I was a grad student at a different U at the time, nearing my Ph.D. in non-fusion-related, but surface, physics.
The issue at the time was that they released their results to the press before their results were vetted. They became instantaneous celebrities, and it wasn't clear that it was against their will.
They were very coy about the setup (patent issues? I'm not sure); there was no theoretical model that fit it; and quickly nuclear physicists were pointing out that with the kind of reaction they were talking about they would have been fried by the (radiation) by-products.
The field was very excited (See: "fifth force" for another tale of excitement in my grad-school days). After all, any time there is a result without even a model from which an explanation can possibly derive you are looking at a bunch of new ideas. This means people get to be imaginative, there's sure to be lot's of funding for it, etc. Great times ahead!
Others tried to replicate the results, but since the full experimental setup wasn't being revealed they had to guess. Their attempts at replication failed. This was not the way physics research was conducted, and people started getting pissed off. It was time for more details and proof that they actually got the results they claimed.
With that proof not forthcoming (some started claiming they had built a fuel cell rather than a fusion reactor) they faced a lot of criticism for their PR processes and closed-mouth policy. The damage to their reputation was irreparable.
To my knowledge nobody has yet been able to reproduce the original claims, but I haven't followed in a while.
It has multiple times. But if you really spend time looking into this it gets very interesting. It seems like the Pd Fleischmann & Pons used was no ordinary one.It came from a recycling process and had nano structural properties.
Most likely it was not even very pure but contained certain impurities that made tho whole process that effective. See the publications of Navy Research in the last months.
BTW: There are unified models that explain LENR very well, it just does and will never work under the current accepted paradigm - I personally give shit about paradigms, I use falsification and solomonoff induction only :)
The issue at the time was that they released their results to the press before their results were vetted. They became instantaneous celebrities, and it wasn't clear that it was against their will.
They were very coy about the setup (patent issues? I'm not sure); there was no theoretical model that fit it; and quickly nuclear physicists were pointing out that with the kind of reaction they were talking about they would have been fried by the (radiation) by-products.
The field was very excited (See: "fifth force" for another tale of excitement in my grad-school days). After all, any time there is a result without even a model from which an explanation can possibly derive you are looking at a bunch of new ideas. This means people get to be imaginative, there's sure to be lot's of funding for it, etc. Great times ahead!
Others tried to replicate the results, but since the full experimental setup wasn't being revealed they had to guess. Their attempts at replication failed. This was not the way physics research was conducted, and people started getting pissed off. It was time for more details and proof that they actually got the results they claimed.
With that proof not forthcoming (some started claiming they had built a fuel cell rather than a fusion reactor) they faced a lot of criticism for their PR processes and closed-mouth policy. The damage to their reputation was irreparable.
To my knowledge nobody has yet been able to reproduce the original claims, but I haven't followed in a while.