The Rebirth of Cold Fusion: Real Science, Real Hope, and
Real Energy, by Steven B. Krivit and Nadine Winocur, should
be required reading for anyone interested in cold fusion and
LENR. Not only is this book technically sound, but it is so
well-written that experts, novices, and newcomers to the field
all will enjoy reading it. Remarkably, the book not only covers
virtually all of the most important technical details of LENR
but also includes an important record of the politics and
history of the field and the potential impact of the associated
discoveries on world development.
The book is also remarkably timely: To their credit, because
Krivit and Winocur published their book immediately after ICCF11
and just before the much-anticipated re-evaluation of cold
fusion by the Department of Energy, they are providing accurate
information about an evolving, new, important area of science
that has been seriously misrepresented, at a time when candor is
absolutely necessary. For this reason, the book itself might
help to foster the "Rebirth of Cold Fusion" by advancing the
process of disseminating accurate information about the field.
Thus, the book could be remembered not only because it is
well-written and accurate but also because its publication could
alter the history of the associated debate.
All books, of course, reflect particular biases and trends
that are in vogue at the time that they are published. An
important difference between The Rebirth of Cold Fusion
and the earlier books that have presented a "positively
biased" account of cold fusion is associated with developments
in the field. In particular, as opposed to the apparent
confusion in the field that prompted Gene Mallove to use the
phrase "Searching for the Truth Behind the Cold Fusion
Furor" as a subtitle to his 1991 book Fire from Ice, or
the decision by Charles Beaudette to identify a single effect (Excess
Heat) in the title of his book (in 2000) as the key
phenomenon in cold fusion research, Krivit and Winocur have
written their book at a later time, when the relevant science is
now known to be real. As a consequence, their book documents the
birth of a new field as opposed to depicting fragments of the
relevant story.
An additional important difference is that Krivit and Winocur
became involved with cold fusion more than a decade after the
initial debate began. Thus, their book resonates with optimism
and hope, and their perspective, both figuratively and in fact,
reflects an idealism that has been lost by many of us who have
been involved with the controversy since the beginning.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I give it my highest
recommendation. In writing it, Krivit and Winocur have done a
tremendous service not only to the cold fusion field, but also
to science as a whole.
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