New Scientist magazine has published a short interview with Mike McKubre, director of the Energy Research program at SRI International, about the contribution of the late Martin Fleisichmann in the area of cold fusion. In the article, entitled “Can cold fusion research survive pioneer’s death?”, McKubre attempts to clear up some of the assumptions that have lingered about Pons and Fleischmann’s work since they were shot down in the media following their cold fusion announcement in 1989.
I think this is the first time that I have seen New Scientist cover cold fusion in recent times. It is rather sad that it might take the death of Martin Fleischmann to have the media start to pay attention to his work and legacy — however it’s not unusual in science and other fields to find that the importance of work done by pioneers is not widely recognized until after they have died.
The recent flowering of research into LENR would certainly not have happened were it not for the work of Martin Fleischmann and Stanely Pons.