Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Martin Fleischmann

Checking out the Wikipedia entry on him shows the following:
  • family moved from Czechoslovakia in 1938.  This was the same year Hitler and Chamberlain agreed in Munich to carve up the country in exchange for "peace in our time".  World War broke out the year later. Hitler slaughtered 6 million Jews.
  • 'In 1979, he was awarded the medal for electrochemistry and thermodynamics by the Royal Society of London.'
  • 'In 1985 he received the Palladium Medal from the US Electrochemical Society, and in 1986 was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society'.
  • 'Around 1983, while they were researchers at the University of Utah, he and Stanley Pons found what they believed a way to create nuclear fusion at room temperatures.  Fleischmann wanted to publish it first on an obscure journal, and had already spoken with a team that was doing similar work in a different university for a joint publication' [ emphasis added]
  • 'On March 26 Fleischmann warned on the Wall Street Journal Report not to try replications until a published paper was available two weeks later in Journal of electroanalytical chemistry'[emphasis added]
  • Hundreds tried to replicate anyway and failed.  Then the accusations began. 
Looks to me like Fleischmann got a raw deal.   He admits to making some mistakes, but was this reaction necessary?   Why not a detailed investigation into "cold fusion" by the media?   There was one by the government, but why depend entirely upon the government?   What if the government has an axe to grind?

No comments:

Post a Comment