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Stanley Pons

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Stanley Pons
File:Stanley Pons cold fusion gear.jpg
Born (1943-08-23) August 23, 1943 (age 81)
Valdese, North Carolina, U.S.[1]
CitizenshipFrance (originally US)[2]
Known forWork on cold fusion
Scientific career
FieldsElectrochemistry
InstitutionsUniversity of Utah
Doctoral advisorAlan Bewick

Bobby Stanley Pons (born August 23, 1943) is an American-French electrochemist known for his work with Martin Fleischmann on cold fusion in the 1980s and 1990s.[3]

Early life

Pons was born in Valdese, North Carolina. He attended Valdese High School, then Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., where he studied chemistry. He began his PhD studies in chemistry at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, but left before completing his PhD for financial reasons.[citation needed] His thesis resulted in a paper, co-authored in 1967 with Harry B. Mark, his adviser. The New York Times wrote that it pioneered a way to measure the spectra of chemical reactions on the surface of an electrode.[4]

He decided to finish his PhD in England at the University of Southampton, where in 1975 he met Martin Fleischmann. Pons was a student in Professor Alan Bewick's group; he earned his PhD in 1978.[4]

Career

On March 23, 1989, while Pons was the chairman of the chemistry department at the University of Utah,[4] he and Fleischmann announced the experimental production of "N-Fusion", which was quickly labeled by the press as cold fusion.[5] After a short period of public acclaim, hundreds of scientists attempted to reproduce the effects but generally failed.[6] After the claims were found to be unreproducible, the scientific community determined the claims were incomplete, and inaccurate.[1][6][7][7][8][9][10]

Pons moved to France in 1992, along with Fleischmann, to work at a Toyota-sponsored laboratory. The laboratory closed in 1998 after a ₤12 million research investment without conclusive results.[2] He gave up his US citizenship[11] and became a French citizen.[12]

References

  1. ^ a b Taubes, Gary (1993). Bad science: the short life and weird times of cold fusion. New York: Random House. p. 6. ISBN 0-394-58456-2.
  2. ^ a b Voss, D (1999-03-01). "What Ever Happened to Cold Fusion". Physics World. Retrieved 2008-05-01.
  3. ^ "Nuclear fusion", Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2011, accessed May 6, 2011.
  4. ^ a b c William J. Broad (1989-05-09). "Brilliance and Recklessness Seen in Fusion Collaboration". The New York Times.
  5. ^ Fleischmann, M; Pons S; Hawkins M (1989). "Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion of deuterium". J. Electroanal. Chem. 261 (2): 301. doi:10.1016/0022-0728(89)80006-3.
  6. ^ a b Adil E. Shamoo, David B. Resnik (2003). Oxford University Press US (ed.). Responsible Conduct of Research (2, illustrated ed.). p. 76, 97. ISBN 0-19-514846-0.
  7. ^ a b Bart Simon (2002). Rutgers University Press (ed.). Undead Science: Science Studies and the Afterlife of Cold Fusion (illustrated ed.). p. 119. ISBN 0-8135-3154-3.
  8. ^ Henry Krips, J. E. McGuire, Trevor Melia (1995). University of Pittsburgh Press (ed.). Science, Reason, and Rhetoric (illustrated ed.). pp. xvi. ISBN 0-8229-3912-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  9. ^ Michael B. Schiffer, Kacy L. Hollenback, Carrie L. Bell (2003). University of California Press (ed.). Draw the Lightning Down: Benjamin Franklin and Electrical Technology in the Age of Enlightenment (illustrated ed.). pp. 207. ISBN 0-520-23802-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ Thomas F. Gieryn (1999). University of Chicago Press (ed.). Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibility on the Line (illustrated ed.). pp. http://books.google.com/books?id=GljD3CHbDx0C&pg=PA204 204]. ISBN 0-226-29262-2.
  11. ^ Weinberger, Sharon (2004-11-21). "Warming Up to Cold Fusion". Washington Post: W22. (page 2 of online version)
  12. ^ Platt, Charles (1998). "What if Cold Fusion is Real?". Wired Magazine. No. 6.11. Retrieved 2008-05-25.
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