My strategy has been to spend massive amounts of time contacting any and every person I know or learn of that shows some sign of interest and bend their ear a bit.
Many of us have done that, for many years. I think the time may be ripe for a new campaign for two reasons. First, because we now have more material than ever before, including many more papers online, and the books by Beaudette, Krivit and Rothwell. Second, because the blogs have emerged as a somewhat new medium.
When a new medium emerges it often presents a new opportunity. Think about the short history of the Internet. Discussion groups on CompuServe and sci.physics.fusion emerged first. They offered only a limited audience and they were ineffective, because messages posted to them soon scrolled away, and because they were infested by obnoxious, irrational opponents. Web pages came along next. They are a far better medium for scientific or technical information, because they organized, permanent, cross-linked and they present a coherent point of view. As everyone knows, there are now many web pages devoted to various aspects of cold fusion. A few years ago, blogs emerged. I have not paid much attention to them, but perhaps they offer yet another way to spread the word about cold fusion. Perhaps it is a late to be doing this; blog popularity may have already peaked. When a medium becomes saturated with information it becomes harder to have a large impact.
Spam is an example of a medium we do not want to employ!
National television and advertising in the New York Times are examples of media that we could not employ to promote cold fusion, because they are too expensive. Even if we had the money they would be a waste. Advertising on Google would also be a mistake, I think. Although if I won the lottery I might try it.
Anyway, perhaps those of us who promote cold fusion informally from time to time should think about launching a new concerted effort to reach the blogosphere. I do not know how to go about doing that, so if any reader out there has suggestions, please let me know.
Cold fusion began at the height of the fax machine era. Fax machines were a benighted means of communication. They managed to combine the worst features of several earlier technologies, being analog, low resolution, slow, short-lived (with thermal paper) *and* expensive. Copy machines and US mail would have been better!
It is interesting to note that people who oppose cold fusion have not bothered to organize a web page, as far as I know. They are stuck in the primordial discussion group stage of the Internet, where memory is continually erased, and change and intellectual evolution are impossible. Primitive tribes live in a timeless stasis for similar reasons. They have no written memory. When your history is recorded only in spoken folklore, you cannot distinguish between events that occurred 50 years ago, 500 years ago, or only in your great-grandfather's imagination.
- Jed
