Oops, as you can see the Conference was in Cambridge. (where Violante’s 2003 paper was first presented) Letts and Cravens also presented similar work there with lasers but apparently did not use the phrase “surface plasmon”… or if they did, then maybe they are the first.
– so the $64 question is: did Widom present his version of surface plasmons earlier than this date – or did he copy Violante or Letts/Cravens ? W-L certainly do not give attribution to either Violante or L/C in their 2005 paper. Yet, there is little doubt that Widom / Larsen now wish to take credit for this important detail – and it is a big deal, so if they are the first to recognize surface plasmons, then they deserve the credit; or if not … Violante, or Letts/Cravens, are the researchers whose name should be mentioned. At least they did real experiments. It is not idle banter to imagine that this specific insight on plasmons – if and when it is ever proved - will eventually lead to Stockholm (operative word being “IF”)… From: Jones Beene Hi Mark, Thanks for that - but here is a two year earlier reference – and one not encumbered by the ultra-cold neutron nonsense. It is a reference which comes from Volante at a conference presentation in 2003 at Frascati. Was Widom at this conference? If so, we have another attribution problem. The paper was presented in 2003 but not published until 2005. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005cmns.conf..421V In light of the relevance of the surface plasmon phenomenon to LENR, it seems fruitful to locate the earliest reference to its use in LENR – which as of now appears to be this Violante presentation, but perhaps there is an earlier reference. From: Mark Jurich Jones wrote: For the record, Fred Sparber started talking about surface plasmons in LENR on vortex in 2006 if not before. It is a mistake to credit this to W&L. FYI: It’s not my intent to get involved in the whole Widom-Larsen Theory Controversy, but I think it would be disingenuous if one did not reference the following paper in May 2005 which refers to “surface plasma modes”: http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0505026 I was quite aware of this preprint back in 2005, hence the comment. Mark Jurich
