Abstract

The announcement of "cold fusion" by Drs. Fleischmann and Pons on March 23, 1989 led to a controversy almost unprecedented in the history of science. This talk will present some of the more convincing recent experiments that show that helium-4, nuclear scale excess energy, low-level neutron production, and the transmutation of heavy elements can occur near room temperature in relatively simple systems. It appears that a new field of solid state nuclear reactions has been born and is progressing toward commercial applications, even as the physical theory behind the associated phenomena continues to be debated among theorists. The salient facts of the history of this scientific controversy suggest that it is inadvisable to rush to judgment against allegedly "impossible" new phenomena when increasingly careful experiments have revealed new vistas in physics. Some of the evidence for solid state nuclear reactions is discussed at http://www.infiniteenergy.com.