Having read the exchange of letters about the value of Ronald Richter’s nuclear fusion work in Bariloche, Argentina, in the early 1950s( Physics Today, August 2003, page 12) ( Physics Today, March 2004, page 14), I thought it unfortunate that most challenges to Richter’s results are in Spanish. Analyses appear in two reports from the scientific panel that Juan Perón’s government appointed to evaluate the project after Richter’s erratic behavior became apparent. 1
The first report, by physicist José A. Balseiro, challenges Richter’s physical ideas and shows with order-of-magnitude calculations that the proposed method is unfeasible. Perhaps more to the point regarding the plasma physics involved is the second report, written by electrical engineer Mario Bancora, which describes the apparatus Richter used. I have translated the last paragraphs of Bancora’s report:
The device used by Dr Richter is the singing arc discovered by [William Du Bois] Dudell 2 about 50 years ago. The negative resistance of this arc neutralizes the positive resistance of an oscillating circuit, which is completed by a “control” impedance and two condensers of one microfarad each, connected in parallel, which are close to the reactor. This gives rise to a series of sustained oscillations whose frequency depends on that of the resonant circuit. These oscillations could be at a frequency low enough to be in the audible range (hence the singing arc) or they can be supersonic (which is the origin of the ultrasounds claimed by Dr Richter). By incorporating a magnetic field, and adding gas, hydrogen for example, to cool the arc, it is possible to enhance the frequency considerably, to around 300 000 Hz. With exactly this setup, [Valdemar] Poulsen, in the early days of radio communications, could achieve transmissions over more than 500 km. 3
These arcs emit light high in the ultraviolet, as well as centimeter-wavelength sound, which together with the intense electromagnetic perturbations produced are particularly effective in activating the Geiger counters. The increase in response obtained when introducing hydrogen is simply due to the increase in frequency produced by this means, according to Poulsen’s experiments.
To be absolutely sure, I have repeated this experiment in my own laboratory and have obtained the same results, that is: a) the same type of oscillations in the screen of an oscilloscope connected to an exploration coil and b) detection by a recorder connected to a Geiger counter located 1.5 m from the arc.
The report concludes that “there is therefore no serious scientific content to Dr Richter’s assertion that he has achieved a controlled thermonuclear reaction, and I deeply regret having had to reach such a conclusion.”
Bancora’s description is based on an on-site inspection of the fully operational device demonstrated by Richter himself in 1952. Wolfgang Meckbach’s account, mentioned in the previous Physics Today letters, may have referred to an already dismantled apparatus seen when Meckbach arrived in 1955. I took his course in experimental physics in Bariloche; he was an ingenious and resourceful experimentalist and an inspiring teacher. I never heard him discuss Richter’s work, but I have few doubts that he regarded the subject as closed.
Apparently, then, far from using imaginative new plasma physics, Richter was reproducing well-known technology. The fact that Bancora could obtain similar spectacular results without being misled as to their relevance is significant. According to Mario Mariscotti’s account, 4 Richter did not do any follow-up experiments. This implies that he acted under his own delusions and was helped by the fact that no scientist questioned his early results. There were a few competent physicists in Argentina at the time, perhaps the most prominent being Enrique Gaviola, mentioned in Santos Mayo’s letter, but the secrecy surrounding the project and the physicists’ politically motivated distrust of the government conspired against an early dismissal of Richter’s adventure. Now, however, there should be no doubt that it had no sound scientific basis.
