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

For its own good, and to restore some civility to a contentious
field, MIT should look into ( 1 ) how its scientists
came to perform and publish such a poor experiment, (2)
why they either misdescribed their results, making them
seem more meaningful than they were or used a subtle correcting
procedure without describing exactly what it was,
(3) how it came about that data from calorimeters with a
claimed sensitivity of 40 mw converged, between drafts,
after completion of the experiments, to within perhaps
5 mw of the result that hot fusion people would prefer to see.
It might have been chance, but it might not.
—Dr. Charles McCutchen
Like me, Philip Morrison took the paper’s results at face
value. He calculated for himself the mean excess power shown
in the heavy and light water data in the draft of July 10, 1989. A
little average excess power came from the light water cell and
more from the heavy water cell, which suggests that the height
of the curves was not intended to be meaningless. Had the procedure
simply subtracted the best-fit ramp from each curve,
both of these averages would have been close to zero.
The published paper shows negligible average excess power
from either cell. The change between draft and published version
is what would have happened had the ramps been adjusted
to yield the result that hot fusion experimenters preferred.
I understand that the experimenters have been unwilling to
explain their procedure when asked, and have refused to give
others their data.
Another piece of apparent a posteriori adjustment in the paper
concerns the calibrating procedure. The draft said that dry
nitrogen was bubbled through the electrolyte to stir it. Nitrogen
from from a gas cylinder or from evaporating liquid is dry. But
dry nitrogen would cool the cell by evaporation. The nitrogen
should have been bubbled through water at cell temperature on
its way to the cell. In the published paper, “dry” was missing.
For its own good, and to restore some civility to a contentious
field, MIT should look into ( 1 ) how its scientists came to perform
and publish such a poor experiment, (2) why they either
misdescrlbed their results, making them seem more meaningful
than they were or used a subtle correcting procedure without
describing exactly what it was, (3) how lt came about that data
from calorimeters with a claimed sensitivity of 40 mw converged,
between drafts, after completion of the experiments, to
within perhaps 5 mw of the result that hot fusion people would
prefer to see. It might have been chance, but it might not.
I think all parties would agree that if the experimenters thought
their method of baseline correction would not conceal constant or
slowly varying excess power they should have explained it in
detail. If, on the other hand, both the height and the slope of their
records were meaningless, they should have said so. I believe this
information, whichever it is, should now be published.
Sincerely yours, Charles W. McCutchen
cc: Dr. Eugene F. Mallove, Professor Philip Morrison
Hand-written note attached in copy to Eugene Mallove:
Dear Gene,
Here it is. I hope MIT does something other than stonewall. I
think my request is reasonable. If the height and slope of the curves
mean nothing, the experimenters should say so in
a corrigendum. If the slope subtraction scheme
somehow left meaningful slope and height, they
should explain why this is so in a corrigendum.
You have my permission to copy and distribute
my letter if you think it would help to get
the matter straightened out.
Sincerely yours, Charles
McCutchen
Exhibit Z-5
Prof. Morrison’s Report to President Charles
Vest
March 20, 1992
Yet another letter from Prof. Morrison to President
Vest, concerning the MIT PFC experiment
controversy and the new analysis by Dr. Mitchell
Swartz. Morrison’s conclusion that “though the
procedure was described in only a few lines, a
technically-prepared reader who uses the entire paper can work
out the missing details to a good degree,” is patently not true. The
MIT PFC paper on the Phase-II calorimetry is fraudulently deceptive.—EFM
Department of Physics,
MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139
From: Philip Morrison, Institute Professor
(emeritus)
To: Charles Vest, President
Response to Your Letter of 10 March 1992
I. Question and Answer
Your letter put to me a specific, rather narrow question, whose background
is a recent painstaking study of a particular research paper (and
two draft manuscripts) from MIT. The critical study, largely directed at
a few specific graphs and their captions, was carried out by Dr. Mitchell
Swartz, Weston, MA; its final date is 27 Jan 1992. The research paper
itself, by Albagli et al., with 16 co-authors, came from the MIT Plasma
Fusion Center, and was published in the Journal of Fusion Energy, vol. 9,
no. 2, p. 133, 1990.
You wrote me: “The question I wish you to examine is: Is the data
reduction method that was used. . . [to produce certain curves in the
published paper referenced above] satisfactorily described? “
My reply is this: though the procedure was described in only a few
lines, a technically-prepared reader who uses the entire paper can work
out the missing details to a good degree.
That reader would certainly be reassured by having for comparison
the data for the heater power of the light water comparison cell. Those
data were not in the published paper, though they were made available
by Dr. Luckhardt in a letter of August 13,1991, sent by Director Parker
of the Plasma Fusion Center to Dr. Mallove (Mallove Attachment #12).
But I do not think I should stop abruptly. As a physicist, I want to outline
the logic of the procedure, address the results, and even add a little
new matter. Dr. Swartz’s study seems to me to warrant a fuller explanation
for your records (to augment my first response) and for possible
transmission to others you may wish to inform.
II. Source Documents Used
The letter and manuscript from Dr. Swartz are the direct basis for my
comments. But it was valuable as well to use the August 18,1991 letter
of Dr. Eugene Mallove to you, with its many attachments, and my letter
of last October (harmlessly misdated in Dr. Swartz’s study). Both of
these were available also to Dr. Swartz, and cited in his Appendix.
I was also supplied through your office with a new and fuller account
of the data treatment procedures, an account prepared by Dr. Stan Luckhardt
of the Plasma Fusion Center, who carried out the original calculation
(Luckhardt MEMO, 3/10/92). Dr. Luckhardt and I have spoken by
phone as well.
I return all those documents for your files. I have destapled and restapled
some of the papers, and made a few tick marks.
53 Infinite Energy • ISSUE 24, 1999 • MIT Special Report