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Issue 59
January/February 2005
Infinite Energy Magazine
Book Review
The Rebirth of Cold Fusion:
Real Science, Real Hope, Real Energy
by Steven B. Krivit and
Nadine
Winocur
ISBN 0-9760545-8-2, $25.95 Paperback, 298 pp.
Pacific Oaks Press, 2004
Review by Scott R. Chubb
From Infinite Energy #59,
January/February 2005
The Rebirth of Cold
Fusion: Real Science, Real Hope, and Real Energy, by Steven B. Krivit and
Nadine Winocur, should be required reading for anyone interested in cold fusion
and LENR. Not only is this book technically sound, but it is so well-written
that experts, novices, and newcomers to the field will all enjoy reading it.
Remarkably, the book covers virtually all of the most important technical
details of LENR, but also includes an important record of the politics and
history of the field, and the potential impact of the associated discoveries on
world development.
The book is also remarkably timely: To their credit, because
Krivit and Winocur have published their book immediately after ICCF11 and just
prior to the much-anticipated re-evaluation of cold fusion by the DOE, they are
providing accurate information about an evolving, new, important area of
science that has been seriously misrepresented, at a time when candor is
absolutely necessary. For this reason, the book itself
actually might help to foster the “Rebirth of Cold Fusion” by advancing the
process of disseminating accurate information about the field. Thus, it is
entirely possible that the book will be remembered not only because it is
well-written and accurate but because its publication conceivably could alter
the actual history of the associated debate.
All books, of course, reflect particular biases and trends
that are in vogue at the time that they are published. An important difference
between The Rebirth of Cold Fusion and the earlier books that have presented a “positively biased” account of cold
fusion is associated with developments in the field. In particular, as opposed
to the apparent confusion in the field that prompted Gene Mallove to use the
phrase “Searching for the Truth Behind the Cold Fusion Furor” as a subtitle to
his 1991 book Fire from Ice, or the
decision by Charles Beaudette to identify a single effect (Excess Heat) in the title of his book (in 2000) as the key
phenomenon in cold fusion research, Krivit and Winocur have written their book
at a later time, when the relevant science is now known to be quite real. As a
consequence, in a very real sense, their book can be viewed as documenting the
birth of an entirely new field, as opposed to a narrative that depicts fragments
of the relevant story.
An additional important difference is that Krivit and
Winocur became involved with cold fusion more than a decade after the initial
debate began. As a consequence, their book resonates with optimism and hope,
and their perspective, both figuratively and in fact, reflects an idealism that
has been lost by many of us, who have been involved with the controversy since
the beginning.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I give it my highest
recommendation. In writing it, Krivit and Winocur not only have done a
tremendous service to the cold fusion field, but to science as a whole.
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