Word: wrongfulness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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None of the criticisms leveled at Pons and Fleischmann mean that they are necessarily wrong. But the burden of proof remains on them. So far, they have failed to demonstrate convincingly that they have indeed produced a new sort of fusion. And if the two chemists cannot think of any way to explain the excess heat in their experiment without resorting to nuclear reactions, others can. Chemist Linus Pauling, a Nobel laureate and himself something of an iconoclast, thinks that when absorbing high concentrations of deuterium, the palladium lattice may become unstable and deteriorate, releasing heat...
CITIZENS, A CHRONICLE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION by Simon Schama (Knopf; $29.95). Exactly 200 years after the bloody facts, a Harvard historian offers a fascinating, often surprising account of what went right -- and wrong -- during one of the world's most celebrated social convulsions...
...authors maintain that there is nothing wrong with a little irrationality now and then, so long as it is kept within certain bounds. Even an occasional show of anger can be a sign of respect, but be sure to pick on someone your own size, or larger. No kicking the pet salamander...
...wished-for kinship is not with some Age of Aquarius tabloid, of course, but with pamphleteers like Thomas Paine and Alexander Hamilton. The newsletter gurus see themselves as disabusers of Wall Street myth, as missionaries of economic truth. Since readers can lose big money if their guru is wrong, the work is fraught with the peril of being hanged, though only in effigy...
...money counts, of course, but perhaps not so much as puzzling out the future and proving that everybody else has it wrong. Charles Githler, who is sponsoring this money show, captures the visceral quality of the obsession (though with a blithe disregard for mixed metaphors) when he introduces the editors: "They'll really spill their guts. They'll put their necks on the line, and then let you fire back with your questions...