On Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 7:01 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> 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.
