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Martin Fleischmann (1927–2012) Pioneering Electrochemist Who Claimed to Have Discovered Cold Fusion

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Martin Fleischmann (1927–2012) Pioneering Electrochemist Who Claimed to Have Discovered Cold Fusion COMMENT OBITUARY Martin Fleischmann (1927–2012) Pioneering electrochemist who claimed to have discovered cold fusion. lthough a final reckoning should not The cold fusion experiments arose out the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, let genuine achievements be over- of Fleischmann’s long-standing interest in organizing a press conference on 23 March shadowed by errors, the blot that hydrogen surface chemistry on palladium. and faxing their manuscript to Nature the Acold fusion left on Martin Fleischmann’s Hydrogen molecules adsorbed onto palla- same day without telling Jones. reputation is hard to expunge. dium can diffuse into the metal lattice, mak- The rest, as they say, is history, told for Fleischmann, who died on 3 August at the ing palladium a ‘sponge’ that soaks up large example in Frank Close’s Too Hot To Handle age of 85 after illness related to Parkinson’s (W. H. Allen, 1990). Fleischmann and disease, heart disease and diabetes, was the Pons’s announcement shocked the world. first to observe enhanced Raman emis- Chemists had apparently, at minuscule sion from molecules at surfaces, now the expense, solved the fusion problem that basis of a spectroscopy technique. And he physicists had been working on for dec- /SOLENT NEWS developed ultramicroelectrodes, used as ades. In the attendant flurry, Fleischmann sensitive electrochemical probes. and Pons professed to be too busy to Nonetheless, he is best known for his address reviewers’ comments and with- claim in 1989 to have initiated nuclear drew their Nature paper; Jones’s account fusion in bench-top apparatus. The was eventually published (S. E. Jones et al. ‘cold fusion’ debacle provoked bitter Nature 338, 737–740; 1989). Despite ECHO THE SOUTHERN DAILY disputes that reverberate today. Along sporadic claims to the contrary, no with polywater and homeopathy, cold comprehensive attempt at replication fusion is now regarded as one of the most produced any confirmation of fusion. notorious cases of what chemist Irving Indeed, it was a lack of reproducibility Langmuir called pathological science: that finally put paid to the cold fusion “the science of things that aren’t so”. idea. More bad behaviour followed: Fleis- Cold fusion was not really an aber- chmann refused to describe crucial con- ration for Fleischmann, but an extreme trol experiments; Pons’s lawyer threatened example of his willingness to suggest bold to sue a Utah physicist who reported in and provocative ideas, to take risks and to Nature (see M. H. Salamon et al. Nature make imaginative leaps that could some- 344, 401–405; 1990) that he was unable times yield a rich harvest. amounts of hydrogen. Very high pressures to replicate the work. The University of Fleischmann was born in Carlsbad in can build up — perhaps, Fleischmann spec- Utah sought to capitalize on events, throw- Czechoslovakia in 1927. His father was of ulated, high enough to fuse hydrogen nuclei. ing US$5 million at a ‘National Cold Fusion Jewish heritage, and, just before the German Fleischmann’s retirement from Southamp- Institute’ that closed two years after it opened. invasion, his family fled to the Netherlands ton in 1983 freed him to conduct self-funded Fleischmann and Pons moved to France and then to England. Fleischmann studied experiments at the University of Utah in Salt to continue their work with private fund- chemistry at Imperial College London and, Lake City with his former student Stanley ing, but later fell out. The biggest casualty after a PhD in electrochemistry, moved to Pons. They electrolysed solutions of lithium of cold fusion was electrochemistry itself, Newcastle University, UK. In 1967 he was deuteroxide, collecting deuterium at the suddenly seeming to be exposed as a morass appointed as the Faraday Chair of Chemistry palladium cathode, and claimed to measure of charlatanism and poor technique. That at the University of Southampton, UK. more heat output than the energy fed in — was unfair: some of the most authoritative In 1974, Fleischmann and his co-workers a signature, they said, of deuterium fusion (negative) attempts to replicate the results observed unusually intense Raman emis- within the electrode. One morning, they were conducted by electrochemists. sion (scattered light shifted in energy by found that apparatus left running overnight Fleischmann’s tragedy was Shakespearean, interactions with molecular vibrational had been vaporized and the fume cupboard not least because he was a sympathetic char- states) from organic molecules adsorbed destroyed. They believed it was the result of acter: resourceful, energetic, inventive and on the surface of silver electrodes. Although a violent outburst of fusion. remembered warmly by collaborators. As the enhancement mechanism is still not Not until 1989 did Fleischmann, Pons Linus Pauling and Fred Hoyle experienced, fully understood, surface-enhanced Raman and their student Marvin Hawkins make once you have been proved right against the spectroscopy has become a valuable tool for a move to publish their data. Finding that odds, it becomes harder to accept the possi- investigating surface chemistry. they were in competition with a team led bility of error. To make a mistake or a prema- Around 1980, Fleischmann and chemist by physicist Steven Jones at Brigham Young ture claim, even to fall prey to self-deception, Mark Wightman independently pioneered University in Provo, Utah, Fleischmann and is a risk any scientist runs. The test is how the use of ultramicroelectrodes just a few Pons initially accused Jones of stealing their one deals with it. ■ micrometres across, which can be used to ideas. But the groups agreed to coordinate study electrode processes that are otherwise their announcements and to submit papers Philip Ball is a writer based in London and inaccessible, for example at low electrolyte simultaneously to Nature on 24 March 1989. was a physical-sciences editor at Nature at concentrations. In 1985, Fleischmann was Yet Fleischmann and Pons pre-empted that the time of the cold fusion publications. elected a fellow of Britain’s Royal Society. arrangement, rushing a second paper to e-mail: [email protected] 34 | NATURE | VOL 489 | 6 SEPTEMBER 2012 © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.
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