This looks like it was an effort to establish priority over the discovery. The matter of priority regarding cold fusion was a big concern in 1989 and 1990. It is interesting that what Steven Jones and what Pons and Fleischmann believed they were seeing and reported in their measurements were different enough that they themselves eventually concluded that different phenomena were occurring (or that no phenomenon was happening at the other camp, as the case may be). In that context, I'm not sure there was much in the way of priority to be established. The two groups sort of criss crossed each other but tripped one another up enough to be confusing for everyone involved.
In retrospect, Ed Storms might suggest that what Steve Jones was seeing was hot fusion on a small scale and what Pons and Fleischmann were seeing was genuine cold fusion. I'm somewhat doubtful at this point that the distinction is a valid one for this kind of system. Steve Jones might have been observing a similar process to the one observed by Pons and Fleischmann, just on a smaller scale, with more neutrons and no discernable heat. In this context, the two groups might have been right to argue over priority, and Steven Jones might have ended up disavowing it with his "piezonuclear fusion" stuff. Even if a scientist erroneously disavows discovering a specific phenomenon like LENR, I suppose, this is not necessarily to say that history books won't recognize whatever role he played later on. Eric On Tue, Sep 23, 2014 at 4:30 PM, Jones Beene <jone...@pacbell.net> wrote: > *Of interest: * > > > > *BRIEF HISTORY OF COLD FUSION AT BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY Secondary title: > * > > > > *PIEZONUCLEAR FUSION AT BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY * > > *By BYU Professors Jae Ballif, William Evenson, and Steven Jones* >
