An Element of Madness
William Crookes came from a large family and was in England's premier scientific club but when his brother Philip died he turned to the supernatural to try to find comfort. Even after his earlier findings in the study of selenium and his discovery of thallium and then later giving the first suggestion of isotopes, his fellow scientists called him crazy and attacked his character. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann let their whimsical sides get the better of them when they ran a current through water with hydrogen that have an extra neutron and a palladium electrode. Palladium takes in 900 times its volume of hydrogen and when it took in the heavy hydrogen temperatures spiked erratically so that the duo thought they had discovered cold fusion available at room temperature. Skeptics rooted out their claims by finding the two had overlooked procedures and their findings were dismissed within 40 days. But the spirit of cold fusion and finding cheap clean energy didn't die even through countless counter experiments and results. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Wilhelm Röntgen actually tried to prove himself wrong when his results made him think he was going mad. When playing with a beam of electrons in a Crookes tube, he thought he was hallucinating when he saw a barium plate light up even though the tube was darkened. Playing with objects, he came to the conclusion he'd gone mad when he was able to see through things, even his own hand. He had discovered x-rays but refused to be revolutionary so he experimented till he couldn't prove himself wrong and he backed his findings up to every other scientist that was cruel to his new idea.
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