Clive Cookson, of the Financial Times recalls the Fleischmann Pons announcement 23 years ago.
The Los Angeles Times recalls: Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons thought they were going to change the energy world forever.
The Washington Post recounts when the claim of Cold Fusion could not be satisfactorily substantiated, science turned its back Martin Fleischmann.
Francesco Celani, a physicist with the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Frascati, Italy, demonstrated a LENR device he developed that uses hydrogen gas and a specially treated nickel wire. Celani claims excess heat of around 30% with his device during the NI Week 2012 conference for 6 hours, but it continued after the conference, for over two days.
Several blogs and other sources are speculating on rumors of leaked images and data from a test of Andrea Rossi’s Hot Cat Energy Catalyst. The device is reportedly capable of producing several kilowatts of power at temperatures up to 1,200 Celsius. An insider going by the name of Cures, has said the device in the picture was being supplied with 3.56 kilowatts of electrical power, and it was calculated to be emitting 13.39 kilowatts of power in the form of infrared radiation. Rossi has since identified the mysterious insider as, Domenico Fioravanti, an over exuberant consultant for an alleged military customer of the Leonardo Corporation. Rossi further stated the results of the July 16, 2012 test will be published by the University of Bologna in October.
Read more here and here.
Cold fusion is, conceivably, a third type of nuclear reaction (after fission and so-called hot fusion) that somehow occurs at relatively low temperatures. When Pons and Fleischmann, two of the world’s leading electrochemists at the time, reported in 1989 that their tabletop, experimental apparatus had produced anomalous heat that could only be explained by some sort of a nuclear process, the race to define or explain cold fusion began. Pons and Flesichmann also reported that they’d observed small amounts of nuclear reaction byproducts.
National Instruments is among a handful of large-cap companies actively researching LENR/Cold Fusion/Anomalous Heat Effects technology. Per its company representatives “NI is interested in providing the best tools such as LabVIEW software and NI PXI and CompactRIO hardware towards science research to help understand the underlying physical phenomena behind LENRs and to perform advanced measurements and control on the experiments. National Instruments mission is to equip any scientist and engineer seeking to accelerate productivity, innovation and discovery.”
A handful of LENR and cold fusion sites are reporting Martin Fleischman has passed away at his home in Tisbury, U.K. on August 3, 2012.
Dr. Fleischmann, a Professor of Electrochemistry at the University of Southampton, England became an instant celebrity in 1989 when he and associate professor Stanley Pons announced what was to be called a “cold fusion” reaction in experiments at the University of Utah. The March 23, 1989 press conference created a firestorm of controversy as hundreds of scientists immediately started work at their laboratories to reproduce the anomalous heat effect. With several failed efforts to reproduce the effect, Fleischmann and Pons were labeled as frauds and cold fusion was derided as junk science, with the general scientific community still remaining skeptical to this day.
We can only hope Dr. Fleischmann’s work will continue to be carried out by the small, but growing community of LENR scientists and researchers. While a Nobel Prize cannot be awarded posthumously, I think generations to come will recognize the debt of gratitude owed towards Martin Fleischmann, a man who never retired or wavered in his belief.
I don’t suppose I’ll ever retire completely. -Martin Fleischmann (1927-2012)
