Steven E. Jones

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Steven E. Jones
Steven E. Jones
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Steven Earl Jones is an American physicist. For most of his career, Jones was known mainly for his work on muon-catalyzed cold fusion. On October 20, 2006, he announced his retirement from Brigham Young University amid controversy surrounding his work on the collapse of the World Trade Center, which had later become central to the 9/11 Truth Movement. His hypothesis is that the World Trade Center was destroyed by controlled explosive demolition during the September 11 attacks. Jones' work is a part of many 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Contents

Education

Jones earned his bachelor's degree in physics, magna cum laude, from Brigham Young University in 1973, and his Ph.D. in physics from Vanderbilt University in 1978. Jones conducted his Ph.D. research at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (from 1974 to 1977), and post-doctoral research at Cornell University and the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility.[1]

Research interests and background

Jones conducted research at the Idaho National Laboratory, in Arco, Idaho, from 1979 to 1985, where he was a senior engineering specialist. He was the principal investigator for experimental Muon-catalyzed fusion from 1982 to 1991 for the U.S. Department of Energy, Division of Advanced Energy Projects. From 1990 to 1993, Jones researched fusion in condensed matter physics and deuterium, for the U.S. Department of Energy and for the Electric Power Research Institute.

Jones has also been a collaborator in several experiments, including experiments at TRIUMF (Vancouver, British Columbia), The National High Energy Laboratory, KEK (Tsukuba, Japan), and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory at Oxford University.

Jones specializes in Metal-catalyzed fusion, Archaeometry and Solar energy.[2][3]

Like many professors at BYU, Jones has an interest in archaeology and the Book of Mormon.[4] For example, he has sought radiocarbon dating evidence regarding the existence of pre-Columbian horses in the Americas.[5]

Cold fusion

In the mid-1980s, Jones and other BYU scientists worked on what he then referred to as Cold Nuclear Fusion in a Scientific American article, but is today known as muon-catalyzed fusion to avoid confusion. Muon-catalyzed fusion was a field of some interest in the 1980s, but its low energy output appears to be unavoidable (due to alpha-muon sticking losses).

Around 1985 Jones then became interested in the anomalous production of helium-3 found in the gasses escaping from volcanoes. He hypothesized that the high pressures in the Earth's interior might make fusion more likely, and began a series of experiments on what he referred to as piezofusion, or high-pressure fusion. In order to characterize the reactions, Jones designed and built a neutron counter able to accurately measure the tiny numbers of neutrons being produced in his experiments. The counter suggested a small amount of fusion was going on. Jones said the result suggested at least the possibility of fusion, though the process was unlikely to be useful as an energy source.

Pons and Fleischmann (P&F) started their work around the same time. Their work was brought to Jones' attention when they applied for research funding from the Department of Energy and they passed their proposal along to Jones for peer review. Realizing their work was very similar, Jones and P&F agreed to release their papers to Nature on the same day, March 24, 1989. However, P&F announced their results at a press event the day before. Jones faxed his paper to Nature.[6]

A New York Times article says that while peer reviewers were quite critical of Pons and Fleishchmann's research they did not apply such criticism to Jones' much more modest, theoretically supported findings. Although critics insisted that his results likely stemmed from experimental error,[7] most of the reviewing physicists indicated that he was a careful scientist. Other research and experiments confirmed his findings.[8]

WTC collapse controversy

At a department seminar held on September 22, 2005, Jones presented the substance of the paper that would become "Why Indeed did the WTC Buildings Collapse?".[9] His hypothesis is that on September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center towers and Seven World Trade Center collapsed as a result of controlled demolition, not the impact of the airplanes that hit them or the fires that followed. Jones highlights several what he says are anomalies in the collapse events, and underscores what he says are deficiencies in the official explanations, including: symmetry of the collapses, speed of the collapses, characteristics of dust jets, reports of molten metal in the debris piles, failures of the official collapse theories; and calls for further scientific investigation to test the controlled demolition hypothesis along with the release of all relevant data by the government. Shortly after the seminar Jones made the paper available on the website of the physics department of Brigham Young University. It would eventually be published in a book of essays critical of the official version of the September 11, 2001, attacks, 9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out, edited by David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale Scott.[10]

Jones has been interviewed by mainstream news sources and has made a number of public appearances, including the 9/11 + The Neo-Con Agenda Symposium, which was held in Los Angeles on June 24-25, 2006.[11] While Jones has urged caution in drawing conclusions,[12] his public comments have suggested a considerable degree of certainty about both the controlled demolition of the World Trade Center and the culpability of rogue agents working within the U.S. government.[13] In an article published on September 5, 2006, Jones told The Guardian that the attacks were an "inside job".[14] His name is often mentioned in reporting about 9/11 conspiracy theories.[15]

The paper has been the center of controversy both for its content and its claims to scientific rigor. Engineers have dismissed the controlled demolition hypothesis with reference to the consensus that has formed in the engineering community about the collapses.[16][17] Jones's early critics included members of BYU's engineering faculty[18] and shortly after he made his views public, the BYU College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and the faculty of structural engineering issued statements in which they distanced themselves from Jones' work. They noted that Jones' "hypotheses and interpretations of evidence were being questioned by scholars and practitioners", and expressed doubts about whether they had been "submitted to relevant scientific venues that would ensure rigorous technical peer review."[19]

Jones has always maintained that the paper was peer-reviewed prior to publication. On Thursday, September 7, 2006, Jones removed his paper from BYU's website at the request of administrators and was placed on paid leave.[20] The university cited its concern about the "increasingly speculative and accusatory nature" of Jones's work and the fact it had "not been published in appropriate scientific venues" as reasons for putting him under review.[21] The review was supposed to be three-tiered, with the school's administration, the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and the Physics Department involved.[22] This action has drawn fresh criticism from the American Association of University Professors and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. Both organizations are long time critics of BYU's record on academic freedom.[23]

Scholars for 9/11 Truth

Jones was a founding member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and has served as co-chair, with James H. Fetzer, since its inception. Since mid-November of 2006, he, Fetzer and a series of other researchers and individuals, have been engaged in an open dispute about the direction the organization should take. Fetzer has said Jones wants to suppress some alternative theories about 9/11, including those of Judy Wood and Morgan Reynolds involving the destruction of the WTC by mini-nukes or high-energy weapons, and the so-called "no-plane" theories.[24] Jones has said he has examined the mini-nukes hypothesis and delineated empirical reasons for rejecting it,[25] and that he invites further discussion and response.

Early Retirement from BYU

Jones and Brigham Young University finalized a retirement package on October 20, 2006, six weeks after the school had placed him on paid leave to review his statements about the World Trade Center. "I am electing to retire so that I can spend more time speaking and conducting research of my own choosing," Jones said in a statement released by the university. Jones' retirement was effective January 1, 2007.[26]

Affiliations

Jones had been co-chair of Scholars for 9/11 Truth up until Dec 5, 2006. Following a dispute with co-chair James Fetzer over the direction the organization was taking, Jones resigned his membership and joined Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice.

Jones is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Jones has been described as "a devout Mormon and, until recently, a faithful supporter of George W. Bush."[16]

Jones is co-editor of Journal of 9/11 Studies[27].

Recognition and awards

  • 1968, David O. McKay Scholarship at BYU; National Merit Scholar[28]
  • 1973-1978 Tuition Scholarship and Research Fellowship at Vanderbilt University
  • 1989 Outstanding Young Scholar Award (BYU); Best of What's New for 1989 (Popular Science); Creativity Prize (Japanese Creativity Society)
  • 1990 BYU Young Scholar Award; Annual Lecturer, BYU Chapter of Sigma Xi

References

  1. ^ Brigham Young University: Steven E. Jones's CV
  2. ^ Steven E. Jones' biography at BYU. Retrieved on 2006-08-03.
  3. ^ The Solar Funnel Cooker.
  4. ^ For the relationship between BYU and Mormon apologetics scholarship see generally John-Charles Duffy. "Defending the Kingdom, Rethinking the Faith: How Apologetics Is Reshaping Mormon Orthodoxy." Sunstone, May 2004, 22-55.
  5. ^ Anononymous. "Out of the Dust" in Journal of Book of Mormon Studies Volume 10 Issue 1.
  6. ^ Jones’s manuscript on history of cold fusion at BYU, Ludwik Kowalski, March 5, 2004
  7. ^ Browne, Malcolm W. (1989). Physicists Debunk Claim Of a New Kind of Fusion. Science. The New York Times. Retrieved on 2006-07-14.
  8. ^ Czerski, K. and Huke, A. and Biller, A. and Heide, P. and Hoeft, M. and Ruprecht, G. (2001). Enhancement of the electron screening effect for d+ d fusion reactions in metallic environments 449-455, Volume 54, number 4. Europhysics Letters. “...the observed enhancement of the electron screening in metal targets can, in tendency, explain the small neutron production rates observed in the cold-fusion experiment of Jones [reference 1989 Nature paper].”
  9. ^ Jones, Steven E. "Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?" in Griffin, David Ray and Peter Dale Scott, eds. 9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out. Olive Branch Press, 2006. A version of the paper has also been published online in the Journal of 9/11 Studies, vol 3.Journal of 911 Studies
  10. ^ Griffin, David Ray and Peter Dale Scott, eds. 9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out. Olive Branch Press, 2006.
  11. ^ "9/11 + The Neo-Con Agenda" Press Release
  12. ^ Jones, Steven E. (July 18, 2006). Answers to Objections and Questions (pdf). Retrieved on 2006-08-05.
  13. ^ "Fury as academics claim 9/11 was 'inside job'", London Daily Mail, 2006-09-06. Retrieved on 2006-09-06.
  14. ^ "Who really blew up the twin towers?", The Guardian, September 5, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-10-09.
  15. ^ 2 U.S. Reports Seek to Counter Conspiracy Theories About 9/11. New York Times. Retrieved on 2006-09-06.
  16. ^ a b Gravois, John (June 23, 2006). Professors of Paranoia? Academics give a scholarly stamp to 9/11 conspiracy theories. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved on 2006-07-27.
  17. ^ Bazant, Zdenek P. and Mathieu Verdure. "Mechanics of Progressive Collapse: Learning from World Trade Center and Building Demolitions" in Journal of Engineering Mechanics ASCE, in press.
  18. ^ Refuting 9/11 Conspiracy Theory. Letter to the Editor (April 9, 2006). Retrieved on 2006-07-27.
  19. ^ McIlvain, Ryan (December 5, 2005). Censor rumors quelled. Retrieved on 2006-07-29.
  20. ^ Walch, Tad. "Controversy dogs Y.'s Jones", Deseretnews, September 9, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-09-09.
  21. ^ BYU places '9/11 truth' professor on paid leave
  22. ^ McFarland, Sheena (September 8, 2006). BYU prof on paid leave for 9/11 theory. The Salt Lake Tribune.
  23. ^ BYU action on Jones lamented
  24. ^ Fetzer, Jim. "An Open Letter about Steven Jones".
  25. ^ Jones, Steven. "Hard Evidence Repudiates the Hypothesis that Mini-Nukes Were Used on the WTC Towers"
  26. ^ Walch, Tad. "BYU professor in dispute over 9/11 will retire", Deseret Morning News, 2006-10-21.
  27. ^ Journal of 9/11 Studies
  28. ^ Brigham Young University: Steven E. Jones's CV

See also

External links


Links covering Steven Jones' Cold Fusion research

  • WIRED Magazine article covering Cold Fusion with mention of Jones contributions


Links covering Steven Jones' 9/11 research

v • d • e
9/11 conspiracy theories

Major theories
Controlled demolition hypothesis for the collapse of the World Trade Center

Proponents and supporters
Kevin Barrett • Robert M. Bowman • Andreas von Bülow • James H. Fetzer • David Ray Griffin • Sander Hicks • Jim Hoffman • Alex Jones • Steven E. Jones • Lyndon LaRouche • Thierry Meyssan • Michael Ruppert • Peter Dale Scott • Webster G. Tarpley • Barrie Zwicker

Groups
9/11 Citizens Watch • Scholars for 9/11 Truth

Media
Film: 911: In Plane Site • Loose Change • 9/11: Press for Truth
Books: 9/11: The Big Lie • The CIA and September 11 • The New Pearl Harbor • The Terror Timeline • The War on Freedom

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