Dr. Vladislav Zhigalov has always been drawn to unconventional, progressive ideas in science. After a career in artificial intelligence, Zhigalov now researches and experiments in the solid-state fusion field in hopes to unravel this mystery and get closer to finding energy solutions.

Dr. Vladislav Zhigalov has been attracted to unconventional ideas about science and physics for as long as he can remember. He admired his physics teacher at school, who taught the usual school physics but thought freely about other topics and offered unique perspectives. During Zhigalov’s first year at university he became fascinated by quantum mechanics but he ended up working in artificial intelligence later on, with his PhD dissertation looking at natural language query processing. During his career in AI, he was inspired by his supervisor Alexander Narinyani, whom some call the grandfather of Soviet artificial intelligence. Alexander proposed uncommon approaches in computer science and AI that pushed the boundaries, which intrigued Zhigalov and inspired him in his career to look beyond normative pathways in science. After defending his thesis and spending several years doing research in the AI realm, he decided to make the switch to physics, his youthful fascination.

When Zhigalov returned to physics as an adult, he noticed some phenomena that ‘official science’ does not seem to notice and sometimes even denies its existence. He was intrigued by the idea that there could be some new physics to uncover, especially in solid-state fusion, so he set upon unraveling those mysteries. He had found several publications by different authors, with experiments conducted under entirely different conditions. The common thread in all of them was that nuclear transformations occurred — something difficult to explain in conventional terms.

“Someone had an electrical explosion of foil in water. Someone has an electrical discharge in a vacuum. Someone else has something else. But the most interesting thing was that in addition to nuclear transformations, there were very characteristic tracks on photographic emulsions. They differed from the usual alpha, beta, gamma tracks, and even such a term appeared - tracks of strange radiation.”

Since reading about this fifteen years ago, Zhigalov has researched and conducted experiments looking at this phenomenon of strange radiation. When thinking about his time as a scientist in the solid-state fusion field, Zhigalov talks a lot about curiosity and unraveling mysteries. Every time he observes tracks of strange radiation or reflects on the LENR field, he thinks about its strangeness and how it’s yet to be explained. He hopes that someday, even if it’s not him, it will be explained. More than anything, he’s curious, like many scientists in solid-state fusion.

“I’m interested in unraveling this mystery of nature. Perhaps the mystery of strange radiation and the mystery of LENR are one and the same mystery, as in the parable of the elephant and the blind men. At least, they are two phenomena that are somehow connected.”

He talks about his colleague Alexander Parkhomov and how they are working to understand this connection between them. Currently, they are working on several hypotheses that have led to some interesting results, but they emphasize that the theory should not break away from experiments.

[Zhigalov] ... noticed some phenomena that ‘official science’ does not seem to notice and sometimes even denies its existence. He was intrigued by the idea that there could be some new physics to uncover, especially in solid-state fusion.

As someone relatively new to the field who has worked previously in other scientific realms, Zhigalov had some interesting reflections on the state of the field and where he sees it heading. He talks about how popular science articles or science journalism about LENR find it difficult to talk about the state of the field objectively because it’s “complex and ambiguous.” This is true: the cold fusion story started with a sensational proclamation that a new energy source had been discovered. We crave good news and sensation, but Zhigalov expressed that since that moment in 1989, the news coming from solid-state fusion hasn’t been quite as sensational as how it began.

Despite this, Zhigalov takes a rational approach to progress in this field with a bit of cautious optimism. He sees how passionate his fellow scientists are about this and continues to have hope for progress. He sees it in his experiments and conferences like ICCF-25 where these discussions are being had. But when asked about his vision for a future with this technology, Zhigalov expressed that he doesn’t think about it all too much. Whether we will have an eternal source of energy, or lay waste to centralized power grids, or create a new type of battery, these predictions and possibilities are not what drives him. He says, “When this wonderful future is somewhere over the horizon, you just need to honestly work on what interests you.” To him, progress happens step-by-step, not all at once.

His curiosity and commitment to unraveling the mysteries of strange radiation and LENR speak to the richness of inquiry and experimentation that can be found in this field. Like many solid-state scientists we’ve interviewed, Zhigalov is cautiously optimistic about finding a breakthrough and being able to explain this phenomenon. For someone who spent his young life admiring people who thought differently about the world and science and continually sought new approaches outside the norm, solid-state fusion is precisely the place to be. Zhigalov aptly ended our interview with some wise words for scientists who might feel the same way, “You need to be patient and keep working.”

[Zhigalovs'] curiosity and commitment to unraveling the mysteries ...and LENR speak to the richness ... that can be found in this field. Like many solid-state scientists, Zhigalov is cautiously optimistic about finding a breakthrough and being able to explain this phenomenon.