One of the greatest mysteries in nuclear physics.
See part 3 two weeks early:
Part 1:
Twitter profile:
Patreon:
Research assistant: Chris Pepin
Assistant editor: Charlie Arsenault
Script Feedback: Chris Pepin, Charlie Arsenault, Boundo
Thumbnail by Hotcyder (@hotcyder )
Data for publication rate by year compiled by Daniel Jarabek
Blender assistance from Chris Hanel (@ChrisHanel )
Music from the Youtube Audio Library, Epidemic Sound, and White bat Audio (@WhiteBatAudio )
3D Models (TV, whiteboard, phone, office supplies) licensed from CGTrader. Additional imagery licensed from Getty Images and the Associated Press.
Sources:
Fleischmann, M., and S. Pons. 1989. Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion of deuterium. Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry 261:301โ308.
Fleischmann, M., and S. Pons et. al. 1990. Calorimetry of the palladium-deuterium-heavy water system. Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry 287:293โ348.
Jones, S.E, E.P Palmer, J.B Czirr, D.L Decker, G.L Jensen, J.M Thorne, S.F Taylor, and J Rafelski. 1989. Observation of cold nuclear fusion in condensed matter. Nature 388:737โ740.
Newspaper coverage from a wide variety of sources, but a large amount from the Salt Lake City Tribune and the Deseret News.
Televised March 23rd 1989 Press Conference at the University of Utah announcing cold fusion.
Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion (Book) by Gary Taubes, 1993. Authoritative account of the cold fusion saga, has by far that most details about behind the scenes events, especially anything relating to Steven Jones and Marvin Hawkins. Taubes is also notable for his reporting on the Texas A&M tritium spiking allegations.
Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century (Book) by John Huizenga, 1992. Written by the co-chair of the Department of Energy Panel that investigated cold fusion, this book is very in depth when it comes to the science.
Cold Fusion Research โ A report of the Energy Advisory Board to the United States Department of Energy. November 1989.
Too Hot to Handle: The Race for Cold Fusion (Book) by Frank Close, 1991. The first major book written about cold fusion written from the perspective of a physicist following the story as an outside observer. Has particularly good info on the gamma ray peak dispute. Close also gave a public talk on the contents of his book in 1991 which was recorded.
Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud (Book) by Robert Park, 2000. Cold fusion is mentioned as one of several examples of ‘Voodoo Science’ throughout the book, which generally has a focus on Washington and science funding.
The Cornell Cold Fusion Archive (originally curated by Bruce Lewenstein). Has an extensive copy of many original documents, news coverage, etc. They also provided me with a digitized video copy of the Baltimore APS meeting.
Truth and Consequences: How Colleges and Universities Meet Public Crises (Book) by Jerrold Footlick, 1997. A chapter of this book is dedicated to assessing how the University of Utah administration handled the cold fusion controversy.
The Believers (Documentary) by Clayton Brown and Monica Long Ross, 2012. This film catalogues the diminished state of cold fusion research two decades later, interviewing many of its remaining proponents.
Cold Fusion: A case study for scientific behavior, an educational resource produced by the University of California, Berkeley. 2012.
Berlinguette et. al. Revisiting the cold case of cold fusion. Nature 570:45-51
Guffey et. al. Experimental Lessons in Replication of โLow Energy Nuclear Reactionsโ.
Audio recording from the ACS Dallas meeting from April 1989.
CSPAN recording of the Science Space and Technology committee hearing on Cold Fusion on April 28th 1989.
CSPAN recording of Utah Rep. Wayne Owens on January 25th 1990.
CSPAN audience call-in segment on cold fusion on May 4th 1989.
Video recording of the ECS Los Angeles meeting from May 8th 1989.
10+ hours of assorted local Utah TV news coverage archived by the University of Utah Library.
BBC Horizon โ Too Close to the Sun, 1994.
CBC โ The Secret Life of Cold Fusion, 1994.
Tomorrowโs World (TV Programme), March 28th 1989.
60 Minutes โ Cold fusion is hot again, 2009.
Fusion Fiasco (Book) by Steven Krivit, 2016. Book 2 of 3 in a series about cold fusion and LENR. Krivit heavily editorializes in favour of Pons and Fleischmann and is an advocate of LENR. With that caveat, he has done extensive independent research including interviews with many of those involved and cites documents not widely published anywhere else.
Fire from Ice: Searching for the Truth Behind the Cold Fusion Furor (Book) by Eugene Mallove, 1991.
Fire from Ice (Documentary) directed by Eugene Mallove, 1998.
Excess Heat: Why Cold Fusion Research Prevailed (Book) by Charles Beaudette, 2000.
source
Want to see the end of the trilogy extra early? You can watch it right now on Nebula: https://nebula.tv/videos/bobbybroccoli-you-cant-kill-an-idea
I came from Nebula to make sure I like this video and leave a comment here. For everyone else, part 3 is already live on Nebula. This series is fantastic as always.
Why do u not make it clear a video is part 2? Itโs been really frustrating watching a long video only to realize I have to go back and watch previous parts. Will prob unsubscribe because my brain just canโt handle this mess, sorry
Watched on neubula. Excellent video!
I'm glad I watched it on Nebula, and now I'm gonna watch it again.
the poem 'yesterday upon the stair…' is called antigonish by hughes mearns. it's also used in the film 'identity' which is a thriller about a man with mutiple personality disorder and some people trapped a hotel where seemingly magical things keep happening (pretty good film actually)
Am I a nerd if I went and watched the full lecture by Frank Close? Lol
how can flieshman be a liar????? he has an accent!!!!! :(
If the palladium rod did absorb all that, couldnโt that be somehow reverse that and draw out that energy?
(I am new to this big science stuff but it intrigues me. I just want to learn)
So wait Jones did technically achieve cold fusion? Just in such a small amount that it would never be useful as an energy source?
Sorry, I'm a Historian not a physicist ๐
45:00 me and my lab partners in undergrad making up data for our 1 credit hour lab reports whenever we screwed something up
The music makes me feel like Iโm in a 2000s medieval arcade game
Does anybody else get adverts every 3 minutes 49 seconds?
57:48 My man sounds like Tom Lehrer.
Compelling and exciting. Very proffessional production standards… Much Thanks..I remember this when it happened and not getting the story then.. subbed.
You may want to make sure that people know that videos are part of a series. I waited to watch this because I thought it was on a different topic than the previous piece.
Step 1: gather material for cold fusion
Step 2: ?
Step 3: profit
bunch of ashkenazic horsecrap, they just can't do anything fully right but then pretend they did it 200% right.
Please make more descriptive titles, there was no frickin way to know this was a part two of anything or what it would even be about.
Electrochemists: We have cold fusion!
Physicists: Come back when you're dead.
In my PhD program we pretty regularly have one day out of the semester discussing why crilling yourself is never the answer
This should be featured on Public TV.
Do you have a background in science in any form?
call me Marvin Hawkins the way I'm also not dead :)
Pons and Fleischmann probably found a glitch in the simulation, they thought they can go public and made the people in base reality keep it as a canonical event, but they just patched it before anyone could replicate the experiment.
The problem with the scientific community in general is it's driven by money and a lust for prestige. This taints the drives of the scientists to pursue the wrong goals – they should be concerned with what they can contribute to the knowledge of humanity, not what they can gain for themselves.
There's a part 3??
felt nostalgic watching the bit with the overhead projector and then i felt old….sigh
It hasnโt been 6 months since the last video and we already have another one?!
BobbyBroccoli makes academia feel like an episode of Succession.
In some ways, I'm worried that these exposes on "great blunders of the scientific field" would fuel distrust of the efforts, but, at the same time, it does show that o matter how much hype, funding, etc, is behind a push, proper science heads (Nature) will reject papers that aren't good enough. "Any yahoo can make a paper, any group can choose to publish it. But to be published by a group that actually cares and made of people that are based on getting things right… you better have your math right."
Me laughing at how foolish they are for making such a basic physics mistake (i am an undergrad psychology student)
You could say "the reason they WENT public" or "the reason they HAD GONE public", but NOT "the reason they HAD WENT public".
Decrease the music, I barely can understand with how loud it is.
One of the first stories in the news that went viral regarding anything related
to Physics. Funny thing is David Charles Hahn AKA: The Nuclear Boy Scout
was closer to building a reactor then Fleischmann and Pons.
36:52 – that Fleischman says "if you do those experiments you ruin the electrodes", suggests that they must've tried them, otherwise how would they know? Alternatively, it exposes him as willing to make up an answer/effect – which to proclaim to the media is one thing, but to say to a fellow scientist is both absurd and audacious!
Working with hydrogen and oxygen gas and thinking "Where could all of that energy have come from!?!?!?"
Hilarious.
If you know Mormonism and BYU, you know there's no problem with intellectual theft if you're one of the Chosen. It's not about finding scientific truth, it's how the faithful are permitted to steal, then lie about it. It's reminiscent of how the ridiculous tale of some golden tablets failed even the most basic verification. This retroactive scam of "oh we did that in 1986" is every bit as clownishly convenient as translating angels.
Gib my phone ๐ฅบ๐๐ฝ๐๐ฝ
The "I met a man who wasn't there" poem is actually a much older poem from 1899. The poem written by William Hughes Mearns was very popular in its time and even became a popular song. It even was brought back in some modern Electro Swing music. The poem is about doubt and uncertainty. Which does seem fitting here.
There is much more to the story of Mr. Pons. This is not the first or last such Pons story.
Me, with no diploma outside of High School and cleaning burger crumbs from my shirt: oh my god, they didn't even use light water….