Deceased--John R. Huizenga

John R. Huizenga
April 21st, 1921 to January 25th, 2014

"John R. Huizenga, Physicist at Fore of Nuclear Era, Dies at 92"

by

William J. Broad

January 29th, 2014

The New York Times

John R. Huizenga, a physicist who helped build the world’s first atom bomb, solve dozens of atomic riddles and debunk claims that scientists in Utah had achieved nuclear fusion in a jar of water, died on Saturday in San Diego. He was 92.

The cause was heart failure, his family said.

Dr. Huizenga (pronounced HIGHS-ing-a) was present at the main junctures of the early nuclear era and helped push back many frontiers of nuclear physics. He also took on diplomatic missions and prominent roles in settling scientific disputes.

Early on, Dr. Huizenga was part of the scientific team that discovered Elements 99 and 100 in the periodic table — known, respectively, as einsteinium, after Albert Einstein, and fermium, after Enrico Fermi, the Italian Nobel laureate who helped lead the atom bomb project at the University of Chicago.

After World War II, Dr. Huizenga attended famous lectures given in Chicago by Dr. Fermi and soon began a half-century of atomic sleuthing.

“John Huizenga conducted research at the forefront of nuclear physics and contributed a host of exceptional insights,” said Wolf-Udo Schröder, a professor of chemistry and physics at the University of Rochester and a protégé of Dr. Huizenga’s. The discoveries stimulated “vigorous research,” he added, and remain central to the field.

John Robert Huizenga was born in Fulton, Ill., on the Mississippi River, on April 21, 1921. His father was a farmer, and until high school John learned his lessons in a one-room schoolhouse.

He graduated in early 1944 from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., where a teacher got him hooked on chemistry. He entered graduate school in physical chemistry at the University of Illinois and was soon drafted into the Manhattan Project to build the atom bomb.

The recruiters, he recalled in a memoir for the American Institute of Physics, a federation of physical science societies, “convinced me of the importance” of using his scientific training “in an exciting and militarily important secret project.”

In Oak Ridge, Tenn., he supervised teams analyzing the purity of enriched uranium coming out of sprawling production lines. Robert S. Norris, a nuclear historian, said the purified uranium fueled the weapon that leveled Hiroshima in August 1945.

After the war, Dr. Huizenga received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois and took a job in nuclear chemistry at the Argonne National Laboratory, which was then on the University of Chicago campus. It was there that he met Dr. Fermi. His research focused on uncovering the secrets of atomic interactions, especially with the subatomic particles known as neutrons.

His first big moment came soon after the government detonated the world’s first hydrogen bomb in the Pacific in 1952. The bomb vaporized an atoll. In sifting through the radioactive debris, Dr. Huizenga and his Argonne peers, as well as teams in Berkeley, Calif., and Los Alamos, N.M., found that two new elements — highly radioactive and unknown in nature — had formed when uranium atoms in the nuclear blast captured speeding neutrons.

The discoveries, of einsteinium and fermium, were initially kept secret for security reasons, then unveiled in 1955, not long after the scientists they had been named after had died.

In 1966, Dr. Huizenga received the government’s Lawrence Award for outstanding accomplishments in illuminating the intricacies of nuclear fission, the fracturing of atoms into pieces. That same year, he accompanied the first American scientific delegation to be sent to the Soviet Union.

He accepted a professorship at the University of Rochester in 1967 and stayed there for the rest of his career. His 1973 textbook, “Nuclear Fission,” written with Robert Vandenbosch, remains a standard in the field. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1976.

Dr. Huizenga lectured in China after its opening to the West. After one visit, in 1979, the nation’s leader, Deng Xiaoping, sent his youngest son, Deng Zhifang, to study in Dr. Huizenga’s department at the University of Rochester.

In 1989, Dr. Huizenga was appointed co-chairman of a Department of Energy panel that investigated and debunked the highly publicized “cold fusion” claims of two University of Utah chemists, who said they had achieved nuclear fusion at room temperature in a jar of water. If their claims had been true, the discovery would have flooded the world with energy cheap enough to supplant all rivals.

Dr. Huizenga lectured widely on the topic and in 1992 published “Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century.” On the claim’s 10th anniversary, in 1999, as true believers around the globe kept looking for glimmers of hope that cold fusion could be realized, he accused them of chasing a ghost.

“It’s as dead as ever,” Dr. Huizenga told The New York Times in an interview. “It’s quite unbelievable that the thing has gone on for 10 years.”

Dr. Huizenga’s wife of 54 years, Dolly, died in 1999. He is survived by four children, Linda, Jann, Robert and Joel; two sisters, Gertrude Drew and Kathryn Disselkoen; and three grandchildren.

Dr. Huizenga summarized his career in a memoir, “Five Decades of Research in Nuclear Science” (2009). The book provided much detail on the half-lives of radioactive elements, but it also provided evidence, he wrote in its concluding pages, of “a life well lived.”


Is "Cold Fusion" possible? poll

LENR or "Cold Fusion"--same charlatan

Cold Fusion...it's back!

Deceased--Martin Fleischmann

"Cold Fusion" is alive in Columbia, Missouri

Rusi Taleyarkhan--falsified research?

"Cold Fusion" is alive in Columbia, Missouri

I guess this concept will never go away. At least it is funded by private concerns.

"Professor revisits fusion work from two decades ago"

by

Janese Silvey

October 28th, 2012

The Columbia Daily Tribune

Two decades ago, a University of Missouri research team conducted a fusion experiment that emitted a burst of millions of neutrons.

But Mark Prelas, now a professor in the Nuclear Science and Engineering Institute, was forced to stop the work when his then-supervisor cut off his funding. By 1991, when Prelas made the observation, Utah researchers Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons' claims of cold fusion had been dismissed as junk science. Prelas moved on to other things.

This year, he was able to resurrect his neutron-producing experiment thanks to the new Sidney Kimmel Institute for Nuclear Renaissance, or SKINR, at MU.

The institute was created with a $5.5 million gift from Kimmel, an apparel tycoon who founded The Jones Group. Prelas's team is one of six research groups now working on energy-related studies through SKINR, said Rob Duncan, MU's vice chancellor of research.

Prelas has picked up where he left off in 1991. In both experiments, he and fellow researchers exposed deuterium-saturated metal to a rapid rise in temperature, making it undergo a phase change in which deuterium atoms transitioned from hydride to deuterium gas. That gas then became trapped in a crystal lattice and subjected to instantaneous compression, resulting in the neutron burst. If that sounds too complex, think of a car engine compressing gasoline and air, causing gas to flood spaces and produce high pressures, Prelas said.

In the original experiment, the team created a device to record emitted neutrons with the expectation of counting about 10 neutrons a second. The card's storage was used up in less than one hundredth of a second.

They then used a counter with the capacity to track up to 1 million neutrons and timed it again with a stopwatch. That time, they reached a million neutrons in a second.

"This was incredible to us," Prelas said in an email. "The neutron production went on for five minutes and then I decided to put the device back into liquid nitrogen to shut the reaction down. We thermal shocked the device two more times and each time we produced large neutron bursts."

Before he could buy supplies to continue the work, his research account had been frozen.

With SKINR funding, he's re-created the experiment this year. Modern-day equipment has allowed for a better counting system, and in one run, his research team saw neutron emissions at similar levels to the 1991 observation.

Prelas — who presented his findings at the 17th International Conference on Cold Fusion in Korea in August — has theories but doesn't know yet exactly what's causing the presence of the neutrons. He's now testing various types of titanium to identify the metallurgical properties in which this neutron production phenomenon occurs.

"I'm really excited by it," Duncan said of the early results.

He stressed that researchers will continue to follow the scientific method and disprove assumptions until "what they're left with has a good chance of being reality."

A success will "lead to engineering better systems that will benefit humans, but first things first," Duncan said. "We've got to understand what this is. … The focus clearly has to be on an opportunity to discover new physics and to understand new science. That really is our aim here at SKINR."

Enter "cold fusion" in the blog's search engine for more.

Deceased--Martin Fleischmann

Martin Fleischmann
March 29th, 1927 to August 3rd, 2012

"Martin Fleischmann, co-discoverer of ‘cold fusion,’ is dead"

Hounded by skeptics, he says he regretted calling ’89 discovery “cold fusion.”

by

Brooke Adams

August 6th, 2012

The Salt Lake Tribune

Martin Fleischmann, a British chemist who together with Stanley Pons, then chairman of the University of Utah Chemistry Department, announced in 1989 that they had discovered "cold fusion," has died.

Fleischmann, 85, passed away on Aug. 3 at his home in Tisbury, U.K. Steven B. Krivit, senior editor at New Energy Times News Service and author of The Rebirth of Cold Fusion, reported that Fleischmann had been bedridden for several months from health problems that included Parkinson’s, heart disease and diabetes.

 Prior to joining forces with Pons, Fleischmann had distinguished himself as an electrochemist. From 1967 to 1983, he was a professor and then, at age 40, chairman of the electrochemistry department at the University of Southhampton. He received the Royal Society of Chemistry’s medal for electrochemistry and thermodynamics in 1979, the Olin-Palladium Medal from the U.S. Electrochemical Society in 1985, and the Bruno Beyer award from the Royal Australian Chemical Society in 1988.

In 1983, Fleischmann returned to research and also took a part-time research position at the U. On March 23, 1989, Pons and Fleischmann announced during a press conference at the U. that they had created a sustained nuclear fusion reaction, the process that powers the sun, at room temperature using a table-top, test tube device by running a few volts of deuterium-enriched water into a metal called palladium. In a press release issued at the time, Fleischmann said they had opened "the door of a new research area" on a "usable technology for generating heat and power."

The announcement generated headlines around the world and led General Electric Corp. to enter a collaborative agreement with the U. for further research. That summer the Utah State Legislature earmarked $5 million for the scientists to set up a nonprofit called the National Cold Fusion Institute to support their work.

Pons’ and Fleischmann’s reported finding, which promised an unlimited supply of clean energy, was met with skepticism by other scientists who set about trying to replicate their results without success and later widely discredited the claim. In October 1990, Fleischmann defended the ongoing work, telling The New York Times they had made "great advances," though the politics surrounding the duo were "another matter. As my wife says, they are a nightmare."

Cold fusion remains unproven, although more recent work has shown the reaction to be a "third kind of nuclear process called weak interactions," Krivit said in a telephone interview Monday from Marin, Calif. "Even though it’s not fusion, it still has the full promise and potential capability of what Martin and Stan had envisioned."

According to Krivit, Fleischmann said in a June 2009 interview that he "regretted calling the discovery ‘cold fusion.’" The episode was a "burden he bore for the rest of his life," Krivit said.

"He knew it was going to be bad news for him even before the press conference," Krivit said. "He knew how controversial it would be and he knew how unfriendly the reception would be. He knew it was heretical…and he knew what happened to heretics."

Gary Taubes wrote a 500-page book about cold fusion called Bad Science that examined how science and academic politics collided in the premature announcement. Taubes, who now lives in Berkeley, Calif., said in a telephone interview that "if anyone was aware of what was going to happen with that announcement, it was Martin Fleischmann."

Fleischmann was a "good scientist who got trapped in a very bad situation," said Taubes.

Pat Shea, a Salt Lake City attorney who represented the two scientists during the controversy, said Fleischmann also told him that he regretted the discovery wasn’t more cautiously vetted in a peer-reviewed publication "as opposed to being rushed into a public announcement."

"There was a big concern by leadership of the U. that if they waited, BYU or some other institution would take center stage," Shea said.

Chase Peterson, who was president of the U. at the time, said Monday the value of the research remains to be determined.

"What he did is still so poorly understood," said Peterson, who later came under fire for authorizing the transfer of university research funds to the National Cold Fusion Institute that were initially described as coming from an anonymous donor.

"He and his partner Stan Pons made a large contribution to understanding a new mechanism for heat production. It is not widely accepted, but at the same time there have been dozens and dozens of laboratories that have confirmed it," Peterson said. "But it will probably take a number of years still to see if it can be applied commercially and to understand what the mechanisms are. It may turn out to be simply interesting science or it may turn out to be critically important science."

When the institute at the U. fizzled, Pons and Fleischmann moved to the south of France to work in a laboratory sponsored by Toyota Corp. That effort ended in the mid-1990s, Krivit said. From that point on, Pons remained "out of view and uninvolved," while Fleischmann continued to be "peripherally" involved in ongoing cold fusion research.

Shea said Fleischmann, whom he last spoke to a decade ago, represented the best in academic scientists because he looked not just at the theoretical, but the application of science.

"He was truly a gentleman," Shea said, adding that to date, no one has disproven the two scientists’ work.

"They’ve not been able to prove it, but nobody has disproven it in terms of saying there isn’t something worthy of research," he said.

As for Fleischmann, Krivit said he leaves a legacy of courage and of pure science.

"He was a true scientist and, for people who are willing to learn, he offered us an opportunity to learn how new science takes place and the way we look at, think about and react to new scientific discoveries," Krivit said. 

Martin Fleischmann [Wikipedia]

Is "Cold Fusion" possible? poll

LENR or "Cold Fusion"--same charlatan

Cold Fusion...it's back!

MIT claims large-scale solar power

Daniel G. Nocera

Shades of Randy Mills, Martin Fleischmann, Stanley Pons, Rusi Taleyarkhan?

"In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine."

'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution



"Hydrinos"...new energy source????

Rusi Taleyarkhan--falsified research?

Rusi Taleyarkhan--falsified research?

Rusi Taleyarkhan

Ah, a revival of those old TV Saturday night fights. In this corner Rusi Taleyarkhan claiming he is innocent of fraudulent scientific reports on cold fusion and in this corner the Purdue committee claiming his papers were fraudulent. Makes one wonder what happened to the solid peer review process even before the papers were published in Physical Review Letters journal.

"Purdue Panel Finds Misconduct by Fusion Scientist"

by

Malcolm Ritter

Associated Press

July 18th, 2008

The New York Times

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- A Purdue University panel has found two instances of misconduct by a researcher who claims he produced nuclear fusion in tabletop experiments.

Rusi Taleyarkhan made headlines in 2002 when he published a paper in the journal Science claiming that he had produced nuclear fusion by making tiny bubbles collapse in a liquid. The new report found misconduct in subsequent papers.

The Purdue committee, which includes representatives from other schools, said that in a follow-up paper published in 2006 in Physical Review Letters, Taleyarkhan falsely claimed that his 2002 work had been confirmed independently. In fact, Taleyarkhan was extensively involved in the work he claimed was done independently of him, the committee found.

The panel also found that in a pair of 2005 papers, Taleyarkhan added another person as an author even though that researcher did not substantially contribute.

The committee did not investigate the 2002 paper itself, in which Taleyarkhan and colleagues reported signs of nuclear fusion in a small laboratory device. Scientists have long sought a simple way to produce fusion in hopes of harnessing it as an energy source.

The original paper six years ago was met with widespread skepticism. In an unusual move, Science published a companion piece from two researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee -- where Taleyarkhan worked at the time -- that said they could not reproduce the result.

Other scientists, including some at Purdue, where Taleyarkhan now works, have tried without success to independently reproduce his results.

A spokeswoman for Science said Friday that the journal ''will consider the implications'' of the new report's findings for the 2002 paper.

In a statement released Friday by his attorney, Taleyarkhan said he will take the time to review his options.

Taleyarkhan has contended that other scientists have replicated his work and has accused his critics of conflict of interest, jealousy and other motives. He filed a defamation lawsuit this year accusing two Purdue professors of trying to destroy him and his reputation.

The Purdue committee submitted its findings in April to the Office of Naval Research, which funded some of Taleyarkhan's research. Purdue said Friday the naval office accepted the report, calling it prompt, thorough and objective.

''From small beginnings there developed a tangled web of wishful thinking, scientific misjudgment, institutional lapses and human failings,'' the committee wrote. ''Each strand could have been resolved separately, but knitting them together produced a crisis.''

University policy includes a 30-day appeal process for Taleyarkhan. Purdue said it will not comment on the report's content during that period, but David J. Williams, who leads the Purdue University Senate's Faculty Affairs Committee, said the document is an unflinching look at the case.

''Issues of research integrity are of the utmost importance to the university,'' Williams said.

Any decision on sanctions by the university would come after the appeals process is over.

Gene Sprouse, editor-in-chief of the American Physical Society, which publishes Physical Review Letters, said the society would also take no action before the appeal period has expired.

Cold Fusion...it's back!

Kind of like the pesky mosquito that was thought to have been dispatched--"cold fusion" is back.

"Physicist Claims First Real Demonstration of Cold Fusion"

by

Lisa Zyga

May 27th, 2008

PhysOrg.com

To many people, cold fusion sounds too good to be true. The idea is that, by creating nuclear fusion at room temperature, researchers can generate a nearly unlimited source of power that uses water as fuel and produces almost zero waste. Essentially, cold fusion would make oil obsolete.

However, many experts debate whether money should be spent on cold fusion research or applied to more realistic alternative energy solutions. For decades, researchers around the world have been simply trying to show that cold fusion is indeed possible, but they´ve yet to take that important first step.

Now, esteemed Physics Professor Yoshiaki Arata of Osaka University in Japan claims to have made the first successful demonstration of cold fusion. Last Thursday, May 22, Arata and his colleague Yue-Chang Zhang of Shianghai Jiotong University presented the cold fusion demonstration to 60 onlookers, including other physicists, as well as reporters from six major newspapers and two TV studios. If Arata and Zhang´s demonstration is real, it could lead to a future of new, clean, and cheap energy generation.

In their experiment, the physicists forced deuterium gas into a cell containing a mixture of palladium and zirconium oxide, which absorbed the deuterium to produce a dense "pynco" deuterium. In this dense state, the deuterium nuclei from different atoms were so close together that they fused to produce helium nuclei.

Evidence for the occurrence of this fusion came from measuring the temperature inside the cell. When Arata first injected the deuterium gas, the temperature rose to about 70° C (158° F), which Arata explained was due to nuclear and chemical reactions. When he turned the gas off, the temperature inside the cell remained warmer than the cell wall for 50 hours, which Arata said was an effect of nuclear fusion.

While Arata´s demonstration looked promising to his audience, the real test is still to come: duplication. Many scientists and others are now recalling the infamous 1989 demonstration by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, who claimed to produce controlled nuclear fusion in a glass jar at room temperature. However, no one - including Fleischmann and Pons - could duplicate the experiment, leading many people to consider cold fusion a pseudoscience to this day.

But one witness at the recent demonstration, physicist Akito Takahashi of Osaka University, thought that the experiment should be able to be repeated.

"Arata and Zhang demonstrated very successfully the generation of continuous excess energy [heat] from ZrO2-nano-Pd sample powders under D2 gas charging and generation of helium-4," Takahashi told New Energy Times. "The demonstrated live data looked just like data they reported in their published papers [J. High Temp. Soc. Jpn, Feb. and March issues, 2008]. This demonstration showed that the method is highly reproducible."

In addition, researchers will have to repeat the experiment with larger amounts of the palladium and zirconium oxide mixture in order to generate larger quantities of energy.


"Hydrinos"...new energy source????