New Energy Times | LENR News and Scientific References

June 4, 2019 — By Steven B. Krivit —

Fourth in a Series of Articles on the Rutherford Nitrogen-to-Oxygen Transmutation Myth

New Zealander John Campbell, a promoter of New Zealand-born physicist Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), has agreed to stop asserting that Rutherford was the world’s first person to transmute elements by changing nitrogen into oxygen. The Rutherford transmutation claim has been one of the longest-standing myths in the history of modern physics. Campbell had been a leading proponent of the myth.

For decades, Campbell has also asserted that, because Rutherford made the nitrogen-to-oxygen transmutation discovery, Rutherford was the “world’s first successful alchemist.”

Excerpt from Campbell’s June 13, 2018, presentation at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

May 19, 2019 — By Steven B. Krivit —

Third in a Series of Articles on the Rutherford Nitrogen-to-Oxygen Transmutation Myth

For more than 70 years, legendary physicist Sir Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) had been mistakenly credited by most organizations and many scholars for accomplishing the world’s first confirmed artificial transmutation of one element into another. The Nobel Foundation, through its Nobel Prize Web site, was one of the organizations that had credited the discovery to Rutherford rather than the actual discoverer, Patrick Blackett.

I stumbled on this historical discrepancy in 2014 while I was writing my book Lost History. At the time, every Internet reference I found, as well as most print references, said that Rutherford was the one who had performed and reported this experiment.

The misunderstanding goes back many decades. Even some people close to Rutherford were mistaken. In a letter written in 1988, Irish physicist Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton (1903-1995) described his days working in Rutherford’s lab. He spoke about Rutherford’s “two greatest discoveries: the nuclear structure of atoms, and the transmutation of nitrogen into oxygen.” Continue reading »

May 18, 2019 — By Steven B. Krivit —

Second in a Series of Articles on the Rutherford Nitrogen-to-Oxygen Transmutation Myth

Ernest Rutherford, 1908 Photo

Physicist Sir Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) is a legendary figure in science history. Some people consider Rutherford to be among the 10 greatest physicists in history. Some call him the father of modern physics. The world’s first confirmed transmutation of one element into another has been described by many people as among Rutherford’s three greatest accomplishments. The discovery, however, belonged instead to a research fellow named Patrick Blackett, who worked in Rutherford’s lab at Cambridge University. This article discusses in detail Rutherford’s role in the research that preceded Blackett’s discovery.

Although a few historians recorded the discovery correctly, the myth that the discovery belonged to Rutherford ran strong for 70 years. Blackett’s discovery is described in “The World’s First Successful Alchemist (It Wasn’t Rutherford).”

The Dawn of Atomic Science
The dawn of atomic science took place as the late 1800s moved into the early 1900s. Eventually, old ideas yielded to new ones. In 1897, Joseph John Thomson discovered the electron while experimenting with cathode rays. Thomson’s discovery challenged the prevailing view that the atom was the smallest component in nature and thus indivisible. Continue reading »

May 14, 2019 — By Steven B. Krivit —

First in a Series of Articles on the Rutherford Nitrogen-to-Oxygen Transmutation Myth

The Myth
For at least 70 years, the near-consensus of the scientific community about the person who discovered the first confirmed artificial nuclear transmutation has been wrong. An illustrated example of the myth appears in a frame of a 1948 comic book produced by the General Electric Co. The book, Adventures Inside the Atom, sponsored by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, was propaganda intended to promote the new age of atomic energy.

The book begins in ancient Greece with Aristotle and the concept of the atom. Eventually, the story arrives at the University of Cambridge, in the laboratory of Ernest Rutherford.

Myth of the first artificial nuclear transmutation, 1948, General Electric Co.

Feb. 12, 2019 – By Steven B. Krivit –

Energy research company First Light Fusion has published deceptive fusion power claims in a Feb. 12, 2019, press release.

First Light Fusion, an Oxford University spin-off company, is claiming that, within five years, its experimental reactor, according to its design, will create more power than it will consume. A careful reading of the technical language, however, reveals that the design does not support such a claim. Continue reading »

Rutherford Promoter Retracts Nitrogen-to-Oxygen Transmutation Claim

The Nobel Foundation’s Retraction of the Rutherford Transmutation Claim

Rutherford’s Reluctant Role in Nuclear Transmutation

The World’s First Successful Alchemist (It Wasn’t Rutherford)

First Light Fusion’s Fake

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