Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!James_J_Kowalczyk
From: James_J_Kowalczyk@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: Latest Quotes of Pons in SLC Press
Message-ID: <18075@cup.portal.com>
Date: 7 May 89 23:12:36 GMT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 111





The following are excerpts from the Deseret News, 
Sunday, May 7, 1989.  The Article is entitled
"U. Scientists await their 'day in court'" and
was written by JoAnn Jacobsen-Wells.  I am posting these 
portions of the article without permission.

...[introductory paragraphs skipped]

Before an audience of their peers -- at the 
Electrochemical Society's biannual meeting in Los
Angeles on Monday -- Pons and Fleischmann will have
their turn in "court."  And both men seem confident
their evidence will vindicate their astounding claims:
solid-state fusion in a test tube at room temperature.

"We are going to present new results that exhibit
very large amounts of excess heat," Pons told the
Deseret News Saturday.

In short the chemists will give a thorough, clean
analysis of the thermal portion of the experiment that
continues to cause a worldwide scientific sensation.

...[portions about the nature of fusion skipped]

"We can't make people believe it, but we can tell them how
we are analyzing the data.  We can tell them what our
measurements are."

Pons said he and Fleischmann will give electrochemists
the recipe for their energy source -- hopefully
eliminating the fusion confusion that has plagued 
scientists burning the midnight oil in hopes of 
duplicating the experiment.

"We are going to supply all the possible information
that we can," he said.  "People evidently are 
misunderstanding a lot about calorimetry (heat measurement).
A lot of people are making calorimetric measurements
that may not suitable for these experiments."      [sic]

Pons has repeatedly cautioned that some labs have been
in too big a hurry to get confirmations.

"Some of the experiments we show have been accumulated 
over very long periods of time," he explained.  "I still
think that a lot of the calorimetry problems have occured
because people simply haven't taken long enough to do 
them -- or they have not considered all of the factors
involved in a calorimetric experiment of this kind.  
People who carefully consider all of the various paths 
of heat transport in their devices do indeed observe 
excess energy liberation."

The thermodynamic duo Monday will give scientists more 
evidence, more theory, more experimental procedures.

Other witnesses will also give their proof of the validity 
of the Utah research.

Teams from Texas A & M, Stanford University, and Case 
Western University, who have publicly announced confirmation 
of the Pons/Fleischmann experiment, will testify.  Others, 
too, are expected to announce successful replication.

There will also likely be critics, who have become Pons' 
and Fleischmann's constant companions.

"We have had abundant criticism, as you might know," 
said the U. chemist, who can still joke in the face of 
hypercriticism -- primarily from physicists who've been 
having a good laugh in recent weeks at the expense of 
the researchers, the U. and the state of Utah.

"Fantastic, no problem," Pons quipped.  "Criticism doesn't 
bother me.  What bothers me is that these people are not 
doing the science.  They are philosophizing, using a 
physical theory, parts of which may be totally wrong."

Asks Pons:  "Pray, where are their data?  We are presenting 
ours.  Why don't they publish their experimental procedures 
so we can see what they are doing to disprove our work.  
It is very easy to pontificate and to say someone's data 
is wrong; proving it is another matter."

Pons said he and Fleischmann haven't seen anyone disprove 
their data.

"If they do, we will certainly admit it; if they don't, 
they will have to stand corrected," he said.  "Science will 
choose.  Votes taken by the American Physical Society 
(where a panel of physicists last week voted that the U.
experiment was not valid) are meaningless.  How do votes
change science?"

...[end of excerpts]


I am posting this mainly because of the quotes by Pons, 
for the benefit of net readers not in the Salt Lake City 
area who might not be seeing quotes by him in the press 
on a regular basis.  Any typos not indicated are likely mine.

Jim Kowalczyk

Kowalczyk@chemistry.utah.edu
James_J_Kowalczyk@cup.portal.com