Undead Science: Science studies and the afterlife of cold fusion by Bart Simon, Rutgers University Press, $22, ISBN 0813531535
SOMETIMES a boxing match gets decided on points if neither fighter manages a knockout. But what if the loser is still capering in his corner calling, “Come back and fight, you coward!” as the referee raises the victor’s hand?
This is pretty much what has happened with cold fusion. If it sounds like a Monty Python sketch, that is fair enough, sceptics will say. The whole episode – with newspapers worldwide enthusing in 1989 about unlimited energy for free then reporting…
