The II Annual Conference on Cold Fusion (1991)

Editors’ Foreword

The idea to keep open a fundamental channel of scientific information for people interested in Cold Fusion, came to us while visiting the now defunct National Cold Fusion Institute (N.C.F.I.), in Salt Lake City (Utah) in the fall of 1990.

For those, like ourselves, who wished to keep the Cold Fusion file open those were very hard times. We were in the middle of a press (and otherwise) attack on the occasion of a scientific review of the N.C.F.I., that was alleged to have been deviously avoided by the two scientists, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, that made it all happen.

Naturally things went differently from what announced and reported in the press; the review was basically positive, the scientific interest of Cold Fusion was established, but the world, scientific and otherwise, seemed to take no notice and continued in the deep rooted conviction that Cold Fusion, like many other pretended scientific discoveries, permanently belonged to the Museum of Errors.

In organizing the II Annual Conference on Cold Fusion, after the first held in Salt Lake City at the end of March 1990, our main concern and effort has been to keep this event within the strict confines of a scientific meeting. As the more than 200 participants have had the opportunity to witness, the meeting has proceeded with a rather stern and exhausting program for 5 full days, undisturbed, uninterfered by the press or any other external source of perturbation. The discussion has never touched the political aspects (even though some of them are rather interesting), but it has always been focused on the rally burning issues, both experimental and theoretical. For us it has been a most rewarding experience, and we have evidence that such has been the general feeling. And in view of this we have thought it appropriate to give these Proceedings a title: “The Science of Cold Fusion,” which emphasizes what has been the main characteristic of the Conference.

Getting to the contents of the Proceedings, we have decided that the book should give a faithful image of what went on in the 5 days of the Conference. Thus we submitted the papers received to a refereeing process which was kept at a rather lenient level, mitigated by some “Editorial Notes”, where some of the basic objections of the Referees were reported, with the aim to correctly represent the points where the disagreement among the interested scientists is more acute.

Following the structure of the Conference, we have organized the book in three main points: one containing the Contributed papers, the second the Invited papers, while the third comprises two summaries, one by Heinz Gerischer and the other by Martin Fleischmann, that actually was not delivered at the Conference, but we thought it worthwhile to included in these Proceedings. Finally in an Appendix, due to its importance in the full Report that Wilford Hansen, one of the speakers that most stirred the Conference audience, recently presented to the Utah State Council on Energy/Fusion.

Finally we should like to thank most warmly the Members of the International Advisory Committee who have given their precious advice on the program of the Conference with solicitude and intelligence.

The Local Organizing Committee also performed in an impeccable way, and we take this occasion to gratefully acknowledge their work. We have highly appreciated the very effective collaboration of the “A. Volta” Centre for Scientific Culture in whose premises the Conference took place. The Secretariat carried out its tasks in a very effective and dedicated manner: for his we thank Miss F. De Zan, Miss F. Gandino, Mrs. C. Nuncibello and Miss P. Pistochini.

The Conference could not have taken place without the generous and enthusiastic support of our sponsors; for this we thank them all most deeply.

Tullio Bressani

Emilio Del Giudice

Giuliano Preparata