MIT and Cold Fusion: A Special Report - Infinite Energy Magazine

Exhibit L
Dr. Mallove’s Resignation Letter from the MIT News
Office June 7, 1991
My letter of resignation form the MIT News Office was submitted
June 7, 1989, two days before my 42nd birthday. It details
the constellation of concerns about unethical press manipulation
and data manipulation that was the central fact of the MIT
PFC’s response to cold fusion.—EFM
Eugene F. Mallove, Sc.D., Engineering
Lecturer in Science Journalism, Department of Humanities
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
June 7, 1991
Kenneth Campbell, Director and
Robert DiIorio, Associate Director
MIT News Office, MIT Room 5-111
Dear Ken and Bob:
The time has come to formalize what I have been alluding to
these past few weeks. Regrettably, I must tell you that I intend
to leave the MIT News Office within this year as soon as I am
able to obtain employment elsewhere. Circumstances surrounding
the cold fusion controversy and the unfortunate way
it has been dealt with at MIT leave me no choice. Furthermore,
the appearance of Fire from Ice, has already prompted insulting
attacks by those negativists—on and off campus—who think
that they have a monopoly on scientific wisdom in this area.
I feel increasingly uncomfortable being the ex-officio representative
of the tragic and indefensible abrogation of academic standards
that has occurred at MIT in this matter. The latter characterization
will prompt raised eyebrows, I’m sure, given that in the
(erroneous) popular view it is cold fusion researchers who are the
exclusive violators of such standards. But this amazement will
merely be another manifestation of arrogance toward and misinformation
about cold fusion research. Please excuse the length of
this letter, which is of the nature of a report, albeit not a comprehensive
one, on the treatment of cold fusion at the Institute.
This is a serious matter, not some esoteric quibbling about a
peripheral exotic question. The sooner the MIT administration
understands this and acts upon it, the better it will be for this
cherished place of great dreams, visions, and deeds. I am proud
to be an alumnus of MIT, but I am outraged, embarrassed, and
amazed at what has happened here. Of course there may well
be an open-minded attitude toward cold fusion among a large
“silent majority” of students and faculty here. I hope that my
book will be able to inform those at the Institute who still are
curious about cold fusion. The most visible MIT response to
cold fusion so far, however, has been an appalling arrogance
and intolerance, combined with actions that have significantly
hindered understanding of the phenomenon here and elsewhere.
The consequences for MIT could well be devastating
when the last “i” is dotted and the last “t” crossed toward proof
that cold fusion phenomena exist. The shield that falsely protects
the Institute now is the milieu of skepticism that surrounds
cold fusion in certain prominent publications and societies, but
that skepticism is doomed to collapse like a house of cards. It is
only a matter of time, and it may be sooner than many believe.
Ironically, this is a false shield of skepticism run amok that some
researchers within MIT have labored mightily to help build.
Frankly, the direct evidence for nuclear effects in many cold
fusion experiments is already overwhelming. If and when—
more likely I would say, when—the measurement of real excess
power production is resolved and proved to come from heretofore
unknown nuclear processes, the MIT response to cold
fusion will be judged most severely; and that negative assessment
will be completely correct unless an immediate and dramatic
change of course occurs. If cold fusion ultimately proves
to be a utilitarian power source, it will be very difficult for MIT
to recover its credibility.
Some of my intolerant critics will probably hasten to suggest
that it is I who will suffer the consequences of a too credulous
view of cold fusion. On the contrary, I will never be embarrassed
by my views, first because they have been honestly reached; I
started with deep skepticism, went back and forth from belief to
disbelief many times, and arrived at what is to me an inescapable
conclusion. Second, even were I to be proved wrong—an unlikely
event—I have taken great pains to spell out precisely the
required circumstances for the collapse of the multiple channels
of experimental evidence that would have to occur to prove that
cold fusion is an illusion. If that unbelievable circumstance
should arise, so be it, but I wouldn’t recommend waiting for it.
I know that there are many other dimensions of my job in the
News Office that present no apparent conflict. By right, there
should have been no conflict in the matter of cold fusion either
—even though I have written a book on the subject that takes a
contrary view to widely held skeptical opinions. After all, isn’t
diversity in scientific viewpoint supposed to be the driver of
progress at a great research university? And I do have scientific
and engineering training and experience, and am presently a
Lecturer in Science Journalism in the Department of Humanities.
These credentials certainly qualify me to discuss this subject
as a peer of those who decry it. But cold fusion is no ordinary
topic. Regrettably, it has not been possible to discuss it here
as one would, for example, relativistic space travel or “child
universes”—concepts that are hardly “accepted,” but which
apparently do not cause the visceral reaction to their mere mention
that cold fusion does. As Dr. James McBreen of
Brookhaven National Laboratory has said, “A lot of people
undergo personality changes when discussing this topic.”
Indifference, Intolerance, Ridicule, Censorship
On 12 April [1991] I wrote to President Vest about cold fusion,
and sent a copy of the letter to former MIT president Gray (see
attached). The letter was a summary of where I thought matters
stood now in the field, including the reports of the recently
announced Soviet work and the well-known Japanese involvement.
I asked that Dr. Vest consider appointing a panel to assess
the field in light of many new developments. I presume he has
taken the matter under advisement, but I find it distressing that
no hint of a response has come on this earnest appeal. I know
that our chief executive is very busy, but this is an important
matter. It would not surprise me at all, though, if that letter were
being disparaged by high-level negativists here who are legion.
Much more disturbing is the stark reality that since the spring
of 1989, no experimental work on cold fusion has occurred at
MIT, an indisputable message of indifference. Thus we have the
institutional response, in effect, “It’s dead.” One of the world’s
greatest scientific institutions has not actively participated in its
splendid laboratories in getting to the bottom of a possible new
scientific phenomenon. Incidentally, even if “cold fusion” were
not to be a revolutionary nuclear process, there is broad agreement
even among skeptics that some unusual thermal effects
have been seen in palladium-platinum heavy water cells. So
where is the scientific curiosity among our resident skeptics to
put that final nail in the excess power issue by doing experiments
to discover what is causing these effects—possibly interesting
and useful in their own right even if not nuclear? Are our
32 Infinite Energy • ISSUE 24, 1999 • MIT Special Report