Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!shelby!decwrl!ucbvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cwjcc!mailrus!wasatch!donn
From: donn@wasatch.utah.edu (Donn Seeley)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: why Lewis won't get any Utah electrodes
Summary: the palladium really was on loan; Los Alamos agreement; paranoia
Message-ID: <1819@wasatch.utah.edu>
Date: 14 May 89 08:05:34 GMT
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept
Lines: 136

It's interesting that people on the net have recently brought up the
fact that the Fleischmann, Pons and Hawkins paper credits a certain
company for the loan of precious metals.  It seems that the metals
really were on loan, and apparently the company gets first crack at
analyzing any used electrodes, according to Saturday's Salt Lake
Tribune:

	A representative of Johnson Matthey, the supplier of the
	palladium rods Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann used for
	their nuclear fusion experiment, has taken some of the rods
	back to analyze them for the presence of helium or other fusion
	byproducts.

	University of Utah Vice President James Brophy said Friday the
	representative came to Utah last week and picked up the rods.
	Johnson Matthey has facilities all over the world, and Dr
	Brophy was not sure where the rods had gone or how long it
	would be until the results are known.

	Johnson Matthey is a 170-year-old precious-metals company
	headquartered in London.

	Dr Brophy said Dr Pons and Dr Fleischmann had signed an
	agreement with Johnson Matthey a few months ago 'after they
	started getting positive results' under which the company would
	provide the rods 'basically for nothing' on the condition that
	they are returned to Johnson Matthey for analysis.

	'They agreed to share information about the cathode ...,' he
	said.  'It's almost like the agreement with Los Alamos.'  ...

Speaking of the Los Alamos agreement, I heard on the local TV news that
this will be finally finalized on Monday...  About time.  Anyway, it's
interesting that Johnson Matthey will apparently be a disinterested
party in the electrode analysis, since, according to the Trib article:

	...  Johnson Matthey has not received a stake in any profits
	the experiment might generate.  ...

The electrode analysis sounds about like what I'd expect, going by the
Trib article:

	[Brophy] ... said the autopsy would likely take some time.
	'It won't be done in two days.'

	Essentially, the process consists of melting the rods down and
	examining the gases that escape.  'But it's not quite that
	simple,' Dr Brophy said.  'Gases can dissolve in liquids as
	well as solids,' meaning the molten metal will still have to be
	analyzed.

A somewhat baser motivation for withholding the electrodes, at least
from certain parties, was also mentioned in the article:

	Scientists at [MIT and Caltech] have been among the most
	skeptical of the U experiment, and they said an 'autopsy' on
	the rods would confirm or deny their suspicions in a couple of
	days.

	'I can't imagine any reasonable person turning them over to a
	competitor like MIT,' Dr Brophy said.  'That would drive our
	lawyers up the wall.'

Sigh.  More paranoia could be found in a speech by U President Chase
Peterson that was reported in the U student newspaper, the Daily Utah
Chronicle, on Friday:

	...  The U scientists who discovered the controversial fusion
	technique 'are not very far ahead of the rest of the world,'
	Peterson said.  'They're ahead of the world by days, not by
	years.'

	Peterson, speaking at the Hinckley Institute of Politics,
	acknowledged that the possibility exists some researchers are
	even days ahead of the U.  As a result, it is crucial the U
	moves ahead with its research in order to stay 'ahead of the
	game,' he argued.

If we don't invest in fusion right now, Peterson implies, we might be
beaten by (oh no!) the Japanese:

	He said a recent experience with a Japanese company taught him
	how important it is for the U to keep moving ahead.  Because
	there is 'precious little talk (about fusion) coming out of
	Japan,' Peterson said the U's administration recently asked a
	consultant to get in touch with a contact in Tokyo.

	The consultant placed a call to this contact at 11:00 PM Tokyo
	time, Peterson reported.  The Japanese man was still in his
	office and when asked, said he would call three or four
	laboratories that he knew were working on fusion experiments.

	At 11:00 PM, the man made the calls.  The phone was answered at
	every lab by scientists who were there working on the fusion
	technique, Peterson recounted.  And, he said, 'we have pretty
	good evidence they are working 24 hours a day.'  ...

This in turn is apparently supposed to demonstrate that archaic
traditions of pure science, such as 'confirmation', must be overridden
by economic pragmatism:

	... [T]he pure science surrounding the fusion technique
	has 'collided with an agglutinated social phenomenon of science
	and patents, and finance and world geopolitics,' [Peterson]
	explained.

	The pure processes of science are 'incompatible with rapid,
	effective, successful state and national economic development,'
	he said.

I find this frightening, but perhaps not in quite the same way that
Peterson expects us to...

In another article in the Saturday edition of the Trib, there was some
more information about patents and licensing:

	...  Some 50 companies ... have signed 'confidential
	disclosure agreements' allowing them to examine the
	university's patent applications to see if they want to pursue
	joint development with the school.  'It's not something
	companies enter into lightly,' Dr Brophy said.

Brophy was uncharacteristically modest when asked how the companies
might benefit from examining the patent applications:

	...  [H]e cautioned that it is still too early to predict the
	experiment's economic value.  The longest the device has been
	documented to produce energy is about 800 hours, he said, and
	it hasn't got much hotter than what it takes to boil water,
	which may not make it a practical energy source 'unless you're
	just interested in making coffee.'

I may still get a Mr Fusion for my kitchen,

Donn Seeley    University of Utah CS Dept    donn@cs.utah.edu
40 46' 6"N 111 50' 34"W    (801) 581-5668    utah-cs!donn