I don&#x27;t think the point of this piece is to claim Fleischmann and Pons actually succeeded. I think the point is that there is a difference between the failure of a particular experiment, and proving that all experiments in cold fusion will fail.<p>Fleischmann and Pons was certainly not the only science experiment to produce a false positive in 1989, but it was a huge, public failure, in a research area that is filled with cranks (easy energy). I agree with the article&#x27;s author that it probably tarnished an area of research that, while far-fetched, should not be automatically dismissed as impossible.