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Texas A&M
The Battalion
Vol. 88 No. 130 USPS 045360 12 pages College Station, Texas
WEATHER
FORECAST for WEDNESDAY:
Partly cloudy skies and mild to
cool temperatures.
HIGH:74 LOW:52
Tuesday, April 11,1989
Chemists release results of fusion experiment
By Alan Sembera
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Texas A&M researchers an
nounced Monday morning they suc
cessfully reproduced part of a con-
iroversial University of Utah
experiment that reportedly created
excess energy from a relatively sim
ple nuclear fusion process.
The A&M scientists are the first to
duplicate the Utah experiment,
which could be a major break
through in the effort to create a rela
tively dean, cheap and inexhaustible
energy source through nuclear fu
sion.
A&M chemists Dr. Charles Mar
lin, Dr. Kenneth Marsh and Bruce
Gammon reported energy gains of
60 to 80 percent when they electro
lyzed a jar of “heavy water” with a
palladium electrode.
Marsh, who is director of A&M’s
Thermodynamics Research Center,
said they could not confirm that the
energy gain came from nuclear fu
sion.
He said there is a small chance
that the energy was created by a
chemical reaction, and that the ex
periment was too small for them to
count extra neutrons, which are a
byproduct of fusion.
But researchers at Georgia T ech
announced later Monday afternoon
they also reproduced the Utah ex
periment and found a large number
of neutrons that were created dur
ing the experiment.
The results from A&M and
Georgia Tech are important to the
scientific community, which had
looked at the Utah experiment with
suspicion because it claimed to have
achieved fusion without the intense
pressure and heat required in pre
vious fusion reactions.
Also, attempts by seveial major
laboratories to reproduce the Utah
experiment had failed.
Martin, who is a chemistry profes
sor, said the reason A&M succeeded
where others failed is because of the
school’s expertise in calorimetry —
the measurement of heat.
Marsh and Gammon have exten
sive backgrounds in calorimetry,
We have run the
experiment using four
different amounts of
electric current and have
found that excess energy
varies between 60 percent
and 80 percent,”
— Dr. Charles Martin,
A&M electrochemist
Martin said, and were able to obtain
precise measurements of the heat
created during the experiment.
He said they finished the experi
ment early Sunday morning in a
small room in the basement of
Zachry Engineering Center using
simple equipment available in any
college laboratory.
They had been working on the ex
periment since March 29, less than a
week after the Utah researchers an
nounced their discovery.
The scientists measured the heat
created by running a small current
of electricity through a 100 milliliter
solution of deuterium oxide, or
heavy water, Martin said.
The electrical current entered the
solution through a palladium rod 1
mm in diameter and 50 millimeter
long, which was surrounded by an
other electrode consisting of a plati
num mesh, he said.
“We have run the experiment us
ing four different amounts of elec
tric current and have found that ex
cess energy varies between 60
percent and 80 percent,” Martin
said.
In the University of Utah experi
ment, B. Stanley Pons, chairman of
the chemistry department, and his
British colleague Martin Fleisch-
mann recorded about 300 percent
excess energy.
The scientists in Utah say they
think the energy was created when
the deuterium atoms of heavy water
molecules fused together, releasing
E rotons and neutrons along with a
irge amount of energy.
Heavy water is just like normal
water, except that (deuterium substi
tutes for hydrogen.
Hydrogen consists of a proton
and an electron, but deuterium has a
proton, electron and a neutron,
making deuterium oxide heavier
than normal water.
Strong forces are required to fuse
deuterium atoms together.
Fusion occurs naturally inside the
sun because of intense heat and
pressure.
But scientists have been unable to
create enough pressure to make fu
sion efficient enough for mass en-
ergy production.
Energy created by nuclear power
plants comes from fission reactions,
which splits atoms.
Fission reactions create dangerous
radioactive wastes, which can take
centuries to deteriorate.
But fusion reaction creates no sig
nificant radioactive waste and is in
exhaustible.
The Utah researchers speculate
that fusion occured at room temper
ature in their experiment because of
the strong electrical properties of
the palladium electrode.
Dr. Kenneth Hall, deputy director
of the Texas Engineering Experi
ment Station, said A&M has other
groups of scientists doing fusion re-
searcn.
He said much more research must
be done before fusion can be used to
create energy on a large scale.
“Once we understand what’s
going on, then we do what engineers
call a ‘scale-up,’ ” Hall said. “We
have one watt. We need to go to
hundreds and thousands of watts.”
Photo by Dean Saito
Texas A&M researchers (I to r) Dr. Ken mon show a cell used as part of an experi-
Marsh, Dr. Charles Martin, and Bruce Gam- ment to test for fusion reactions.
Utah researcher says he never doubted
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah researcher whose
nuclear fusion claims sparked widespread skepticism
said Monday he never doubted his findings, but none
theless feels relieved his work apparently has been con
firmed.
“This is just incredible,” said an elated B. Stanley
Pons, chairman of the University of Utah’s chemistry
department. “That’s one of the nicest things that could
happen.”
Scientists at both Texas A&M and Georgia Tech an
nounced Monday that they had duplicated Pons’ exper
iments, achieving similar results.
The announcements came nearly three weeks after a
March 23 news conference at which Pons and British
colleague Martin Fleischmann of the University of
Southampton, said they had sustained a controlled fu
sion reaction at room temperature using equipment
found in any college laboratory.
The two said the experiment produced four times
the energy they put into it. Reaction from the interna
tional scientific community wasn’t just guarded, but on
the whole pessimistic.
Pons said that may have changed Monday with Texas
A&M and Georgia Tech scientists announcing they had
duplicated the Utah experiment.
But while Texas A&M said it had achieved similar re
sults, it was Georgia Tech’s findings that thrilled Pons
the most.
See Fusion/Page 5
Senate core curriculum committee
asks students, faculty for input today
By Kelly S. Brown
STAFF WRITER
Students and administrators today will discuss
and further define what courses will and will not
count in the core curriculum at an open hearing
in 301 Rudder Tower at 3 p.m.
Dr. Manuel Davenport, co-chairman of the
Core Curriculum Oversight Committee (CCOS)
of the Faculty Senate, said he’s hoping students
and faculty will attend the hearing so the com
mittee can get a better understanding of how ev
eryone perceives the new guidelines.
Resolutions for tentative CCOS guidelines on
cultural heritage and social science categories of
the core curriculum are the following :
• A given course can be included in no more
than one category of the core curriculum.
• The category cidtural heritage will be
changed to humanities to more accurately rep
resent the nature of the courses in this category.
• No course will be included in the core cur
riculum in the humanities or social sciences areas
that is predominantly concerned with skills or vo
cational training.
• No student will be permitted to satisfy all
core curriculum requirements in the categories
of humanities and social sciences by courses hav
ing the same prefix.
The following are approved as tentative
guidelines for use of CCOS:
• In order for a course to be included in the
core curriculum in the category of humanities, a
course must address one of the following areas:
history, philosophy, literature, the arts, culture
or language.
A course also must demonstrate one or more
of the following objectives: seek to recover, trans
mit, analyze and interpret artistic or creative ex
pressions of human culture; develop an appre
ciation for and an ability to analyze or interpret
aesthetic structures.
Additional guidelines for a course to be in
cluded in the core curriculum state that it in
crease self awareness, self analysis or the ability
for ethical reasoning; promote an understanding
of the historical context of science, the arts or cul
ture; and promote a philosophical understand
ing of the principles of science, the arts or cul
ture.
• In order for a course to be included in the
core curriculum in the category of social sciences
it must address the following subject areas: an
thropology, economics, political science, archaeo-
logy, geography, psychology or sociology.
A course also must demonstrate one or more
of the following objectives — a scientific or ana
lytical study of social institutions and/or the be
havior of individuals or groups in relation to
these institutions; or give an historical devel
opment and analysis of social institutions and
their relation to individual or group behavior.
Another hearing will be on April 18 from 2:30
-3:30 p.m. in room 701 Rudder to consider and
discuss the proposed tentative guidelines.
Davenport said the guidelines will be sent back
to the CCOS to consider what transpires at the
hearings. From there the guidelines will go to the
Academic Affairs Committee in the Faculty Sen
ate, and if passed, will be fowarded to President
William Mobley for approval.
Cavalryman injured in fall
from horse
A member of the Texas A&M
Parsons Mounted Cavalry re
mained in serious condition Mon
day night after being injured in a
Parents’ Weekend ceremony Sun
day.
Scott Armstrong, a senior ani
mal science major and member of
outfit L-2, was injured when he
was thrown from his horse dur
ing a final review ceremony for
Parents’ Weekend, said Drew
Gibson, a senior building con
struction major and commanding
officer of the cavalry.
To close the ceremony, all
members of the cavalry charge
their horses from one end of Sim
pson Drill Field to the other, Gib
son said.
He said it appeared Armstrong
lost his balance soon after the
charge began and never regained
it. Armstrong went down head
first, Gibson said.
Gibson estimated Armstrong’s
horse was going about 30 m.p.h.
at the time of the fall.
Scott Armstrong
University paramedics re
sponded to the scene and took
Armstrong directly to Humana
Hospital, Gibson said. Armstrong
was transferred to St. Joseph
Hospital Sunday night, he said.
Gibson said Armstrong was
semi-conscious Monday night
and has feeling in his Fingers and
toes. Armstrong was speaking
Monday but “not making sense,”
he said.
Phil Gooch, in the white top, prepares to take feated White, a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon,
a swing at Taylor White during Fight Night at to win the Greek heavyweight division. Sixty-
the College Station Hilton Monday night. five boxers competed in the annual event. Pro-
Gooch, a member of Sima Phi Epsilon de- ceeds go to the American Heart Association.
North says Reagan concealed
involvement in arms shipment
Oliver North testified Monday
that former President Reagan and
his attorney general, Edwin Meese
III, concealed U.S. involvement in a
November 1985 shipment of Hawk
missiles from Israel to Iran.
In a meeting on Nov. 12, 1986,
Reagan clearly “had made a decision
not to disclose” the shipment. North
said.
The president told a news confer
ence on Nov. 19 — a week after that
meeting — that the government had
not been involved with other nations
in shipping weapons to Iran and
thatthe United States had shipped
none before he signed a January
1986 authorizing document. Imme
diately afterward, the White House
put out a statement in which Reagan
said a third country had been in
volved.
North testified that he assumed
Reagan had known of the diversion
of Iran arms sale funds to the Con
tras, a contention Reagan has den
ied.
North, seemingly struggling to
keep his temper, defended his stew
ardship of an Iran-Contra cash fund
and insisted the money he paid for a
used car came instead from a
$15,000 family cache in a metal box
bolted to a closet floor.
At the start of cross examination
at his trial, North said he kept track
in a spiral-bound notebook of every
penny he disbursed from the Iran-
Contra fund which totaled between
$240,000 and $300,000.
“The ledger is still around?” asked
prosecutor John Keker.
“It was destroyed,” North said.
“Do you know who destroyed it?”
New York (AP) — Eastern Air
lines’ striking unions reached five-
year agreements with Peter V. Ue
berroth on Monday, but the pacts
apparently require changes in his
deal with Texas Air Corp. that the
parent company has not yet ac
cepted, sources said.
Texas Air said it was studying the
changes and insisted that the deal to
sell Eastern to Ueberroth had not
been completed after four days of al
most continuous bargaining.
“There’s no agreement as far as
we’re concerned,” said Bruce Zi-
rinsky, an Eastern lawyer.
^k?, re was no meeting of the
minds, said Harvey Miller, another
“Yes,” he said. “I did.”
North, who destroyed stacks of
other documents in November 1986,
said he smuggled several papers out
of the White House complex so “that
I would have something to show if
necessary, to show I had authority
from my superiors for activities that
I was engaged in.”
Eastern lawyer.
Ueberroth’s group and the three
striking unions, representing the, pi
lots and flight attendants, struck
their own deals at about 6 a.m. Mon
day in Washington.
The parties then flew to New
York and went directly to U.S. Bank
ruptcy Court for a series of meetings
with Judge Burton Lifland that
lasted eight hours. Present for some
of the meetings was former Defense
Secretary Frank Carlucci, although
his role was not identified.
At 7 p.m., Ueberroth emerged
from the courthouse and announced
the union settlement, calling it “a
historic labor partnership.”
Ueberroth makes pact
with Eastern’s unions