About this project
In 1989 two University of Utah chemists announced that they had solved all of the world's energy problems with some electricity and seawater in a jar. Ever since then, "cold fusion" has been called pathological, voodoo science, and just plain wrong by the media, the government, and mainstream scientists. But no amount of debunking and bad press has stopped a group of contemporary cold fusionists from pursuing their goal of saving the world with clean, cheap, and abundant energy--if they can only make their experiments work!
Now, on Oct. 4, 2009, 20 years after that first announcement, these scientists--amateurs and professionals from all over the world, working in government, university, and homemade basement labs--are holding an international meeting in Rome, to share their experiments and make their own world-shaking announcements.
The Chicago filmmakers from 137 Films need to be there with the cold fusion scientists, some jaded reporters, a handful of fringe hobbyists, and 83 year-old Martin Fleischmann --one of the original chemists from Utah--as they head to Rome, shooting for our new documentary about the complicated drama of cold fusion. New developments in the field and the growing demand for clean energy research make this a perfect time to take on this compelling and unusual story.
137 Films, a small group of filmmakers, telling stories taken from the often mysterious and always fascinating world of science, recently completed a film called The Atom Smashers, which chronicles the international race to make a major scientific discovery in particle physics (the Higgs boson) in the context of America's complex relationship with science. The award-winning The Atom Smashers was broadcast on the PBS series "Independent Lens", and is now being distributed in the U.S. and internationally.
Here's a link to it:
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/atomsmashers/
We're the right group to bring you this fascinating and strangely beautiful science story. Help us get to the cold fusion conference in Rome so we don't miss an important part of this tale!
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Funding Successful
This project successfully raised its funding goal on September 25, 2009.
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Custom designed snazzy atomic fusion button pin
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Robot graphic passport case + personalized "thank you" in the credits of the film
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Cool science graphic T-shirt + personalized "thank you" in the credits of the film
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A dvd of our award-winning first film, "The Atom Smashers," -- OR -- a cd of the critically-acclaimed soundtrack to "The Atom Smashers" by Kate Simko on Ghostly Records + personalized "thank you" in the credits of the film
Pledge $200 or more
A dvd of our award-winning first film, "The Atom Smashers," -- AND -- a cd of the critically-acclaimed soundtrack to "The Atom Smashers" by Kate Simko on Ghostly Records + personalized "thank you" in the credits of the film
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Cool fused-glass belt buckle with atom design from Kiku Handmade (www.kiku-co.com) + personalized "thank you" in the credits of the film
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One of all the above prizes! Bonanza! Plus a listing in the "Special Thanks" credits in the film
Project By
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137 Films is a non-profit documentary production company based in Chicago. We create films out of the stories found in the world of science and strive to entertain, educate, and inform by exploring how science's search for answers impacts our cultural, political, and personal lives.
Science (and scientists, for that matter) have traditionally been looked to simply as sources of raw information, as providers of answers, but we believe there is much more there than data. America has a very strange relationship with science; the collision between science, culture and politics creates compelling stories with profound themes and fascinating characters, most of them overlooked. Theirs are the stories we want to tell.
And the science they pursue can be breathtaking, beautiful, complicated, and bewildering. The experiments and equipment scientists use can be incredibly simple or impossibly complex. Many people believe they can't understand what scientists do or aren't interested in trying. We disagree. Understanding the pursuit of science is within everyone's grasp. It deserves to be understood and appreciated because it helps to explain who we all are, what we do, and why we are here.
