From: d_broadhurst@vax.acs.open.ac.uk
Subject: conclusion of "Horizon" transcript
Date: 25 Apr 90 22:55:41 GMT
Sender: scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG
Reply-To: d_broadhurst@vax.acs.open.ac.uk

Follow-up to:

> Date:         Tue, 27 MAR 90 01:59:22 GMT
> From:         D_BROADHURST@UK.AC.OPEN.ACS.VAX
> To:           fusion%zorch@UK.AC.UKC
> Subject: [fusion post9387]      submission for sci.physics.fusion
>
> Tonight (20.10 local time, 26-MAR-1990) BBC television showed an excellent
> hour-long "Horizon" documentary on Cold Fusion.  I will not attempt to
> paraphrase it, since you may obtain a complete transcript by sending a cheque
> for (the equivalent of ?) 1.75 pounds sterling, in favour of "B.S.S.", to
>
> Cold Fusion
> P.O.Box 7
> London W3 6XJ
> UK

Here (without permission) is the conclusion of the transcript, which I have
received from BSS (Broadcasting Support Services) in exchange for the above
fee.   (Dieter Britz and Vince Cates might like to add the booklet to their
collections.   In my opinion it transcribes a good piece of tele-journalism.)

=============================================================================

CHASE PETERSON (President, University of Utah) (speaking at March 23rd press
conference):

We would do all in our power to have this exploited by ourselves and others
for the benefit of cheap energy with little cost to the world's ecology.  We
would also like it to benefit the economy of Utah.  That's not always easy to
guarantee because ideas aren't contained by borders, but perhaps ownership of
patents are.

MARTIN FLEISCHMANN:

We had written a number of patents by that stage and the view of the
University was that it was correct to announce this via a press conference. 
It was really the patents that were driving this.

MOSHE GAI (Department of Physics, Yale University):

My own feeling is that cold fusion represents more than anything the American
Dream.  I think cold fusion is the epitome of the American Dream.  I think
that Thomas Alvar Edison would have been proud to design and invent a gadget
such as the gadget that is supposed to make this fantastic source of energy. 
It has all the symptoms of an American Dream, it's the New World, it's the
revolution overnight, getting rich overnight, and doing something against the
understanding and against the consensus of what our scientific society is.  My
own feeling is that the American Dream turned into an American nightmare.

NARRATOR:

The nightmare of a year's legal and commercial pressure must have had an
effect on the smooth running of the scientific process.

JOHN MADDOX:

My own belief is that Pons and Fleischmann for a very particular reason had
come to nurture a delusion about what was happening.  Remember that they had
been working on this project for five years before they had their press
conference.  They'd been convinced at an early stage that they were observing
fusion, and much of their later work was an attempt to confirm this by
measuring neutrons and gamma rays, and they were convinced that this discovery
was going to be of immense importance, as indeed it would have been if it were
true, and was going to make a great fortune for somebody, themselves included. 
And so they kept it very secret.  As a consequence, they were entirely
isolated from the natural day-to-day scepticism of the the scientific
community and they didn't get the help from the scientific community that they
would normally have had.  So, in my opinion, they were able to nurture this
delusion that they were measuring fusion only because of the secrecy that they
had themselves imposed on their work.

DAVID WILLIAMS:

Because of the intense public interest in this and, what is also obvious, the
commercial interest in this in the States (the patent lawyers are in all the
time on this), this exchange of information has not taken place.  What you're
left with is almost like a religious dispute.  You have a group of people who
believe very strongly that cold fusion exists and then another group of people
who believe very strongly that it doesn't exist, simply because the two have
not been able to talk to one another in a way which would allow them to
resolve the similarities and differences between their experiments.

MONTAGE OF QUOTES OVER END CREDITS:

I did see a bumper sticker that said, 'Be merciful to electrochemists, as they
know not what they do'

A few days ago I got to thinking, gee, it's a shame Richard Feynman isn't
alive to see all this cold fusion stuff - he would have gotten a big kick out
of it.

Assuming that cold fusion goes the way of polywater and N-rays, who gets the
jars?

All of us in the industrialised world are already using too much energy. 
Think about it.  Couldn't you live with a smaller house, with one or no car
per family, with just one product of detergent, with half of your plastic
equipment?  Don't tell me you can't.

If I throw a match into a box of gunpowder I get more energy out than I put in
too.  Could this mean something?

I guess it is time to close down this forum.  Any objections?

=============================================================================

James Burge, the producer of the programme, told me that it will be broadcast
by PBS in the "Nova" series, sometime in the fall.

In the meantime, please don't close down this forum.  There is still much to
be learnt from it.

David Broadhurst
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