Ten Years of Cold Fusion: an Eye-witness Account

The name of Cold Fusion (CF) comes from the interpretation given to certain phenomena taking place in a metal lattice roughly at room temperature, in terms of nuclear fusion, say between two deuterium nuclei: cold in comparison with the high temperatures of thermonuclear fusion (10 K). The first time this was suggested was in the Spring of 1989, ten years ago, by Fleischmann and Pons (1): their experiment gave rise to much turmoil all over the world, ending within a few months with the scientific community rejecting the experiment and thus this interpretation. Research in CF continued nevertheless in a few laboratories, mostly in the USA, Japan, Italy, Russia and China; International Conferences were held regularly, roughly every 1.5 years. However, after ten years, in spite of undeniable (although not overwhelming) progress in the field, there is hardly any communication between this small CF community and the scientific world at large.