Two physicists from KMS in Ann Arbor Michigan Drs. Mayer and Reitz theorize1014 that an exotic subatomic particle, a fleeting union between a proton and an electron allows fusion or more accurately an "isotope exchange" in a metal matrix. Dr. Mayer is one of the world's most heavily published theoreticians on inertial confinement fusion. Mayer and Reitz's theory is published in the May 1991, edition of Fusion Technology. In another recent press conference,10M a Pennsylvania chemist, Dr. Mills of Mills technology, who had done 1000 simple experiments over the past 18 months reported the process as real, highly energetic, and chemical. His experiments used nickel, water, potassium carbonate and electricity. The experimental apparatus generated 40 times more energy than put into it. Dr. Mills is publishing his work in the August 1991 issue of Fusion Technology and is applying for patents on his work. Taken as a whole, these reports would appear conclusive. The way that Fleischmann and Pons originally publicized their work could be interpreted as an indirect political attack on the normal funding and review procedures of mainstream science. Immediately after the APS meeting of May 3, 198910c press counter-attacks on cold fusion research from the physics community were relentless in The New York Times 10E-FG-H-U-K and elsewhere in the mainstream media. With the persistence of reports of positive results the negative publicity has intensified. The March 1991 American publication by Frank Close of Too Hot To Handle'1 a book highly critical of cold fusion claims, was reportedly delayed due to threatened legal action. Additional articles in The New York Times'0™ attacked the ethics and accuracy of cold fusion results based on a book written by an MIT researcher. Since 1951 over twenty billion dollars of federal funds have been spent on hot fusion research. Most of the press criticism of cold fusion has been led by scientists affiliated with institutionspursuing publicly funded D + T fusion research. At the 1988 NASA workshop on 3He Fusion, well before the cold fusion claims, Professor J. Reece Roth of the University of Tennessee commented on a widespread mindset among physicists which he characterized as "DT chauvinism" that leads to the attitude that "it is not useful to consider any other fusion reaction regardless of technical merits for political reasons." [Ibid. p. 220-1, 4] The "political incorrectness" of cold fusion stems from the reliance by institutions researching DT fusion on substantial, long term federal support to achieve their goals and the perceived necessity of presenting a common front to Congress. The defensiveness of this well connected lobby has distorted the public debate about the validity of cold fusion experiments. The principal proponents of cold fusion and many of the researchers who have replicated the results have had professional backgrounds in electrocatalytic chemistry or extensive lab experience and publications in directly related fields such as muon
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