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  • HAPPY COLD FUSION DAY!

    Filed at 5:08 pm under by dcobranchi

    It’s the 19th anniversary of the announcement that didn’t change the world. True confession time. I was there. I mean I was really there. I worked in the lab next door to Pons’ lab in the basement of the Henry Eyring Chemistry Building at the University of Utah. In fact, for a very brief time, I worked for Pons. I was doing work on ultramicroelectrodes. After I left the group another grad student picked up the work. He was the unnamed third author on the original cold fusion paper.

    Yeah, missed me by that much.

    True story– Pons was really wacked out at the time. I was working late one afternoon when one of Pons’ grad students came down and told me that I had to go with her to Pons’ home immediately. Supposedly some of their work had drawn the interest of the CIA, and they wanted to talk to everyone who had access to the lab. Really. We sat around Pons’ home for a couple hours before concluding that the CIA was going to no show. Good beer, though.

    3 Responses to “HAPPY COLD FUSION DAY!”


    Comment by
    don
    March 23rd, 2008
    at 10:39 pm

    Over at Pharyngula, P.Z. Myers has a post up saying that he was there too. Apparently he was doing some post-grad work in the building next door. Small world, eh?


    Comment by
    Daryl Cobranchi
    March 23rd, 2008
    at 10:50 pm

    Yeah, I didn’t know he post doc’d at the UofU. I wish I’d known him back then. We evidently sat in on the same press conference announcing the “discovery.”


    Comment by
    Rob
    March 24th, 2008
    at 11:11 am

    Small world. I was an undergrad at the U, hearing about it from embarassed looking professors who wanted to change the subject.

    You should be happy to know that the U is one of the few campuses that allow concealed carry. There was recently a push to allow open carry, but that died (thankfully).