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This new phenomenon of science by press conference disturbed many researchers. Said Moshe Gai, a Yale physicist and a member of the Yale- Brookhaven collaboration: "I am dissatisfied and somewhat disappointed with some of my fellow scientists who have done things too much in a hurry." Charles C. Baker, director of fusion research at Argonne National Laboratory, was blunter: "Calling press conferences and making claims of results without having a well-prepared technical report is not the way for a good, professional scientist to function."
/ Equally offensive to many scientists is the fact that Pons and Fleischmann have steadfastly refused to disclose important details of their work that would enable others to duplicate it. Though they eventually published an account of their experiments in the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry and Interfacial Electrochemistry, a highly technical Swiss periodical, the paper was too sketchy to be truly enlightening. Pons has argued repeatedly that his critics who are getting negative results do not know how to run the experiment, but he does not show them precisely what they are doing wrong. Declares Keith Thomassen, a physicist who heads one of the fusion-research programs at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory: "The hard, uncompromising way in which we do our business is that when you make a claim, you present the facts on which you base that claim."
Why is Pons being so cagey? Perhaps because the discovery he and Fleischmann claim to have made could be worth a fortune. Keeping some of the secrets to themselves could serve to protect their financial interests and those of the University of Utah, which has already filed five patent applications, with more to come. Pons insists, though, that he has reached an agreement with Los Alamos National Laboratory to help its scientists replicate his cold-fusion experiments.
The awesome potential of the alleged discovery explains why so many people are badgering Pons and Fleischmann for information, and why they are giving it out so cautiously. A practical technique for creating useful fusion energy at low temperatures could change the world forever by providing a source of virtually limitless power. Moreover, the process would generate no pollutants -- not even carbon dioxide, which many scientists fear is warming the globe in a greenhouse effect. A fusion plant would give off much less radiation than do conventional nuclear-power generators. And it would essentially run on seawater. Any scientist who managed to harness fusion would be guaranteed a Nobel Prize for Physics (and probably Peace as well), untold riches from licensing the process and a place in history alongside Einstein and slightly above Edison. Any scientist who confirmed the claim would get part of the resulting avalanche of research dollars, and anyone who shot it down would gain acclaim within the scientific community.