19054

In your coverage of the recent sonofusion work, you make the unsubstantiated and false remark regarding cold fusion and Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons: “However, neither the original pair nor anyone else could reproduce those findings, which have largely been discredited as a case study in mistaken science.” The peer-reviewed literature since 1989 does indeed contain such substantial replications, including the accurate correlation of excess heat to helium-4 production.

Eugene F. Mallove
New Energy Research Laboratory, Concord, N.H.

I was strikingly affected by the words “infamous cold fusion” used in the story. The only fitting phrase to a statement of this kind is “wise up.” Cold-fusion research has prospered in Japan, Russia, and Italy and has been pursued in the United States. Three thousand publications worldwide have found tritium, helium, excess heat, and transmutation. These discoveries have been replicated in dozens of laboratories. The latest contribution, sonofusion, has been familiar to us for several years. Science News should not allow statements that perpetuate the myth that cold nuclear reactions do not occur.

John O’M. Bockris
Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas

Scientists in some laboratories around the world continue to pursue electrochemical cold-fusion experiments like those conducted by Fleischmann and Pons. However, most scientists outside those labs regard the work of Fleischmann and Pons as discredited and find little reason to think that continuing efforts to substantiate cold fusion will succeed. –P. Weiss