Heavy Water, Herbersmithite, and Other Treasures

In 1989 two American chemists, Fleischmann and Pons, announced the discovery of the Holy Grail of physics. Room temperature fusion reactions.

At the time I was in Mexico, and a famous and powerful Mexican physicist, Miguel José Yacamán, was rounding up all the heavy water he could lay his hands on. As it turned out, cold fusion never got off the ground and his efforts were for nothing.

This week's issue of the New Scientist publicized the work of Professor Joel Helton’s group at MIT, because of the Topological Quantum Computing Conference at UCLA that ended March 2^nd. Now very likely various science moguls are rounding up all the herbertsmitite they can lay their hands on. Problem is, they are in Chile and Iran, not in the countries of these powerful men. Will they negotiate? Time will tell.

This green crystal is not kryptonite, but has the potential to be the raw material for a new state of matter with entangled electrons that could be our willing slaves to do quantum calculations.

What other treasures are waiting for us?