Martin Fleischmann
It has been suggested at various times that I should start an operation in the United Kingdom but - bearing in mind my age and medical history - I think this would be not a very sensible way to go forward.Collection: Medical
I have had this view of the optimization of the electrode design for a long time. Historically we went through various phases in the work and eventually worked on large sheets - very large sheets - of palladium.Collection: Design
Usually, if you have a new idea, you very rarely break through to anything like recognizable development or implementation of that idea the first time around - it takes two or three goes for the research community to return to the topic.
American science is much more organized, much more hierarchical than British science has been.
At the moment I am taking a very careful look at some of the work which we have done in the past.
I am a caricature of what British science is about in the way I work.
I don't know whether you have done your calculations but, about two or three years back, I did a first assessment of what the first successful device would be worth and it came out at about 300 trillion dollars.
I don't suppose I'll ever retire completely.
I think British science is becoming more like American science - and then there is everybody else, I'm afraid.
I think you know that I classify science as British science, American science, and everybody else.
If you assume that it was a valid experiment, then its disintegration reveals a very substantial part of what has been found since then, including the fact that you can get heat generation at high temperature.
It doesn't matter whether you can or cannot achieve high temperature superconductivity or fuel cells, they will always be on the list because if you could achieve them they would be extremely valuable.
It is not necessarily true that expensive experiments are not worthwhile doing but there are plenty of rather cheap experiments which are certainly worth doing.
Now Stan and I were still working in secret at that time but, because of this development, we had to inform the University of Utah because we thought that they might need to take patent protection.
Now, of course, cold fusion is the daddy of them all in a way, in terms of value, so I think that viewed in a social way, from the point of social considerations and economics, it will tell you that this thing will stay around.
One of my theme songs is that if you can't do it in a test tube, don't do it.
Scientists are really very conscious of the fact that they stand on the shoulders of an enormous tree of preceding workers and that their own contribution is not so enormous.
So if I could just go back now to something which I am sure we should cover here regarding our original scenario: we have, in fact, four ways - four major potential lines of research.
Stan and I funded the first phase of the work ourselves. It was secret.
The problem is that replacement of Quantum Mechanics by Quantum Field Theory is still very demanding.
You see, I am a very conventional scientist, really.
If it had been anything else, we would have said, 'People don't want us to do it. Forget it. Let's just leave it alone.' But this is not in that category. This is interesting science. New science. With a hint of a possibility of a very useful technology. Therefore, if you've got any integrity, you don't give up. You only give up if you find you are wrong. But as long as you believe that you are right, you have to continue. And you have to take the consequences.Collection: Giving Up