Scientists are really very conscious of the fact that they stand on the shoulders of an enormous tree of preceding workers and that their own contribution is not so enormous.

About Martin Fleischmann

Martin Fleischmann FRSwas a British chemist who worked in electrochemistry. Premature announcement of his cold fusion research with Stanley Pons, regarding excess heat in heavy water, caused a media sensation and elicited skepticism and criticism from many in the scientific community.

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More quotes from Martin Fleischmann

It has been suggested at various times that I should start an operation in the United Kingdom but – bearing in mind my age and medical history – I think this would be not a very sensible way to go forward.

Martin Fleischmann

British chemist

Now, of course, cold fusion is the daddy of them all in a way, in terms of value, so I think that viewed in a social way, from the point of social considerations and economics, it will tell you that this thing will stay around.

Martin Fleischmann

British chemist

Usually, if you have a new idea, you very rarely break through to anything like recognizable development or implementation of that idea the first time around – it takes two or three goes for the research community to return to the topic.

Martin Fleischmann

British chemist

If you assume that it was a valid experiment, then its disintegration reveals a very substantial part of what has been found since then, including the fact that you can get heat generation at high temperature.

Martin Fleischmann

British chemist

American science is much more organized, much more hierarchical than British science has been.

Martin Fleischmann

British chemist

I don’t know whether you have done your calculations but, about two or three years back, I did a first assessment of what the first successful device would be worth and it came out at about 300 trillion dollars.

Martin Fleischmann

British chemist

You see, I am a very conventional scientist, really.

Martin Fleischmann

British chemist

I don’t suppose I’ll ever retire completely.

Martin Fleischmann

British chemist

I think British science is becoming more like American science – and then there is everybody else, I’m afraid.

Martin Fleischmann

British chemist

The problem is that replacement of Quantum Mechanics by Quantum Field Theory is still very demanding.

Martin Fleischmann

British chemist

It is not necessarily true that expensive experiments are not worthwhile doing but there are plenty of rather cheap experiments which are certainly worth doing.

Martin Fleischmann

British chemist

At the moment I am taking a very careful look at some of the work which we have done in the past.

Martin Fleischmann

British chemist

Now Stan and I were still working in secret at that time but, because of this development, we had to inform the University of Utah because we thought that they might need to take patent protection.

Martin Fleischmann

British chemist

Stan and I funded the first phase of the work ourselves. It was secret.

Martin Fleischmann

British chemist

So if I could just go back now to something which I am sure we should cover here regarding our original scenario: we have, in fact, four ways – four major potential lines of research.

Martin Fleischmann

British chemist

One of my theme songs is that if you can’t do it in a test tube, don’t do it.

Martin Fleischmann

British chemist

It doesn’t matter whether you can or cannot achieve high temperature superconductivity or fuel cells, they will always be on the list because if you could achieve them they would be extremely valuable.

Martin Fleischmann

British chemist

I think you know that I classify science as British science, American science, and everybody else.

Martin Fleischmann

British chemist

Scientists are really very conscious of the fact that they stand on the shoulders of an enormous tree of preceding workers and that their own contribution is not so enormous.

Martin Fleischmann

British chemist

I am a caricature of what British science is about in the way I work.

Martin Fleischmann

British chemist

I have had this view of the optimization of the electrode design for a long time. Historically we went through various phases in the work and eventually worked on large sheets – very large sheets – of palladium.

Martin Fleischmann

British chemist