From: Grant, Paul Sent: Thursday, May 23, 2002 2:43 PM To: 'Kenneth Chang' Subject: RE: Batlogg Ken, sorry to get back to you so late. I was at a three day session held by The Institute for the Future, a non-profit Sand Hill Road "think tank" in Palo Alto that advises VC's and industry at large as to "what's coming." I seem to be getting more involved in "futuristic" type stuff. As an example, I'm attaching an article I published in The Industrial Physicist a few months ago. First about Frisbie. We'll be able to talk more in a few weeks. In the meantime, you may want to contact Nathan Kelley of Pirelli at (803) 951-4089. The Bell Labs Imbroglio. Yes, there's been an enormous amount of buzz for well over a year, with a number of attempts to reproduce the "results" by several very good labs (I knew that IBM was trying). Even the "simplest" experiment, that of the quantum Hall effect in a single crystal buckeyball, has not been reproduced. Congratulations for breaking this story. At the March meeting in Indianapolis on the last day there was a talk by Kloc on the sample growth. I went and during the question period directly confronted him as to why the series of results in question had not been reproduced. His answer was that nobody had tried...I said this wasn't true, and asked for a show of hands in the audience...about 3 or 4 raised their hands. Kloc then said the samples were hard to make...this is a typical response when something suspicious might be underway. Why hadn't samples been given to other institutions for testing? Answer: they're unstable...another smoking gun. And...only a few samples show any effect...hmmm. It's at moments like this that I sorely wish I was back at IBM with a lab to join in the fray, or even had the "pure science" budget I had when I came to EPRI to fund an independent investigation. In the mid-1970s, our group at IBM San Jose (Almaden) was involved in continual controversy with Alan Heeger and his collaborators at Penn over measurements on organic conductors. There samples were always "better." We even sent out one of our chemists to work at Penn for several weeks to learn what was so good they were doing. He found there was really no difference, and the problem was in the quality of the measurements and subsequent claims (ours were sound, and theirs weren't). I can give many anecdotal stories of this kind involving room temperature "unidentified superconducting objects" which involve the so-called "difficulties" of sample preparation and ephemeral results which disappear due to "instabilities" before samples can be shared. One "lead" I have you might want to follow is an associate of Yoichi Ando at CRIEPI's laboratory in Tokyo (CRIEPI is the joint R&D lab for the Japanese electric utility, sort of the equivalent of EPRI, but with labs. It has an excellent basic superconductivity group under the leadership of Ando, who was a postdoc at Bell Labs. This young man is an outstanding scientist and very international in his outlook and speaks excellent English...I have him down as one of Japan's future science leaders). I was at Ando's lab in January, and he had one of his staff on a postdoc assignment at Bell Labs at the (I don't remember his name) and Yoichi was telling me reports he was getting back about some pretty hair-raising stories concerning Schoen's activities. His contact info is Yoichi Ando CRIEPI 2-11-1 Iwato-kita Komae Tokyo 201 Japan Phone 81 3 3480 2111 Fax 81 3 3480 3401 Email ando@criepi.denken.or.jp Should you decide to contact Ando, please mention it was my suggestion...it might help in getting the full story. Two other very close friends of mine you might call with opposing opinions are Rick Greene of the U. Maryland Superconductivity Center (on Schoen's side) and Ivan Schuller of UCSD (definitely negative). Knowing both as I do, I doubt if you could either to go on the record. Greene is an excellent "measurements" guy, but has never made a sample of anything. Recently, UMD had Schoen come give a seminar. Rick, who was in France on a trip, had left instructions to his group to "intensely grill him." Last week in DC I had dinner with Rick, and he still believes the results, and was told Schoen had answers to "all questions asked." Schuller is a "materials" expert, and one of the early critics of the Schoen, et al., reports, who first raised my suspicions. However, it's unlikely you'll much on the record. This is all very sad. I'm sure the "Beasley Commission" will get to the bottom of the matter. From my perspective, I hope 1) That Schoen, et al., are right...or 2) They've made some egregious, yet forgivable, errors. Otherwise we may be witnessing the last nail being hammered into the coffin of a once-great American national treasure. At IBM we considered Bell Labs our great rival (aside from some internal rivalries I'll divulge in my autobiography!). But the rivalry also had the attribute of great respect and admiration for each other, sort of in the spirit of the "Sammurai code." On occasion we would join forces in the face of a "common enemy," the dispute with Heeger over conducting organics, for example. I recall when the latest papers appeared in Science and Nature last year, you asked me how I felt about the fact that none of the measurements had been verified. I believe I answered that because of the respect I held for Bertram Batlogg and the reputation of Bell Labs as an honored adversary, that was enough for me. Bertram had alerted me to some of the early results as long ago as 1997. Since he has left for ETH, I have not seen nor spoken to him. He was not at the APS meeting this March, very unusual for him not to show up. If you'd like, I'd be willing to talk on the record about the Bell Labs story, but Frisbie will have to wait a few more weeks. Please have a look at the attached TIP article. I'd appreciate your view and opinion on the issues it addresses. Cheers, -Paul PS...in July I'm going to DOE on EPRI year-long sabbatical as a science advisor loan-in to the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, stationed at DOE headquarters. -----Original Message----- From: Kenneth Chang [mailto:kchang@nytimes.com] Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 9:35 AM To: Grant, Paul Subject: Batlogg Hi Paul, Can you tell me the scoop on Batlogg and the Bell Labs mess? I remember you making a passing comment about it at APS last year in Seattle, about the buckyballs at least. I don't need anything on the record (yet); I'm trying to figure out what the scuttlebut has been, which I presume goes beyond the fact that it hasn't been reproduced. Thanks. Also, what's the update on Detroit? -- Kenneth Chang Science reporter The New York Times (212) 556-7271