Nuclear Transmutation: The Reality of Cold Fusion

The announcement of cold fusion in March 1989 at the University of Utah was greeted with astonishment worldwide. Drs. Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons had claimed that an electrochemical cell with heavy water electrolyte and a palladium cathode gave rise to so much excess energy that the mysterious phenomenon had to be nuclear, and was probably a process related to nuclear fusion. Many scientists quickly took sides for or against cold fusion--mostly against. By the end of the summer the experts claimed cold fusion didn't exist. They said it was an experimental error and could not be reproduced. Actually, the story had barely begun. Provocative research had never ended. Cold fusion was and is very much alive. IN THIS BOOK, Dr. Mizuno describes both the dark and bright sides of the cold fusion story: the frustration, the boredom, the endless guerrilla war with scientists who wanted to stop the research, science journalists who appeared to thrive on the outpouring of supposedly negative results, fruitless battles to publish a paper or be heard at a physics conference, but then also the triumph of dramatic experimental results in the production of huge excess energy and the paradigm busting discovery of the low-energy transmutation of heavy elements found on cold fusion electrodes. It is impossible for one book to encompass the now expanding worldwide effort to understand the cold fusion enigma, but for those who want to learn about the rest of the story, this account of one scientist's experience on the frontiers of knowledge is an excellent beginning.

Tadahiko Mizuno was born in Asahigawa City, Hokkaido, Japan in 1945. He graduated from the Department of Applied Physics, College of Engineering, Hokkaido National University in 1968. In 1973 he received his Ph.D. in applied physics. Among his achievements in cold fusion were the first extensive reports of neutron measurements in Japan, pioneering work on loaded, solid-state proton conductors, and key new studies of transmutation products. Presently, he is an Assistant Professor of Nuclear Engineering, College of Engineering, Hokkaido University.