1067. "Editorial: Cold fusion". ** Romer muses on a course he was giving on energy and entropy to a varied lot of students, at the time the cold fusion news broke in 1989. He watched the cold fusion affair and became concerned, and here writes about, the knowledge scientists acquire on the side, about how to get grants, how they are decided on, reviewing, pork-barrelling, promotion and tenure, etc. He regrets that nonscience majors who may end up in responsible positions in government, and may have taken a general course such as the one Romer gave (and presumably gives), have no feeling for these peripheral issues. ------------------------- Romer RH; Am. J. Phys. 60(12) (1992) 1067. Editorial: "Cold fusion". ** The editor of AM. J. Phys muses on how the process of science is presented to students. The case of cold fusion reminds him that this process is often distorted by myth. Physicists were astonished at the way CNF turned into a circus, while their students couldn't understand the astonishment. Scientists should learn, as part of their studies, about such peripheral things as grant getting, peer review and publishing of papers etc; in short, the less spectacular aspects of doing science. ------------------------- Ross DK; J. Electroanal. Chem. 347 (1993) 474. Book Review: "The Science of Cold Fusion". Proceedings of the Second Cold Fusion Conference, Como, June 29-July 4, 1991. ** DK Ross, from Salford University, UK, reviews these conf. procs. He himself has done (unpublished) work in cold fusion, and here muses on the pathological science aspect of the filed - rejecting that label. There is a good summary of the problems with cold fusion results, and with some of the attempts at an explanation, such as the invocation of the Moessbauer effect, or Preparata's theory. Ross notes that chances of funding for cold fusion projects in the UK are zero. Ross also notes that the claims that cold fusion is a third world phenomenon are false. He concludes that the evidence is hard to dismiss but that reproducibility must be achieved. ------------------------- Rousseau D; American Scientist 80 (1992) (Mar-Apr), 108 (Letters to the Editor). (no title) ** Response to the polemic response of Czirr et al in this issue of the journal, p.107, to the earlier article (Jan-Feb 1992, p.54) by Rousseau. R here thanks Czirr et al for the correction of his chronology of the early events in the cold fusion affair, and produces a quote which appears to indicate that the Jones group, at least initially, had energy production in mind. He points out that both the Jones and FPH groups claimed that they had detected cold fusion, while many other groups have failed to reproduce it. He does not wish to stifle nascent field research. ------------------------- Rousseau DL; American Scientist 80 (1992) (Jan-Feb), 54. "Case studies in pathological science". ** Polywater, cold fusion and Benveniste's homeopathic paper in Nature are used here as examples of PS. The author was himself involved in the first of these three, and its debunking; he found the impurities that caused the "anomalous" behaviour of water, i.e. traces of sweat. DLR believes that cold fusion, like the other two cases, is one of self delusion. There is a good Johnny Hart cartoon. ------------------------- Scaramuzzi F; Chim. Ind. (Milan) 75(5) (1993) 425 (in Italian). "Cold fusion four years later". ** Written in 1993, this is a round-up of the 'cold fusion' scene after four years in the field. The author comments on the two main types of evidence: excess heat from electrolysis cells and radiation (neutrons) from metal/gas systems. The problems are mentioned, and the theory of Preparata to account for the evidence. S concludes that it is difficult today to reject 'cold fusion' as a real phenomenon, whatever its cause. ------------------------- Schwinger J; Fusion Technol. 26T (1994) xii. "Cold fusion theory. A brief history of mine". Nobel Prize winner physicist Julian Schwinger here expands on his ideas on 'cold fusion' in an address given at ICCF-4 at Maui in 1994. He points out many of the weaknesses in arguments, pro and con, and provides some interesting information on his publication failures in the field. He is one of the few to suggest the p+d reaction, yielding 3He, as the most likely source of the emissions. ------------------------- Service RF (with Brant M, NY and Takayama H, Tokyo); Newsweek 9-Aug-93, p. 40. "Cold, but not dead". ** A quite up-to-date report of the cold fusion affair. Apart from the usual F&P electrolysis jar, a picture of a boiling cryocell is shown, said to be a HydroCatalysis experiment (i.e. a Mills & Farrel cell). Petrasso says it is all systematic error, McKubre reports as much as 50% excess heat, Takahashi and Storms are quoted. Other names mentioned are Notoya, Bush, Koonin, Brightsen of Clustron Sciences Corp. Kelvin Lynn of BNL ends with the words that just a few million dollars might decide whether it is good science or mistakes. This is in fact being spent by MITI, Japan. ------------------------- Oriani RA; Science 261 (1993), 16-Jul, p. 279. "Cold fusion difficulty". ** Oriani here corrects a statement attributed to him by Amato in a piece on cold fusion in the 14-May issue of Science. Amato had him say that he found the 1993 paper of F&P in Phys. Lett. A "difficult to assess"; Amato neglected to say that the difficulty was that Oriani had not had time to study the paper yet, so the remark was reported out of context. ------------------------- Shore SN; Skeptical Enquirer 16 (1992) 301. "Seeking 'resurrection' for cold fusion" - a review of Fire from Ice, Mallove. ** SS, a NASA physicist, here reviews Eugene Mallove's book. He makes his own position clear by saying that the coffin has been nailed on cold fusion, and Frank Close has written the definitive book on it, serving as obituary - almost; Mallove seeks to resurrect it. SN believes Mallove wrote a work of wishful thinking, rather than one of science or sociology. Mallove's main point is the large number of positive findings; he quotes 92 groups that have done so. SN looks at these, and finds that one fifth are comprised of just four groups (two in Indian, one at Oak Ridge, one at Case Western Reserve) and that only 19 are from refereed journals, six out of newspaper reports. These papers vary widely in what they report, and Mallove does not mention the much larger number of negative findings. He concludes that Mallove's book should be read, if only to have a record of the believer's case. ------------------------- Stone R; Science 254 (1992) (3-Apr) p.28. "Propping up cold fusion" (Random Samples section). ** A report of the support EPRI continues to give cold fusion, by financing McKubre's group. Despite the explosion, which killed one group member and injured others, the work will go on. EPRI revealed on 19-Mar that more funds would be given to SRI (where the work is done) but not - as some have claimed - $12 million. The actual figure will be reviewed from time to time. The project is titled "Excess heat production in electrolytic experiments involving palladium as the host metal for deuterium"; the term "cold fusion" does not appear. ------------------------- Storms E; Techology Review May/June 1994, p.20. "Warming up to cold fusion". ** As the author writes, 5 years have passed and he writes a sort of summing-up of 'cold fusion', without any references. He covers the field well and dicusses existing theories, not uncritically. ------------------------- Stromoski; Omni Oct. 1993, p.126. Cartoon: Two scientists at the bench are startled by a fairy-like figure with tutu and sparkles floating in the air behind them, assuring them: "Do not be afraid . . . I am the cold fusion fairy." ------------------------- Swinbanks D; Nature 359 (1992) 4 (3-Sep). "Big increase for MITI budget emphasizes energy technology". ** DS reports the MITI application for funds for 1993. Among other things, 300 million yen was requested for hydrogen energy (cold fusion), for 1993. This is the smallest of the listed requests, totalling just over 300,000 million. ------------------------- Swinbanks D; Nature 354 (1991) 98 (14-Nov). "Cold fusion leaves a legacy". ** It seems that the cold fusion affair has had something to do with the decision by the Japanese government to agree to finance the building, at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Britain, of a muon source. Nagamine, who heads the Japanese end of this joint proposal, was asked to explain cold fusion when that affair became public in 1989 and there is a possibility that this news helped the decision for the muon source experiment. Nagamine says that this is the only good thing to have come out of cold fusion. Among other things, the negative muons produced (together with the positive ones) will be used to investigate muon-catalysed cold fusion. ------------------------- Swinbanks D; Nature 358 (1992) 268 (23-Jul). "MITI prepares to fund cold fusion by another name". ** The Japanese organisation MITI has reported to the press its plan to apply for money for research into cold fusion. The amounts to be asked for are not known yet, but perhaps hundreds rather than tens of millions of yen (i.e. about hundreds of thousands of dollars) might be on. However, because most Japanese scientists do not believe in cold fusion, that term will not be used; "hydrogen energy" will be substituted. In Japan, as elsewhere, most scientists consider cold fusion an error. ------------------------- Swinbanks D; Nature (London) 342 (1989) 606 (News), 7. Dec. "An old-fashioned love-song" ** Report of the Japanese claim of CNF by K. Nishizawa and N. Wada. Other Japanese are skeptical, although Y. Arata found very high-intensity neutron emission, up to 10**6 times the background, using very large electrodes. ------------------------- Swinbanks D; Nature 367 (1994) 670. "Is Japan throwing good money after bad science?" ** A comment on a decision in Japan to continue to finance (a) earthquake prediction and (b) 'cold fusion'. MITI will spend $5.1m in (fiscal) 1994 on 'hydrogen energy', and DS wonders why, given the fact that there has yet to appear any evidence of 'cold fusion' from that lab, and wonders about the obvious lack of review of research projects in Japan. ------------------------- Hoffman NJ; Fusion Technol. 25 (1994) 225. Book Review: Bad Science; The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion", by Gary Taubes. Random House, NY 1993. ** Nathan Hoffman, a fusion scientist, and himself writing a book on cold fusion, here reviews the Taubes book. He regards it as "a combination of soap opera and mystery", complete with villains. The book, according to Hoffman, is cynical, and he suggests that the allegations of fraud at Texas A&M (in Science) were raised by Taubes as advertisement for his book. Hoffman writes that the book is a collection of embellishments and as a result he now also doubts the veracity of Taubes' first book "Nobel Dreams". ------------------------- Taubes G; Science 254 (1991), 1582. "A cold fusion deja vu at Caltech". ** It seems that Fleischmann was passing through and was roped in for a talk on cold fusion. Some interesting comments were made. Few of the previously active cnf critics (like Nathan Lewis, Steven Koonin or Charles Barnes) were present, and MF got a mild reception. Fleischmann listed only one group (SRI) as having positive excess heat results, and the Babha Institute in India for reliable tritium findings. For neutrons, he cited Steven Jones' work in the Kamiokande neutrino facility, and the China Lake helium results. Fleischmann still believes in cold fusion. ------------------------- Taubes G; Science 248 (1990) 1299 (15 June). "Cold fusion conundrum at Texas A&M". ** Lengthy report of the strange tritium results in Bockris's and others' labs at Texas A&M. It appears that the suspicion of fraud has been entertained for some time, judging from the security measures (thought to be) taken in these labs. Despite these suspicions, and the rather too-good results, it seems that Bockris was not willing to share the doubts, or do much to quell them. ------------------------- Taubes G; Science 249 (1990) 464 (3-Aug). (Letter). ** Referring to the letters of Anderson, Bockris and Worledge in the same issue, Taubes writes that Bockris was informed prior to publication and asked for comments, which were incorporated into the article. Among other things, the article notes that the only other lab reporting tritium is the Bhabha Centre in India. All other labs mentioned by Bockris have either very small increments or have not formally reported any results. The spiking experiments of Storms and Talcott, intended to prove that Bockris's spikes are due to tritium emitted by a cold fusion reaction, do not in fact prove this. ------------------------- Tinsley C; Fortean Times no.69 (1993) 23. "Hot stuff". ** An up to date report of the cold fusion affair, more or less from a positive point of view, with some doubtful bits. Tinsley concludes that solid evidence is now in, and we should work on tuning the phenomenon, and that shares in oil or electricity [sic] are a poor investment now. There is an inset with hot-off-the-press news of one Roger Stringham, who is reported to have induced cnf by ultrasound, soon to be formally reported. ------------------------- Waanders FB, Smit JJA; Spectrum (Pretoria) 28(3) (1990) 46 (in Afrikaans). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 114:12958 (1991). "Cold nuclear fusion". ** "A review with 4 refs. on the controversy surrounding cold fusion claims of M. Fleischmann et al (1989)". ------------------------- Wade N; Nature 364 (1993), 5-Aug, p.497. "The good, bad and ugly". ** Review of Taubes' book "Bad Science". Wade likes the book, and likes the wealth of detail it offers of this case study in the sociology of science and human folly, as well as Taubes' agreeably sardonic style. The book is a compelling witness to the human mind's irrepressible propensity for self-delusion. ------------------------- Walling C; C&EN p.2, June 29 (1992). "Cold fusion". ** Cheves Walling objects to the way his and Simon's contribution is described both by Huizenga's book, and its review by Dagani in C&EN. CW writes that it is not true that they sent their paper, knowing about the helium retraction of Fleischmann and Pons; rather it was written and sent upon receiving what looked like experimental (mass spectroscopic) evidence of helium from Pons. CW has never seen the alleged retraction. ------------------------- Watson T; Nature 358 (1992), 20-Aug, p. 616. "Scientists deny alleged support of company's 'new nuclear science'". ** Of the sixteen scientists quoted by the new cold fusion company Clustron Sciences Corporation, the ten that could be reached denied supporting the theory of Dr. Brightsen, i.e. the theoretical base of that company. Another person cited as supporter, Prof. W. Buck, has publicly stated that he does in fact not support the theory. Of the remaining five, two could not be contacted and two are not scientists, writes Traci Watson. ------------------------- Weiss J; Dallas Morning News Wed, Nov. 17, 1993, p. 1A and ff. "Texas A&M embroiled in questionable alchemy project". ** The whole story of how Bockris was offered $200,000 by financier William Telander, working with or goaded by Joe Champion, who is now in prison. Bockris was not unskeptical, but eventually did take the money and allowed Champion into his lab initially. The piece ends with: "You know, he was the goose laying the golden eggs", Dr. Bockris said of Mr. Champion. "It wasn't until December 1992 that I saw, I think this is the right phrase, that the eggs were cracked". ------------------------- Williams D; Physics Today January 1993, p.73. "Proof, process and lessons from cold fusion"; a review of John Huizenga's "Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century". ** JW likes Huizenga's straight-forward account of the deliberations of the investigative committee he was on, to examine the cold fusion claims. He likes Huizenga's refusal to accept weak evidence. He also muses on his own observation of theorists who supported the claims soon afterwards, willing - as Huizenga says - to chain miracles together. Since the book, nothing much has happened to change the picture. ------------------------- Williams D; Physics Today March 1994 p. 94. Letter. ** Williams replies to the Letter by Mallove, in which Mallove criticises Williams for his earlier review of Taubes' book "Bad Science". Williams disagrees with Mallove's disagreement. ------------------------- Williams R; C&EN September 6, 1993, p. 4. (Letter) ** Williams, of Princeton, complains that an earlier article in C&EN (June 14) emphasises the limitless-energy vision of cold fusion, and says that this misconception explains the bizarre episode. Even if power were generated from cold fusion, as a free lunch, it would cost much the same for consumers, due to costs of the plant and distribution. Had the affair initially been presented as a possible small drop in the cost of power, scientists could have been saved from the current embarrassment. ------------------------- Worthy W, Dagani R; C&EN 67 (1989), May, p.5. "Utah chemists back off from some fusion claims". ** An early retraction by F&P, at the Electrochemical Society meeting in LA, of some of their earlier claims, i.e. the detection of neutrons and 4He, explained as instrumental shortcomings. The neutron results as published were simply wrong, says Fleischmann, and the 4He measurements were based on the false assumption that the 4He, if formed, would come out of the Pd; the immobility of He in Pd would prevent this. But F&P stand by their excess heat. ------------------------- Waldrop MM; Science 244 (1989) 523 (News & Comment 5 May). "Cold water from Caltech" ** Steve E. Koonin calls Pons and Fleischmann deluded and incompetent. ------------------------- Weber R; Schweiz. Tech. Z 86(12) (1989) 25 (in German). "Kernfusion im Wasserglas?" ** Again, an early summary of the FPH affair. Weber notes that, if F or P had not been well known scientists beforehand, their results would have been ignored. ------------------------- Wilner B; Nature (London) 339 (1989) 180 (18 May). "News and Views" "No new fusion under the sun" ** B. Wilner has the old notes of his father, Torsten Wilner, who worked with Tandberg from 1925 in the Electrolux Laboratories in Stockholm. They noted Paneth's work (see Paneth, 1926 and 1927) and ran some of their own experiments, which were very much like those of FPH and Jones+, involving electrolysis. Their aim, unlike Paneth's (the production of He) was to produce energy, and they filed for a patent, which was not granted. They continued this work for many years, and even set up to measure radiation. Wilner quotes two scientific papers by his father, written in 1948 and '49 (dealing with bombardment fusion), and a book (Soederberg, section 1) has a full account of the story (in Swedish). ------------------------- Worledge DH; Science 249 (1990) 463 (3-Aug). (Letter). ** Referring to Taubes' "Cold fusion conundrum at Texas A&M" in Science 248 (1990) 1299, Worledge comments on that part of the article mentioning EPRI's funding of cold fusion research. Like Bockris, he points out the large number of tritium (and other) claims all over the world. ------------------------- Zorpette G; IEEE Spectrum, Feb. 1990, p. 23. "The media event". ** A good resume of the cold fusion situation. -------------------------