OLD AZURIANS

On March 23 1989 Fleischmann and his fellow researcher Stan Pons announced to the world at a press conference that they had produced a sustained controlled nuclear fusion reaction in a glass jar, producing more energy than had been put in. It was an announcement that Fleischmann came to regret having made.

 

Pons and Fleischmann had spent $100,000 of their own money in financing their experiments, and in the process of seeking to obtain a research grant to continue their work at Utah University, had discovered that similar research was being conducted elsewhere. According to Fleischmann, the University had pushed them into applying for a patent and calling a press conference, whereas he would have taken the more cautious and conventional approach of publishing a paper in a relatively obscure scientific journal where it could be subject to peer review.

 

This breach of scientific research etiquette was only the beginning of the controversy that was to follow. Many researchers failed to replicate the production of excess heat that Fleischmann and Pons had reported when an electric current was passed through heavy water (water formed with deuterium, the heavy isotope of hydrogen which has a neutron as well as a proton as its nucleus). The theory was that the rare metal Palladium, used as one of the electrodes in this process, had a lattice structure that forced the deuterium nuclei into close proximity as they were absorbed into the metal, causing the nuclei to fuse together and thereby release energy. Previous attempts at fusion had required enormously high temperatures that could only be sustained for a very short time.

 

So had Fleischmann and Pons got it wrong? Was their experimental technique faulty? Was the whole thing a figment of their imagination? Was it all a complete scam? Some argued that there was evidence for all three. Serious accusations indeed to be made against such an experienced and respected research scientist as Fleischmann. He had after all received world-wide acclaim for his previous work, and had been made a fellow of the Royal Society in 1986.

 

Fleischmann admitted that he had made mistakes, but only in allowing himself to be forced into premature publication, and in his claim that the excess heat that he had observed was due to “cold” nuclear fusion. He always maintained, right up until his death in 2012, that excess heat had been produced in the experiments.

 

So is that the end of the story? Is the cloud of ridicule and worse still hanging over him, or is the sun beginning to break through? Perhaps it is. There are people out there who have since replicated the production of excess heat and have detected tritium (an even heavier isotope of hydrogen) which may indicate that a nuclear reaction has taken place. They are convinced that something is going on that demands continued investigation. It may not be cold nuclear fusion, but it could be some other, as yet unexplained, nuclear process in which the so-called weak nuclear force is involved. The term adopted for this is “Lattice-Assisted Nuclear Reaction” (LANR).

 

The degree of interest in the subject can be measured from the hundreds of participants attending the annual International Conferences on Cold Fusion. The most recent of these conferences coincided with the 25th anniversary of the Fleischmann-Pons press conference and is reported at

 

 

Martin Fleischmann was born in Czechoslovakia on 29 March 1927. His paternal grandfather had been adopted by a Jewish family named Fleischmann. His father was a lawyer who opposed the Nazis. The family fled from the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1938, eventually arriving in England. Martin became a pupil at Worthing High School for Boys. He was awarded a scholarship to read Chemistry at Imperial College, London. After being awarded a PhD he went on to lecture at Durham University. In 1967 he was appointed Professor of Electrochemistry at Southampton University where he was to earn international recognition. He died at his home near Salisbury on 3 August 2012.