Undead Science: Science Studies and the Afterlife of Cold Fusion

摘要

Cold fusion was launched in 1989 when chemists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announced in a dramatic news conference the discovery of a new energy source. They claimed that with a simple apparatus that included two electrodes―one of them palladium―suspended in heavy water, they had coaxed what was possibly a fusion reaction. This was conceivably a world-changing event; cold fusion became a cause celebre, with numerous scientists attempting to replicate their results. Despite some confirmations, consensus emerged in 1990 that these experiments offered no true evidence of fusion and that researchers who continued in the field were practicing "pathological science."