Stanley Pons

Stanley Pons
Born (1943-08-23) August 23, 1943
Valdese, North Carolina, US[1]
Citizenship France (originally US)[2]
Fields Electrochemistry
Institutions University of Utah
Doctoral advisor Alan Bewick
Known for Work on cold fusion

Bobby Stanley Pons (born August 23, 1943) is an American-born 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, North Carolina, 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. 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. 1 2 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. 1 2 Voss, D (1999-03-01). "What Ever Happened to Cold Fusion". Physics World. Retrieved 2008-05-01.
  3. ↑ "Nuclear fusion", Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011, accessed May 6, 2011.
  4. 1 2 3 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. 1 2 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. 1 2 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.
  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.
  10. ↑ Thomas F. Gieryn (1999). University of Chicago Press, ed. Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibility on the Line (illustrated ed.). pp. https://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 (6.11). Retrieved 2008-05-25.
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