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

Prof. Herman Feshbach
MIT News Office
of journalism.” He described it as
more of an “advocacy piece.” This
assessment struck me as very peculiar
for three reasons: 1.) I had deliberately
balanced both sides of the
controversy as closely as possible,
even as I interjected my own view
by suggesting that it was difficult to
explain away all the phenomena—
that some unexplained cold fusion
phenomena seemed truly spectacular;
2.) Technology Review is a forum
for advocacy—sometimes not even advocacy with which many
readers will identify. Many if not most pieces in Technology Review
are advocacy pieces, some quite markedly so—like the cover
story that suggested that the U.S. used atomic bombs against
Japan to demonstrate a threat against the Soviet Union; like the
recent cover that all but ratified the threat of global warming
(even though the question is still being debated); or like the most
recent cover story that suggests that the motivating force for the
war in the Gulf was the Pentagon’s need to check out a new military
paradigm; 3.) Finally, it became completely clear in the
remaining conversation that an advocacy piece against cold
fusion would very much have pleased this professor.
I was astounded that this professor had not learned that arguments
“from authority” don’t hold water. He ridiculed me citing
“that Bulgarian chemist.” He did not use the chemist’s name; it
happens to be Dr. Vesco Noninski, a multi-talented electrochemist
from Bulgaria who is fluent in many languages and who
is visiting the United States. Noninski, apart from his having carried
out in Bulgaria very novel heat measuring experiments on
cold fusion—ones that demonstrated excess power—has published
and prepared very interesting analyses of the MIT and
Caltech cold fusion calorimetry experiments. These indicate the
possibility that these teams may have measured excess power,
but didn’t realize it because of improper analysis of their own
data. These analyses are very convincing. They don’t prove, of
course, that cold fusion is real, but they do indicate that not all
negative result experiments may be truly null. Furthermore,
Noninski is far from an “advocate” of cold fusion. He maintains
that he does not know what the phenomenon is, but insists that
careful calorimetric (heat measuring) analyses must be carried
out even to begin to discuss “cold fusion.” He has considered
the error source aspects of cold fusion calorimetry more than
anyone I have encountered in the field.
So what did our physicist non-calorimetry expert say about
Noninski? He challenged me angrily, “You would trust this Bulgarian
chemist over what Mark Wrighton said [about cold
fusion]?” I didn’t answer him on that point, but yes, I would,
because Noninski has put far more time into the problem (see
account below). The physicist was not saying “Dr. Noninski”; I
kept hearing “this Bulgarian.” And MIT is supposed to stand
for cultural diversity? This is incredible! I could hardly believe
what I was hearing from this man whom I had admired and
respected. McBreen of Brookhaven was right!
The physicist [Feshbach] told me that he had “50 years of
experience in nuclear physics and I know what’s possible and
what’s not.” I brought up several other names of physicists who
had initially been skeptical of cold fusion, but who had done
experiments of their own that had convinced them something
was going on. One was at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Dr.
Howard Menlove. Almost before I could get a researcher’s
name out of my mouth, I was cut off by an angry objection from
the physicist, generally of the character, “I don’t know who he
is!” Finally, I tried to suggest that it might be a good idea if my
critic examined a recent technical review of the entire cold
fusion field that has been prepared by physicist Dr. M. Srinivasan
of the Bhabha Atomic Research Center, one of India’s premier
nuclear facilities. Srinivasan is the head of BARC’s Neutron
Physics Division, but the physicist would hear no more
about him. He was getting too angry to stay on the line much
longer. He blurted out, “I don’t want to see any more evidence!
I think it’s a bunch of junk and I don’t want to have anything
further to do with it.” With that, the conversation ended.
This arrogance is so offensive that it can hardly be suffered,
and it need not be. That is one of the reasons I’m leaving the
News Office. I’m profoundly embarrassed that we have such
close-mindedness here on scientific issues. I cannot represent
such attitudes even in an ex-officio capacity. Furthermore, I
intend to attack them, not only after I leave this office, but in my
remaining time here.
An Unfortunate News Release
MIT always speaks the truth in press releases emanating from
the News Office, right? Wrong—not always, sorry to say. On
May 1, 1989, the News Office issued a press release, a copy of
which is attached; it was prepared by me in telephone consultation
with Professor Ronald Parker of the PFC at his request. The
press release was crafted to deny statements that Boston Herald
reporter Nick Tate had attributed to Professor Parker, which
attacked Pons and Fleischmann in the manner denied in the
press release. When I prepared that release, and for more than a
year afterward, I believed that the statement that our office had
issued was valid, though I had some doubts. I simply trusted
what was being asked of me in preparing the release. I trusted
too much—another reason for my leaving the News Office. I do
not wish to be put in that compromised position again. My own
integrity is too important.
After having listened to the actual tape of the interview that
Nick Tate at long last provided me (in July 1990), I believe that
his story’s characterization of what Professor Parker and Professor
Ballinger had said in their conversation with Tate the
week before, is substantially correct. It was a well-orchestrated
attempt to condemn the work of Pons and Fleischmann, not
merely to criticize it technically. In my view, virtually any other
competent reporter would have written essentially the same
story that Tate wrote. In fact, the partial transcript published by
the Herald on May 2, 1989, should have been enough to convince
me of the soundness of Tate’s story, had I not been told
that these remarks were “out of context.” Parker and Ballinger
may deny it, but I know what I heard on that tape, which I was
deeply disturbed to listen to. I have been wrestling with the
knowledge of what it held, and this has been cutting me up
inside ever since first hearing it.
I have a doctorate in engineering, and I came to my career in
science writing at no small sacrifice in compensation, simply
because I enjoy writing more and I believed that it would give
me greater reach. It definitely has. I also have been proud to represent
my alma mater and its fine research, including the many
outstanding accomplishments in magnetic confinement fusion
at the Plasma Fusion Center. Everyone, including Professor
Ballinger and Professor Parker, knows that. I had, and at some
level still do have affection for the people at the Plasma Fusion
Center. They are personable and they have a good cause, which
I am solidly behind—as I spell out clearly in Fire from Ice, even as
I strongly believe in the prospect of cold fusion. Hot fusion
research has many merits that go far beyond the distant and
admirable goal of commercial power reactors, and these may
35 Infinite Energy • ISSUE 24, 1999 • MIT Special Report