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From Top of Their World to Professional Ostracism
By William J. Broad
The New York Times

March 17, 1991

In two years, the would-be co-discoverers of cold fusion have gone from scientific stars at the University of Utah to outcasts estranged from the birthplace of their discovery.

When the startling announcement of cold fusion was made on March 23, 1989, Dr. B. Stanley Pons was chairman of the chemistry department at the University of Utah with a bright career ahead of him. Now his career is in turmoil. In January he gave up his tenured post at Utah for a research professorship, which is up for renewal in July 1992. University spokesmen in Salt Lake City say he spends little time on campus.

"I don't know where he is and I don't know if anybody on campus knows," said one spokesman, Jim Bapis. "The rumor is that he's in France."

Dr. Pons, 46 years old, is also at odds with the National Cold Fusion Institute, a nonprofit corporation founded in Salt Lake City by the University of Utah in 1989 with $4.5 million from the Utah State Legislature.

Early this month, Dr. Fritz G. Will, director of the institute, resigned from its board, saying Dr. Pons and his cold-fusion partner, Dr. Martin Fleischmann, were providing insufficient data for a critical review of their research.

Institute on 'Last Legs'

The problem is a continuing one. Last October Dr. Pons failed to appear before a state review committee trying to examine his cold-fusion work, having gone abroad without leaving a forwarding address. The state group was forced to reconvene at a later date, after Dr. Pons had been tracked down and encouraged to appear to help account for how the state's money was being spent.

Mr. Bapis said the institute "is on its last legs" and unlikely to get new financing from the state.

Dr. Fleischmann, 63, retired from teaching at the University of Southampton in England in 1983 and was given an honorary professorship, capping a distinguished career in which he served as president of the International Society of Electrochemistry and was a Fellow of the Royal Society, the top honorary society for British scientists. He then devoted his time to theories and research.

From the start, Dr. Fleischmann was the dominant member of the team, the relationship between himself and Dr. Pons being that of master and student. Dr. Fleishchmann was a visiting researcher at the University of Utah at the time of the experiment and still maintains a connection with the university.

Today, although his reputation has been battered and bruised, he remains defiantly proud of his cold-fusion work and angry over the criticism.

Critics, Dr. Fleishchmann said from his home in England, "are trying to create a furor and not look at the science," adding, "It's the science that's important."

He noted that a large international meeting of cold-fusion researchers is to be held at Lake Como in Italy this month on the second anniversary of the discovery. "I'll go there," he said.

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