Open Letter from the ISCMNS
Hon. Secretary
Bill Collis
The New Society
Just a year ago, the International Society for Condensed Matter Nuclear Science
was just an idea on paper. Today, with only 90 or so members, it takes its
rightful place as a fully fledged scientific society with support in every
continent of the globe. Legally it is a limited company registered in England.
Its assets already stand at several years’ worth of subscriptions.
We are all familiar with the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the birth
of this new Society. Personally I like to think we are, nevertheless, a very
ordinary Society, with very ordinary objectives - typical of any Scientific
Society. But we are faced with extraordinary challenges which in turn will
require extraordinary efforts.
The Challenge
The Society’s primary objective is to promote condensed matter nuclear science.
Our first challenge is to convince the world that so called “Cold Fusion” is a
real phenomenon, worthy of serious scientific study. I believe that this is not
such an insurmountable problem as it is often considered to be. It is quite
clear however that doing “good science” or publishing in peer reviewed journals
has not and probably will not have much effect. Every time scientists have
painstakingly overcome objections, such as reproducibility, demonstration of
nuclear ash production, demonstration of nuclear fuel consumption, critics have
moved the goal posts and insisted on yet more absurd hurdles to be overcome. For
example, Allen Bard at University of Texas is quoted [April 2004 Physics Today
p28] “If they are saying, ‘We are now able to reproduce our results’, that’s not
good enough.” One can only presume that Bard does share the curiosity of
mainstream scientists to investigate any reproducible but as yet unexplained
observation.
Avoiding Confrontation
As every soldier knows it is very costly to attempt a frontal assault. It is
better to choose one’s own battlefield or perhaps out manoeuvre the enemy. But
it’s even better not to go to war at all. In fact describing the opposition as
an enemy to be attacked is in itself counter-productive. I believe that the
majority of scientific opposition is simply uninformed rather than blind. It is
a mistake to tar all hot fusion scientists with the same brush just because in
theory some might oppose condensed matter nuclear science. After all we have
some distinguished hot fusion scientists on the ISCMNS Executive Committee!
A mission of communication, education and demonstration
If we accept that the scientific establishment as well as the general public is
uninformed, then ISCMNS in its efforts to promote science, should concentrate on
communication, education and demonstration. Perhaps if we demonstrate, as we
have already demonstrated, that even school students, without any special
experience can duplicate “thermal anomalies” in deuterated electrolytes then
perhaps the scientific establishment might care to re-evaluate the phenomenon
too. This process of re-evaluation has already started with the decision of the
United States Department of Energy (DOE) to review 15 years of CMNS research.
ISCMNS, a modern Internet based Scientific Society
With members dispersed all over the world with different linguistic, cultural
and economic backgrounds, communication can be a problem. As permitted by the
constitution which takes advantage of recent legislation changes, the main
communication method is email. This is a cheap and fast. But we are aware that
not all members want to receive large volumes of email. Consequently the
Society’s mailing lists allow users to opt in or out as they see fit. We often
reference documents which are publicly available of the www (such as our own
http://www.iscmns.org) to avoid clogging up your mailboxes. To protect your
privacy we try not to publish your email addresses on the web where they can be
harvested by unscrupulous web trawling software.
Participating in the ISCMNS Newsletter
ISCMNS is currently launching the Society Newsletter moderated by Dr. Peter
Gluck (Rumania). The purpose of this Newsletter is to promote on-line discussion
of the scientific, technical, legal and political problems facing the field. All
contributions should be made to peter.gluck@gmail.com
Why Europe?
It is appropriate that ISCMNS’s mission should have started in Europe. In the Americas,
until the DOE gives Cold Fusion a clean bill of health, there will be a prudent
“wait and see” policy. In Asia the flourishing Japanese CF Research Society has
ensured that CMNS is already part of accepted science. Europe lies somewhere
between these two but with the added advantage that European Union money is
available for European (i.e. international) collaboration. Already ISCMNS has
sponsored the Asti workshop in Italy and is sponsoring
ICCF11 in France.
There’s no doubt that such initiatives attract significant international
attention. In fact ISCMNS has been contacted from 3 other schools in Italy and
France keen to demonstrate CMNS in their own laboratories.
How should we dedicate our Resources?
Although ISCMNS enjoys healthy finances there is no way we can satisfy this
international interest from our own resources. And arguably it is not fair to
members, to spend their modest subscription moneys on public relations
exercises. My feelings are that subscriptions should be used exclusively for the
direct benefit of individual members (for example discounts at ISCMNS meetings).
Making Membership attractive
How then are we to finance the Society? First of all we need to make membership
attractive. People will take more notice of a Society which speaks for 500
rather than 50 members. At present ISCMNS is attractive because the cost of
membership is less than the value of discounts. I hope this policy will be
maintained.
Working with Industry
Secondly we need to attract institutional and industrial members. We must listen
very attentively to what they have to say. Their interests may be quite
different to those of individuals. But they bring with them contacts,
administrative skills, and of course financial and material support which the
Society needs. To those who fear domination of the Society by multi-nationals
with vested interests, I would answer that all members great and small have 1
vote each. We are a democratic Society.
Access to Intellectual Property (IP)
One of the objects of ISCMNS is to facilitate access by members to Intellectual
Property (IP). One possibility the Executive Committee has decided to evaluate
is the compilation of a computer database of relevant IP. To avoid legal
complications the database initially will only contain information in the public
domain, but the Society will claim copyright over the data collection as a whole
and make it available to members under conditions to be decided.
Members of the Society are encouraged to report their IP experiences to the
Society so that all can learn how to get round the bureaucratic hurdles.
It is premature to estimate what income if any the Society might make by
charging for access to its IP database. However it is unlikely to be sufficient
to finance the Society’s mission.
Commerce
In many countries, tax authorities frown upon non-profit institutions engaging
in “commerce”. In England, for example, a registered charity should not abuse
its tax free status with commercial income greater than £50,000. Many Charities
set up ordinary subsidiary companies to overcome this restriction. Fortunately
ISCMNS is not a charity and does not suffer from any such bureaucracy. But like
any UK company, ISCMNS will not pay any taxes on profits below £10,000.
Donations and subscription income do not count towards this limit.
Consultancy
One of the Society’s objectives is to provide advice and consultancy. It is
likely that clients would be willing to pay higher fees for the services of
ISCMNS than they would to any individual. Consequently it would be in the
interests of all parties for the Society to offer consultancy services for a
reasonable margin. This may be rather unusual for a purely scientific Society
but science has always progressed hand in hand with commerce.
Demonstration Devices
Another ISCMNS objective is to promote or carry out research. Perhaps this
objective could be combined with the development of demonstration devices. If
development is successful such devices could be assembled into a kit for sale.
It is clear from the school interest in recent demonstrations that the market
for such devices may be substantial. Possibly with industrial and European Union
support, development of demo devices could be made without any direct cost to
the Society! We should therefore look for partners to carry out product
development, testing, manufacture and distribution.
Bill Collis
24 September 2004