On March 23, 1989, the chemists Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of the University of Southampton announced to the world
that they had achieved cold fusion. That is, with a solution of salts in a simple
desktop apparatus, they had caused hydrogen atoms to "fuse," or combine
into helium atoms. This reaction had previously been achieved only in
hydrogen-bomb blasts and in giant research projects lasting many decades
and costing many billions of dollars.
The two chemists claimed that they had been able to measure the energy
released by the fusion process in their simple setup. The scientific world was
in an uproar, because if this were really true, cold fusion would be the greatest
discovery in 1000 years - a practically infinite source of cheap, safe energy.
However, no matter how hard they tried, no other scientists were able to get
the same results. Pons and Fleischmann had dozens of excuses, but none of
them were shown to have merit. Ultimately, both scientists resigned in
disgrace.
a
What primary principle of experimental design did their experiment fail?