&gt; &quot;becoming a bit of a laughing stock when it turned out to be rubbish&quot;<p>The important thing here is to separate the idea from the implementation. Is cold fusion theoretically impossible? I&#x27;m no expert, but there seems to be at least some scientists indicating it&#x27;s not impossible. If that&#x27;s the case, why does the failure of the first experiment matter?<p>It&#x27;s sad that the scientific community is partly based on reputation. I&#x27;d rather see all scientific work published anonymously, the work should speak for itself.