The history of scientific discovery is littered with examples of “pathological science” – an area of research where experimenters are tricked into accepting false results by a combination of subjective effects, unrecognized experimental errors, and wishful thinking. The term was first used by Nobel-winning chemist Irving Langmuir in 1953. Langmuir described pathological science as an area of research that simply refuses to die long after it was given up on as false by the majority of scientists in the field. He called pathological science “the science of things that aren’t so”.

Enter Cold Fusion. From the initial spectacular announcement by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons (at a press conference, no less), to its equally spectacular flameout under the weight of irreproducible results, the lack of a theoretical framework, and scathing accusations of “incompetence and delusion” on the part of Fleischmann and Pons, cold fusion appears to have been consigned to the scientific landfill along with perpetual motion, polywater, and the canals on Mars.

Or perhaps not. Although mainstream science has long since turned its attentions elsewhere, Cold Fusion, these days known as Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR), has been kept alive by a small but dedicated band of mostly fringe researchers, publishing […]