The Quotes of the Cold Fusion Controversy
Collection copyright 2003 New Energy Timestm

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"It is a simple chemical reaction that has nothing to do with fusion."

Dr. Nathan Lewis, leader of the California Institute of Technology cold fusion investigation team, May 3, 1989

"This sort of dwindling band of true believers each year gets together and talks about the wonderful progress that's been made. None of the rest of us can ever see that." 

Dr. Robert L. Park, director of public information for the American Physical Society, private interview, Nov. 12, 2003

"Many people see only what they want to see. At some point in the history of any new idea, the problem no longer involves logic but is psychological."

Dr. Edmund Storms, radiochemist formerly with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Nov. 11, 2003

"Showing a greater fondness for their own opinions than for truth, they sought to deny and disprove the new things which, if they had cared to look for themselves, their own senses would have demonstrated to them."

Galileo Galilei, 1615

"It's all very well to theorize how fusion might take place in a palladium cathode . One could also theorize about how pigs could fly if they had wings, but pigs don't have wings."

Professor Steven E. Koonin, provost, professor of theoretical physics, California Institute of Technology, (American Physical Society Annual meeting), Baltimore, MD, May 2, 1989

"There is one point on which all true believers in cold fusion agree. Their results are not reproducible. To most scientists, this implies that cold fusion results are not believable, but true believers suggest that this unpredictability makes them more interesting!"

Douglas R.O. Morrison, physicist from CERN, "Ask the Experts," (Scientific American) Oct. 21, 1999

"We demonstrate nuclear emissions with reproducibility close to 100 percent."

Dr. Andrei Lipson, Condensed Matter Physicist, Russian Academy of Sciences, November 10, 2003

"We replicated the Mitsubishi experiment three times, and each time transmuted praseodymium from cesium. So our reproducibility on this experiment is 100 percent so far."

Dr. Akito Takahashi, Professor, Chair of Nuclear Instrumentation, Department of Nuclear Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, Japan, September 18, 2003

"My perception of the cold fusion crowd is that they are elderly people who at least know something of physics and instrumentation .... if this stuff could be real, wouldn't it be an incredible boon to the world?"

Eric Krieg, skeptic and founder, Philadelphia Association of Critical Thinkers, Oct. 9, 2003

"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, (s)he is almost certainly right. When (s)he states that something is impossible, (s)he is probably wrong."

Sir Arthur. C. Clarke, noted author, past chairman of the British Interplanetary Society, member of the International Academy of Astronautics, the Royal Astronomical Society and many other scientific organizations.

"No cover-up like this has happened before. It is a profound scandal in American science."

Charles Beaudette, author, Excess Heat & Why Cold Fusion Research Prevailed, 2002

"Historically, it will be recorded that Beaudette wrote the truth at a time when science was a bit confused and not quite willing to accept it right away."

Dr. Michael R. Staker, materials scientist and research engineer, with a major U.S. government research laboratory, April 2, 2003

"I am totally convinced that there is more than enough evidence for nuclear reactions to be occurring in these experiments. "

Dr. M. Srinivasan, associate director physics group (retired), Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, India, Sep. 22, 2003

"If Professor X.Z. Li [of Tsinghua University, China] is correct, then I'll have to throw away about 14 of the 16 chapters in my book Introduction to Fusion Energy, because it will no longer be relevant to the kinds of fusion that could result from this 'cold fusion' process."

Dr. J. Reece Roth, head of the industrial plasma engineering group, University of Tennessee, Nov. 8, 2003

"Experimental evidence has now verified that nuclear reactions can be caused to occur in heavily loaded solids [i.e., palladium]. It is premature to predict where this is headed from an applications point of view, but the basic science is clearly revolutionary."

Dr. George H. Miley, director of the Fusion Studies Laboratory, University of Illinois, Urbana, Nov. 22, 2003

"It appears that the people who would benefit most by this work being discredited have taken the initiative to cause us great difficulty ... They might cause us difficulty, but they will not stop the science.''

Dr. Stanley Pons, co-discoverer of cold fusion, former chairman of the department of chemistry, University of Utah, quoted by JoAnn Jacobsen-Wells, "U.S. Fusion Panel Cancels Plans to View University Research" (Deseret News), May 28, 1989  

"If it had been anything else, we would have said, 'People don't want us to do it. Forget it. Let's just leave it alone.' But this is not in that category. This is interesting science. New science. With a hint of a possibility of a very useful technology. Therefore, if you've got any integrity, you don't give up. You only give up if you find you are wrong. But as long as you believe that you are right, you have to continue. And you have to take the consequences."

Dr. Martin Fleischmann, co-discoverer of cold fusion, formerly the president of the International Society of Electrochemists, a Fellow of the British Royal Society, and recipient of the BRS Medal for Electrochemistry and Thermodynamics, "Too Close to the Sun" (BBC Horizon/CBC) March 21, 1994