Nuclear Transmutation: The Reality of Cold Fusion, by Tadahiko Mizuno
Reviewed by Dieter Britz

Mizuno is known from a number of publications of his work in cold fusion at Hokkaido University. He was well equipped to do this, being a physicist by training, who later moved into electrochemistry (working with Bockris for a time) specialising in metal hydrides. This book is his personal story of cold fusion, providing the story behind the publications, with all the setbacks, false starts, disappointments, discomfort and hard work, going into details of the preparations, which sometimes took a year. It happens that in the author's
case, he even observed what, with hindsight, might have been cold fusion, as early as 1978, but dismissed it at the time. Then in 1981, he detected a brief episode of x-ray emissions from titanium loaded with deuterium; this too was forgotten until much later. Mizuno has loaded metals with ion beams and by electrolysis, and is clearly aware of errors, taking extreme care to eliminate them. He has observed excess heat, x-rays and tritium. He does advance some theory, but this is not his strong point; he himself appears to favour the theory of the Italian, Conte, for explaining cold fusion. Generally, Mizuno tends towards reactions with heavier nuclei, leading to transmutation. There is a short bibliography and a time-line history of the field, up to 1999 (a conference).