On Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 7:01 PM, Jed Rothwell
<[email protected]> wrote:
Gene went from a top academic career to working in a
warehouse at night to feed his family.
He was a science writer. Respectable, yes. Top academic career,
no.
Fleischmann and Pons had a terrible time.
Too much money? They had better funding after the CF
announcement than at any previous time in their careers.
I think it traumatized Pons. It did not bother Fleischmann as
much because he is a tough, cynical person who had nightmare
experiences during WWII. The Gestapo beat his father to death,
and he himself barely escaped.
Your arguments for cold fusion are aiming for the gut, not the
mind...
He told me that he knew calling that press conference would
mean the end of his career.
It would seem the reports on the sociology of CF are about as
reliable as those on the science. It was not the end of his
career. He was already resigned from his academic position at
Southampton, so he had no job to lose. As it happens, he worked
in a well funded lab in France until 1995, when he retired.
France is not Siberia. How is that the end of his career?
He knew he would be vilified and ridiculed for the rest of his
life.
So he says now, but his self-satisfied grinning during the press
conferences after the announcement tell a different story.
He went into it knowing what would happen.
Right. That his research would be well funded until retirement.
Until the announcement, P&F were funding the experiments
themselves.
That was an act of courage.
It was an act of fear. Fear that someone else would get priority.
