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

the truth or falsity of cold fusion claims, nor the issue of the way
in which cold fusion has been regarded at MIT generally, but
the manner in which a specific piece of scientific research was
conducted by one particular group at MIT.
Yet the effects on the scientific process to understand a baffling
new phenomenon cannot be ignored. The MIT work has
been widely cited as a keystone in dismissing the claims of
Fleischmann and Pons. It also no doubt was one factor in the
decision by former Chemistry Department head, Mark S.
Wrighton, to sign the DoE Energy Research and Advisory Board
report (November, 1989), “Cold Fusion Research,” which most
observers would agree eventually ended DoE funding of cold
fusion research in the United States. Professor Wrighton was a
key author of the MIT research paper.
The MIT work in question has to do with calorimetry, the
measurement of heat in electrochemical cells that were set up
by the MIT research group to test the claims by Professors Pons
and Fleischmann to have measured significant excess power in
some cells. The part of the paper that is of most concern is the
section on calorimetry, not the results of nuclear measurements,
although I do believe that the paper’s statement in its final summary
with regard to nuclear measurements is completely
unfounded: “Importantly, the level of fusion products present is
by far a more sensitive indicator of fusion reactions than are the
relatively insensitive heat-based measurements which form the
foundation of the claim of nuclear fusion as put forth by FPH.”
This statement presumed that all the possible nuclear reaction
paths and products that might explain cold fusion were known
a priori and were measured by the MIT group, clearly a statement
that an objective scientist investigating a puzzling new
phenomenon should not be making. In fact, theoretical and
experimental developments have, I believe, totally invalidated
those early beliefs by the MIT team. So the nuclear effects part
of the paper, while useful and interesting, does not go to the
heart of the cold fusion question as it was in 1989: Is there unexplained
excess power in some electrochemical cells run in heavy
water and palladium-platinum electrodes?
I respectfully ask you to initiate an immediate inquiry to
determine whether a thorough investigation of the specific concerns
that I have enumerated below is warranted. I believe that
these concerns are certainly of sufficient magnitude to justify an
investigation consistent with the Policies and Procedures guide
for MIT faculty and staff. Those who are co-authors of the
paper, including Professor Wrighton, should, of course, disqualify
themselves from participating in the inquiry and subsequent
investigation. I also request that Dean of Science Professor
Robert Birgeneau not be involved in any inquiry and possible
subsequent investigation, due to his well known negative
view of cold fusion research.
The objectives of the investigation should be three-fold: (1) To
determine whether there was misconduct in the handling and
representation of the data to other scientists and to the public;
(2) To determine whether there was misconduct and/or sufficiently
egregious errors in the work to warrant the paper’s
retraction or significant amendment; and (3) To determine
whether two of the paper’s authors, Professor Ronald R. Parker
and Associate Professor Ronald Ballinger, engaged in unethical
behavior in orchestrating a public attack on the motives of
researchers whose work they hoped to prove incorrect -- in part
with the forementioned research paper. Further, to determine
whether Professor Parker subsequently engaged in unethical
behavior in deceiving the scientific community, the MIT News
Office, and former MIT President Paul Gray about the nature of
his actions.
Specific Concerns Enumerated
The MIT Plasma Fusion Center/Chemistry Department experimental
contribution to cold fusion research was conducted from late March
1989, through late May 1989. The search for evidence of cold fusion in
heavy water cells and comparisons with light water cells included
attempts to find various nuclear products, as well as indications of
excess power.
One experiment in the series of experimental cells reported in this
work is of particular interest, because it is the only case in which some
of the graphs of the raw data that form the power measurements are
shown. This so-called “Phase II” calorimeter experiment compared the
power production of a light water control cell and a heavy water cell.
The record of the controversy clearly shows that at that time scientists
were placing great emphasis on the need to find differences in the
power production between light water cells and heavy water cells.
Numerous statements by a variety of scientists at the time—on both
sides of the controversy—attest to this, and these statements could readily
be assembled if necessary. The presumption by many at the time and
subsequently was that if a heavy water cell produced excess power and
BREAKING
SYMMETRY
Cold Fusion Movie
Imitates Life. . .
“COMING TO A THEATER
NEAR YOU”
Written, Produced, and Directed
by former MIT Professor Keith Johnson
(Dept. of Materials Science)
[Excerpts from a Synopsis by Writer,
Producer, and Director Keith Johnson]
Carolyn, late twenties, a recent Ph.D. in Astrophysics from
Cal. Tech., where she developed a theory of “cosmic dark matter,”
arrives at a renowned Boston area Technical Institute to
fill an Assistant Professor physics faculty position. There she
meets her supervisor, Professor Klinger, a pompous physicist
who heads up the Fusion Energy Lab devoted to harnessing
the nuclear energy of the sun. Carolyn is told she is replacing
another woman, Yvonne, who was denied tenure, and (under
threat of future tenure denial) is discouraged by Klinger from
continuing her own work on dark matter.
While moving into her apartment, Carolyn meets Steven, a
consultant chemist, and the chemistry between them begins.
Steven tells Carolyn he knew Yvonne because of his academic
interest in Yvonne's controversial Institute research on “cold
fusion,” a cheap, environmentally safe way of generating energy
from water. Steven informs Carolyn that Yvonne was
denied tenure because her work on cold fusion threatened
Klinger's costly “hot” fusion empire. . .
. . .The film reaches an explosive conclusion at a rehearsal for
Carolyn’s physics convention lecture. There we learn the
shocking truths about. . .Klinger's role in suppressing cold
fusion, and last but not least, the connection of the cold fusion
energy to cosmic dark matter.
41 Infinite Energy • ISSUE 24, 1999 • MIT Special Report