Breaking Paradigms: Dan Szumski's Visionary Approach

If science is a closed door to a room stifled with the air of abstraction and complexity, Dan Szumski is the breeze that blows off its hinges. It takes sincere and uncommon scientific curiosity to be a cold fusion researcher, but even amongst cold fusion researchers, Dan stands out, which is why I called him bold, a tag he was quick to refute.

To him, it’s simply his responsible contribution as a citizen and, more importantly, as a human being who believes that life can and will be better. Szumski is an Eagle Scout at heart; his life echoes the belief that contributing your part to your home, community, and nation should be at the core of one’s ambition. This drives him now even in the face of skepticism surrounding his research.

Dan Szumski is a multifaceted individual, a civil engineer with a passion for physics and expertise in biology; he has seen the world indeed, experiencing different cultures at different times. All this contributes to an individual with a rich mind and robust spirit. The vastness of his life began in small, precious moments, being fascinated by the little things that proved to be profound as he gobbled up books like Brighter Than a Thousand Suns by Robert Jungk and Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif which filled him with wonder beyond the boundary of the garden in his childhood home. It is fascinating to see the potential of that kind of simplicity and groundedness that has driven Szusmki to stand out on the edge of what may be the next great scientific revolution through his unique perspective on the science of cold fusion, which could prove groundbreaking.

What makes Szumski’s theory of the science of cold fusion unique is that it goes against conventional paradigms of physics today. Typically, cold fusion is the extraordinary phenomenon that radically transforms any scientist who stumbles upon its proofs. Still, in Dan Szumski’s case, he is the scientist who radically transforms cold fusion. Szumski views cold fusion as a heat problem that can be explained by a heat theory that he had even before Pons and Fleischmann’s announcement in 1989.

After their announcement, it made sense to Szumski to apply his theory to understanding cold fusion. This endeavor has taken him down a winding path of fulfilling experimental success and disappointing neglect for his ideas by other physicists who hold a fundamentally different understanding of the cold fusion process. What is so different about Szumski’s approach?

Dan Szumski, an independent researcher, approaches cold fusion from a classical physics standpoint. He sees it as the working of a reversible thermodynamic process. Reversible thermodynamic processes are those whose systems and surroundings can return to their original state. In this case, a system changed by disorderliness and increased entropy returns entirely to orderliness and its initial entropy.

Szumski began his scientific journey studying living systems. He sought to understand energy distribution in living cells and in the process came up with a theory to understand how energy was distributed in nature at an equilibrium and far from equilibrium scenarios.

He explained to me that at equilibrium, his theory was consistent with Max Planck’s predictions based on the blackbody theory of radiation but had the advantage of also being consistent with Maxwell and Boltmaznn’s predictions of the distribution of an ideal gas based on its temperature, thus uniting the two theories. He explained to me that this understanding of how energy is transferred offers a toolbox to observe reversible thermodynamic phenomena.

“The great big elephant in the room is the physics of the living state, Us…It takes a reversible process to get there,” he says.

According to the current paradigm, these processes do not exist in nature. They can only be observed in idealized conditions at equilibrium and, in such scenarios, can be explained by the principle of least action. But Szumski thinks differently; he sees reversible thermodynamic processes as evident in the world around us and as a fundamental characteristic of the nature of reality. He elucidates four examples he has observed: The covalent bond, light in a vacuum, gravity, and the processes that maintain a stable atom’s form and function. Szumski believes reversible thermodynamic processes can exist in states far from equilibrium.

"Our obligation as scientists is to continue to rediscover our science," he says. This quote would be reiterated several times throughout our conversation and, I think, encapsulates Szumski's approach to science. He believes in finding the new in the old and the old in the new, applying discoveries to old ideas, and applying older ideas to our understanding of newer concepts.

I asked Dan Szumski if he felt cold fusion was too disruptive to be accepted, and he rebutted, “Climate change is disruptive.” He admitted that for energy companies, it might be disruptive negatively Still, for consumers, it would be a great benefit due to the immense benefits to energy accessibility it provides, from single home heating to larger scale applications such as space crafts, which require little electrical power. Szumski also believes that cold fusion has two benefits for our world today, both scientific and practical. From the scientific standpoint, he believes that understanding cold fusion will open the door for many scientific advancements in areas such as the origin of life and cancer research, and practically, he believes that cold fusion will solve many of the energy-related problems of our world.

"I think there is an enormous opportunity right now to advance the sciences, particularly in biology, with the understanding of these reversible processes.” And I am awestruck by what I see on the other side of that. I want to see us get there. I'm there. I'm working on it. But I want to see other people do the same because there are enormous opportunities."

This inspires him and gives him hope for the future. He does not view cold fusion as a solution to all our energy problems because he does not believe that it produces the kind of energy needed for high-energy applications. Therefore, he expects it to coexist with other forms of energy.

Dan Szumski is an optimist through and through. He could hardly think of what to say when I asked him if there was anything he believed to be true yet could not prove. He firmly believes the answers are there by and large and loose ends only need to be tied together.

Szumski believes that we are currently in a scientific lull preceding a scientific boom of discoveries that revolutionize and reform science. If Szumski’s theories are right, then he is correct that it would be a groundbreaking moment in science that impacts much more than cold fusion. It is an exciting thought that makes his ideas difficult to accept. As he opined, it is difficult for physicists to take their cue from a researcher who does not have a physics background. It is even more difficult when these ideas present fundamentally different understandings of science. Regardless, Dan Szumski continues to pursue his research with undying conviction, seeking to provide the knowledge of the science of cold fusion that would hopefully lead to creating a device that would immediately clear any doubts and leapfrog cold fusion into a practical reality.

“I'm what Thomas Kuhn would call the person who invents the paradigm because I don't have any. I don't owe anything to physics. Physics doesn't own anything. I'm willing to venture outside of the current paradigms and use those thoughts to advance the science. Most scientists aren't willing to do that. They aren't able to do it."