Wired Magazine's Exposé of the Cold Fusion Scandal
Posted December 1, 1998
by Eugene F. Mallove
Wired Magazine, the funky, colorful, high-tech journal of the digital age, took a giant leap forward for truth in science journalism with its latest issue. Charles Platt's 18-page expose' feature article in the November 1998 Wired, "Dirty Science: The Strange Rebirth of Cold Fusion" makes it abundantly clear that the world very likely is facing an energy and scientific revolution of unprecedented scale. The article is cited on the cover of the magazine. The circulation of Wired, we understand exceeds 500,000, with a monthly print run of some 700,000.

Infinite Energy magazine initiated Platt's interest in the subject, as he recounts. He writes: "Today. a handful of laboratories still pursue cold fusion, but their work remains largely ignored. I knew nothing about it myself until Eugene Mallove, the former science writer from MIT, sent me a copy of a book he had written titled, Fire from Ice, which provided an excellent factual summary."

Platt also identifies one of the key problems for cold fusion, which is not the lack of results or significant publication, but the refusal of key opinion-molding science journals to publish scientific papers with rock-solid findings that are at odds with supposedly bullet-proof theories of modern physics and chemistry.

Platt faults science journalist Gary Taubes, who assaulted the reputations of scientists at Texas A&M University in 1990, and later in his negative book, with what quickly proved to be totally false allegations of fraud. Platt discusses the work of scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory and elsewhere that refute the allegations. When asked, Platt told Infinite Energy magazine that Taubes did not want his comments to Platt to be published -- so they weren't. Professor John O'M. Bockris's comments and those of Nigel Packham, the aggrieved parties, were.

Infinite Energy Magazine is proud to have contributed to the one of the best single journalistic accounts on the cold fusion scandal since the famous Fleischmann and Pons press conference at the University of Utah on March 23, 1989. Infinite Energy encouraged Charles Platt to explore cold fusion and draw his own conclusions, and he did. Platt writes: "At most, the story of cold fusion represents a colossal conspiracy of denial. At least, it is one of the strangest untold stories in 20th century science." Of course, Infinite Energy magazine agrees with the first possibility, but readers of Platt's seminal investigative report can decide for themselves.

To investigate the cold fusion scandal, Platt traveled to cold fusion companies and interviewed some of the hundreds of scientists who work in this field as heroes unsung by the general media, such as The New York Times— which continues to act as though cold fusion science and technology do not exist. Platt attended the Seventh International Conference on Cold Fusion in Vancouver, British Columbia in April 1998 to see for himself whether cold fusion evidence is real, or whether hundreds of scientists are engaged in mass-delusion. It is unfortunate that other science journalists did not attend ICCF7, preferring as they do to follow the path of least resistance, which is to say— to do nothing. Perhaps after reading the expose' by Charles Platt, they will have second thoughts. Just don't hold your breath!

Infinite Energy readers are urged to get the November 1998 Wired [available for purchase in the online store], which could become a collector's item. Spread the word: Cold Fusion is hot, it's wired.

Back in New Hampshire, the always informative New Hampshire Editions magazine, edited by Rick Broussard, ran a profile of the Wired article in its "NH Guide to the Internet & Technology" section. Broussard interviewed Platt, who said: "Like all marginalized activities, cold fusion contains a rich mixture of people. If you went into any small subculture you'd find extremes from total cranks to very smart people with more imagination than most. Gene [Mallove] chooses to be open to both extremes. Sometimes a new field of endeavor needs an extremist. Maybe he's the right extremist for the job...he's done something which most people would have thought impossible. Starting this magazine skating on the fringes of science, getting money to run it and a lab to test ideas. It's a bootstrap operation that's quite impressive regardless of the results— never underestimate the power of obsession."