Fusionsfieber (Fusion Fever), by Gerhard Kreysa
Reviewed by Dieter Britz

This is a novel in German (title transl.: Fusion Fever), of the kind the author likes to call Fiction in Science, in analogy to Carl Djerassi's term, Science in Fiction, as exemplified by himself and CP Snow. It is called a novel, but appears to be the story of Kreysa's attempt to come to grips with cold fusion. The names associated with cold fusion are changed here but are recognisable. The story covers the period during which Kreysa/Trosa and coworkers carried out their own tests, and came to the conclusion that CNF was an error, some of it able to be explained by orthodox phenomena. The fascinating aspect of the book is the turmoil "Trosa" and his colleagues were in during the experiments, given the various news reports and the pressures exerted on them, both by politicians and the press. They vacillated between belief, disbelief, disgust and hope. The story gives some insight on the role of authority, or the emotional pressure on a scientist, in conflict between an unlikely claim and the authority of the person making it; an interesting study in the sociology of science.