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The Utah Fusion Circus
The New York Times

April 30, 1989

For the last month, scientists around the world have been poised between deepest doubt and highest hope. The University of Utah claimed on March 23 that two researchers had learned how to fuse atomic nuclei at room temperature. Yet despite a month of attempts to repeat the Utah experiment, no one yet knows if the claim will evaporate in smoke and recrimination or prove the first step to a revolutionary new source of energy.

Conventional attempts to attain fusion rely on multimillion-dollar machines working at enormous temperatures. So it was thrilling to hear that Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, with simple equipment and a mere $100,000 of their own money, had apparently attained fusion at room temperature by passing electric current through heavy water and a palladium electrode.

But the two apparently neglected a basic caution that scientists have learned to impose on themselves for fear of being carried away - a control experiment, like repeating the test with ordinary water instead of heavy water. The University of Utah encouraged them to hold a press conference when the report of their results had been submitted to Nature, a leading scientific journal, but not yet accepted by its editors. When the journal's referees raised criticisms, the authors said they were too busy to respond and withdrew the paper.

None of this means the claim is wrong, just that at present it totally lacks the guarantees of reasonable credibility that attach to research claims published in refereed journals. Given such nakedness, the University of Utah should be embarrassed indeed that many competent laboratories have been unable to repeat the Pons-Fleischmann experiment. Two teams that at first reported having done so later withdrew their claims. A rival group, at Brigham Young University in Utah, has now published a similar claim, but the few neutrons it reports as evidence of fusion may not greatly exceed those that occur naturally.

The claims of cold fusion could still turn out to be correct. And even if not, they have sparked scrutiny and theorizing that could lead others to a fruitful attack. But it's equally possible that some subtle experimental error or self-deception will prove to be the explanation. It's just such errors that the procedural safeguards of science are designed to catch. Imperfect though the safeguards are, they have saved many from the pitfalls of wishful thinking and overenthusiasm. Last week Chase Peterson, president of the University of Utah, appeared before a House committee to drum up Federal funds. Asked how much, he replied, ''The figure that comes to mind is $25 million.'' Given the present state of evidence for cold fusion, the Government would do better to put the money on a horse.

For Mr. Pons and Mr. Fleischmann, the best bet is to disappear into their laboratory and devise a clearly defined, well-understood experiment that others can reproduce. Until they have that, they have nothing. As for the University of Utah, it may now claim credit for the artificial-heart horror show and the cold-fusion circus, two milestones at least in the history of entertainment, if not of science.

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