Review by Choice Review
Simultaneously both an exciting and a depressing documentary. Taubes has been meticulous in his fact-gathering and synthesizing; his not-infrequent sarcasm appears to be most appropriate. The cold fusion story has been told often (see, for example, the earlier book by John R. Huizenga, Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century, CH, Dec'92), but rarely with such clarity and understanding. These are combined with a disturbing collection of insights both into the functioning of academe and into fund-granting competition. This almost day-by-day account of the drama of cold fusion is fascinating. The characters (lawyers, college presidents, department chairman, vulnerable nontenured professors) seem, in some cases, all too familiar. Too many of them emerge as unattractive, incompetent, and devious. Most of the story takes place within a two-year time span, one beginning with big hopes and feverish activity and then trailing off to the occasional interest of fringe people or groups. Well written and a pleasure to read; belongs in all college libraries. K. L. Schick; Union College (NY)
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
In March 1989, two University of Utah scientists, chemist Stanley Pons and electrochemist Martin Fleischmann, called a press conference to announce their success in creating "a sustained nuclear fusion reaction at room temperature." In less than a month, their grandiose claim was discredited. No one could duplicate their experiment and confirm their results; the debate raged on in laboratories around the world and in the pages of newspapers and academic publications. In the wake of the scandal, the scientific community was left reeling from the exposure of sloppy methodology, blatant opportunism, and widespread gullibility. Taubes interviewed more than 260 people in the course of writing this comprehensive, fluid, and quietly witty chronicle of the cold fusion fiasco. As he documents each error of judgment and instance of honest attempts at finding the truth, he limns memorable portraits of the many people involved and candidly describes the crude politics and competitiveness of university-based science. His well-crafted account is an overwhelming litany of rumors, betrayals, inconsistencies, evasions, contradictions, and lies. It is, ultimately, a tale of the triumph of desire over reality, speculation over proof: science's version of the emperor's new clothes. ~--Donna Seaman
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Science journalist Taubes's chronicle of the cold-fusion episode is an engrossing cautionary tale. In 1989, University of Utah chemist Stanley Pons and his British collaborator Martin Fleischman made headlines worldwide with their announcement that they had created a sustained nuclear fusion reaction at room temperature in a chemistry lab. Their simple device supposedly promised a clean, virtually inexhaustible source of energy. But Taubes ( Nobel Dreams ), who has reported on cold fusion for the New York Times , faults Pons and Fleischman for amateurish, flawed experimental techniques and for offering ``virtually no data'' to support their claim. Pons is now working for a Japanese company, and Japan's Ministry of Trade and Industry is heavily funding a cold-fusion research program. Taubes considers these latest developments part of an ongoing fiasco--the quasi-scientific pursuit of a nonexistent phenomenon. He steers readers smoothly through the technical details in this scientific detective story. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Cold fusion never existed. Even though its ``discovery'' by two University of Utah chemists--Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischman--was proclaimed with fanfare in 1989, the idea has been thoroughly discredited. As Taubes demonstrates in this well-documented account, cold fusion was ``bad science'' from the outset. The researchers rushed to announce their discovery to ensure primacy and, by circumventing peer review, introduced political and economic pressures into the scientific process. Taubes interviewed many of the key players in the controversy (although Pons and Fleischman refused his requests) and thus gives an insider's view of what happened--and why. Eugene Mallove's Fire from Ice ( LJ 6/1/91) also critically appraises cold fusion, but Taubes's work is more comprehensive and also less strident. This cautionary tale puts cold fusion to rest and, more important, shows how science can be mishandled. Recommended for public and academic libraries.-- Gregg Sapp, Montana State Univ. Libs., Bo z eman (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Remember Stan Pons? Martin Fleischmann? Cheap power from a setup that looked like a freshman chemistry class experiment? Taubes, who plumbed the depths of nuclear-particle competition at CERN (Nobel Dreams, 1987), now continues his expeditions in an epic chronicle that reveals just how corroded and slimy the scientific pipes can get. ``Epic'' because Taubes goes on at too great a length, detailing the day-to-week-to-month chronology of events over a period of close to four years. The saga begins on March 16, 1989, when the University of Utah president felt he could no longer hold the lid on Pons and Fleischmann's work and scheduled a press conference, breaking a promise of cooperation with Brigham Young University, whose own resident fusion guru, Steven Jones, was viewed as a rival who might publish first. The rest, as Taubes tells it, is a horrific tale of claims and counterclaims, of true believers vs. skeptics, and of experiments and apparatus that leave much to be desired (including controls). The escalating war of tempers and temperaments eventually involved scientists, university brass, and local, state, federal, and foreign government officials, all of it well-aired by the press. Interestingly, while the consensus now declares cold fusion to be a myth, and the fallout has left at least one investigator dead and many a career in disarray, the principals are alive and well: Pons lives in Nice, presiding over a Japanese-backed institute; Fleischmann is back in England, appearing with Pons at meetings; Jones continues to investigate phenomena (no longer called ``cold fusion'') at Brigham Young. All of which could be interpreted to mean that if you want to believe it's true...or that you can still fool some of the people....
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
