Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!shelby!decwrl!ucbvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cwjcc!mailrus!wasatch!donn From: donn@wasatch.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) Newsgroups: alt.fusion Subject: why Lewis won't get any Utah electrodes Summary: the palladium really was on loan; Los Alamos agreement; paranoia Message-ID: <1819@wasatch.utah.edu> Date: 14 May 89 08:05:34 GMT Organization: University of Utah CS Dept Lines: 136 It's interesting that people on the net have recently brought up the fact that the Fleischmann, Pons and Hawkins paper credits a certain company for the loan of precious metals. It seems that the metals really were on loan, and apparently the company gets first crack at analyzing any used electrodes, according to Saturday's Salt Lake Tribune: A representative of Johnson Matthey, the supplier of the palladium rods Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann used for their nuclear fusion experiment, has taken some of the rods back to analyze them for the presence of helium or other fusion byproducts. University of Utah Vice President James Brophy said Friday the representative came to Utah last week and picked up the rods. Johnson Matthey has facilities all over the world, and Dr Brophy was not sure where the rods had gone or how long it would be until the results are known. Johnson Matthey is a 170-year-old precious-metals company headquartered in London. Dr Brophy said Dr Pons and Dr Fleischmann had signed an agreement with Johnson Matthey a few months ago 'after they started getting positive results' under which the company would provide the rods 'basically for nothing' on the condition that they are returned to Johnson Matthey for analysis. 'They agreed to share information about the cathode ...,' he said. 'It's almost like the agreement with Los Alamos.' ... Speaking of the Los Alamos agreement, I heard on the local TV news that this will be finally finalized on Monday... About time. Anyway, it's interesting that Johnson Matthey will apparently be a disinterested party in the electrode analysis, since, according to the Trib article: ... Johnson Matthey has not received a stake in any profits the experiment might generate. ... The electrode analysis sounds about like what I'd expect, going by the Trib article: [Brophy] ... said the autopsy would likely take some time. 'It won't be done in two days.' Essentially, the process consists of melting the rods down and examining the gases that escape. 'But it's not quite that simple,' Dr Brophy said. 'Gases can dissolve in liquids as well as solids,' meaning the molten metal will still have to be analyzed. A somewhat baser motivation for withholding the electrodes, at least from certain parties, was also mentioned in the article: Scientists at [MIT and Caltech] have been among the most skeptical of the U experiment, and they said an 'autopsy' on the rods would confirm or deny their suspicions in a couple of days. 'I can't imagine any reasonable person turning them over to a competitor like MIT,' Dr Brophy said. 'That would drive our lawyers up the wall.' Sigh. More paranoia could be found in a speech by U President Chase Peterson that was reported in the U student newspaper, the Daily Utah Chronicle, on Friday: ... The U scientists who discovered the controversial fusion technique 'are not very far ahead of the rest of the world,' Peterson said. 'They're ahead of the world by days, not by years.' Peterson, speaking at the Hinckley Institute of Politics, acknowledged that the possibility exists some researchers are even days ahead of the U. As a result, it is crucial the U moves ahead with its research in order to stay 'ahead of the game,' he argued. If we don't invest in fusion right now, Peterson implies, we might be beaten by (oh no!) the Japanese: He said a recent experience with a Japanese company taught him how important it is for the U to keep moving ahead. Because there is 'precious little talk (about fusion) coming out of Japan,' Peterson said the U's administration recently asked a consultant to get in touch with a contact in Tokyo. The consultant placed a call to this contact at 11:00 PM Tokyo time, Peterson reported. The Japanese man was still in his office and when asked, said he would call three or four laboratories that he knew were working on fusion experiments. At 11:00 PM, the man made the calls. The phone was answered at every lab by scientists who were there working on the fusion technique, Peterson recounted. And, he said, 'we have pretty good evidence they are working 24 hours a day.' ... This in turn is apparently supposed to demonstrate that archaic traditions of pure science, such as 'confirmation', must be overridden by economic pragmatism: ... [T]he pure science surrounding the fusion technique has 'collided with an agglutinated social phenomenon of science and patents, and finance and world geopolitics,' [Peterson] explained. The pure processes of science are 'incompatible with rapid, effective, successful state and national economic development,' he said. I find this frightening, but perhaps not in quite the same way that Peterson expects us to... In another article in the Saturday edition of the Trib, there was some more information about patents and licensing: ... Some 50 companies ... have signed 'confidential disclosure agreements' allowing them to examine the university's patent applications to see if they want to pursue joint development with the school. 'It's not something companies enter into lightly,' Dr Brophy said. Brophy was uncharacteristically modest when asked how the companies might benefit from examining the patent applications: ... [H]e cautioned that it is still too early to predict the experiment's economic value. The longest the device has been documented to produce energy is about 800 hours, he said, and it hasn't got much hotter than what it takes to boil water, which may not make it a practical energy source 'unless you're just interested in making coffee.' I may still get a Mr Fusion for my kitchen, Donn Seeley University of Utah CS Dept donn@cs.utah.edu 40 46' 6"N 111 50' 34"W (801) 581-5668 utah-cs!donn