Richard Garwin - Still a Disbeliever
The “60 Minutes” program on “cold fusion” ran today. (See April 16, 2009, New Energy Times article for more background.) The show featured the research of Michael McKubre of SRI International, which has shown rigorous evidence of excess heat.
“60 Minutes” got IBM physicist Richard Garwin on camera to “critique” McKubre’s claim. The best Garwin could say was, “Probably [McKubre] measures the input power wrong.”
Garwin has quite a long history with “cold fusion.” Just weeks after the 1989 University of Utah press conference announcing the discovery of the possible new source of energy by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, Garwin was the first to denounce the discovery.
On April 20, 1989, he wrote an editorial in Nature stating that cold fusion “will teach us much besides humility.”
“Large heat release from fusion at room temperature would be a multi-dimensional revolution,” he wrote. “I bet against its confirmation.”
A few years later, Garwin went with Nate Lewis (Caltech) on a secret mission for the JASONS (a secretive group of physicists who work for the federal government) to affirm or disconfirm the excess heat being produced in McKubre’s “cold fusion” cells.
On Dec. 23, 1993, Garwin wrote in his report to the Pentagon, “We have found no specific experimental artifact [that is, error] responsible for the finding of excess heat” in McKubre’s laboratory.
“Such an excess could not possibly be of chemical origin,” he wrote.
Garwin informed the Pentagon of the reality of excess heat but has yet to inform the American public or the scientific community. When I told him (in a Sept. 3, 2004, telephone interview) that I had obtained his Pentagon report and published it, we had the following conversation:
Garwin: How long has that report been on your Web site?
Krivit: About half a year. Is there a problem?
Garwin: No, I’m just surprised.
In the same interview, Garwin told me he requires a scientific phenomenon to be repeatable in order for him to accept its reality. I asked him for his definition of repeatable.
“It has to happen more often than not,” he said.
Apparently not willing to concede that he may have partially lost his bet, Garwin told “60 Minutes” today that he “requires” an experiment to work 100 percent of time.
That’s what I call “moving the goalposts.”
[…] Richard Garwin, insists people are still getting the measurements wrong. (Some folks suspect Dr. Garwin is speaking out of both sides of his mouth, after he apparently told the Pentagon that […]
Pingback by Cold Fusion: It’s Back–Just in Time for the Great Energy Debate - Environmental Capital - WSJ — April 20, 2009 @ 9:10 am
Hi Steve,
I was a little surprised that 60 Minutes did not feature the SPAWAR work as this is what is most likely to convince the sceptics that there is something highly unusual going on.
In addition to the 12 minute CBS video excerpt that I embedded on my latest blog post at Sustainability and stuff according to Nick Palmer I put one of your recent videos featuring Pamela Mosier-Boss and the CR39 detector tracks.
Nick Palmer
Comment by Nick Palmer — April 20, 2009 @ 10:12 am
Richard Garwin is an influential member of the scientific community and an important adviser to the government. I would expect such a person to exhibit a very high standard of knowledge and integrity about a subject having the importance of cold fusion. Yet, this leader in physics not only lies about the reason he believes CF is being improperly measured but is proud of his doubt. As any one who made a minimal effort to study the reported methods would learn, his explanation is completely contradicted. Does this behavior reach the standard by which physics wants to be judged?
Comment by Edmund Storms — April 20, 2009 @ 11:59 am
Steve,
Richard Garwin’s comment about 100% reproducibilty (or nearly so as he ammended his statement on camera), also stuck out with me as I watched his 60 Minutes interview regarding cold fusion experimental results. Is that not a completely unscientific approach to a not well understood scientific phenomenon like cold fusion? Have there not been a number of examples in the history of science in which a phenomenon was not (or is not) 100% reproducible, and instead of declaring it unreal or unworthy of research, the open-minded scientists facing the reproducibilty shortfall investigate why there are reproducibilty problems and try to determine how to make the experiment more reproducible and reliable? His answer sounded like he is set in his ways and not willing to entertain the 70% of results that demonstrate cold fusion is occuring.
Richard Garwin better see the writing on the wall soon regarding cold fusion, or it will literally run him over. Cold fusion is quickly reaching critical mass. A few more mainstream replications and Richard Garwin will be in the minority and trying to explain his position to a dwindling audience of skeptics.
Comment by John Coviello — April 20, 2009 @ 1:50 pm