&gt; The explanation I&#x27;ve heard is that he has something which works (for some definition of works) but doesn&#x27;t know how it works or why.<p>This happened to someone - one batch worked, one did not.<p>Turns out that palladium can be refined from spent nuclear fuel <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Synthesis_of_precious_metals#Palladium" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Synthesis_of_precious_metals#P...</a> and his first batch was &quot;contaminated&quot; in this way, and worked. His second batch was traditional mined from the ground and did not work.<p>Caveat: This is a story I heard, I have no direct evidence for it.