Fusion in a cup of water
On 3 August 2012 electrochemist Martin Fleischmann died at the age of 85. Fleischmann attained worldwide fame because of his claims cracking cold fusion together with Stanley Pons. At a press conference in 1989, the two researchers announced that they could mimic the energy source of the sun at room temperature. Almost all fusion researchers believe that temperatures in the order of 150 million degrees are necessary for that feat.
Fleischmann and Pons used a beaker filled with heavy water and two electrodes, one out of platinum, the other out of palladium. The duo claimed that more energy was produced by the device than it consumed itself. Their explanation: absorbed and pressed together in the metal of the palladium electrode, the deuterium nuclei were close enough to fuse and produce energy. Physicists around the world tried to replicate and verify the results - without success. The FOM Institute Rijnhuizen, too, undertook tests of the cold fusion setup. No-one could replicate the results that were claimed, and cold fusion was written off by the scientific community.