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© Copyright 1998, Jim Loy
Let me hasten to say that I don't think that cold fusion was a scam. Those wacky guys, Pons and Fleischman, seem to have been sincere, even though they were much too greedy for their own good.
They had an idea, which physics theory says shouldn't work. And they kept their methods secret while they tried to get their big payoff in patents and grants. Scientists don't normally keep experimental methods secret, for good reasons. The give and take of peer review (confirming and conflicting experiments, as well as discussion and criticism) is the main self-correcting part of the scientific method.
But, the news programs showed a particular experiment that I think was a big scam. They showed a cylindrical glass beaker, with water, wires, and electrodes. And in the middle of all this, was a randomly flashing light. That was dishonest. The strong implication was that this process was generating enough electricity to arc or to light up a light bulb.
Maybe the scientists used the light as some sort of indicator of the very small amount of current, or neutrons, or radiation, or whatever, that they were supposedly detecting. But, they gave the false impression that they were generating lots of electricity. Or maybe they gave the correct impression that their whole experiment was a big joke that they were playing on the public.