Steven E. Jones
Encyclopedia
Steven Earl Jones is an American
physicist
. For most of his career, Jones was known mainly for his work on muon-catalyzed fusion
. In the fall of 2006, amid controversy surrounding his work on the collapse of the World Trade Center
(Jones has produced alleged evidence showing it was destroyed by controlled demolition during the September 11 attacks), he was relieved of his teaching duties and placed on paid leave from Brigham Young University
. He retired on October 20, 2006 with the status of Professor Emeritus.
from Vanderbilt University
in 1978. Jones conducted his Ph.D.
research at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (from 1974 to 1977), and post-doctoral research at Cornell University
and the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility.
, in Arco, Idaho
where, from 1979 to 1985, he was a senior engineering specialist. He was principal investigator
for experimental muon-catalyzed fusion
from 1982 to 1991 for the U.S. Department of Energy, Division of Advanced Energy Projects. From 1990 to 1993, Jones studied fusion in condensed matter physics
and deuterium
under U.S. Department of Energy and Electric Power Research Institute sponsorship. Jones also collaborated in experiments at other physics labs, including TRIUMF
(Vancouver, British Columbia), KEK
(Tsukuba, Japan), and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
at Oxford University.
Jones' interests also extend to archaeometry, solar energy,
and, like many professors at BYU, archaeology and the Book of Mormon
. For example, he has sought radiocarbon dating
evidence of the existence of pre-Columbian
horse
s in the Americas, and has interpreted archaeological evidence from the ancient Mayans
as supporting his faith's belief that Jesus Christ visited America.
article, but is today known as muon-catalyzed fusion
to avoid confusion with the cold fusion
concept of Pons and Fleischman . Muon-catalyzed fusion was a field of some interest in the 1980s, but its low energy output appears to be unavoidable (due to alpha-muon sticking losses). Jones led a research team that in 1986 achieved 150 fusions per muon (average), releasing over 2,600 MeV of fusion energy per muon
, a record which still stands.
Around 1985 Jones then became interested in the anomalous concentration of helium-3 found in the gases escaping from volcano
es. He hypothesized that the high pressures in the Earth's interior might make fusion more likely, and began a series of experiments on what he referred to as piezofusion, or high-pressure fusion. In order to characterize the reactions, Jones designed and built a neutron
counter able to accurately measure the tiny numbers of neutrons being produced in his experiments. The counter suggested a small amount of fusion was going on. Jones said the result suggested at least the possibility of fusion, though the process was unlikely to be useful as an energy source.
Stanley Pons
and Martin Fleischmann
(Pons and Fleischmann or P&F) started their work around the same time. Their work was brought to Jones' attention when they applied for research funding from the Department of Energy
, after which the DOE passed their proposal along to Jones for peer review
. Realizing their work was very similar, Jones and P&F agreed to release their papers to Nature
on the same day, March 24, 1989. However, P&F announced their results at a press event the day before. Jones faxed his paper to Nature.
A New York Times
article says that while peer reviewers were quite critical of Pons and Fleishchmann's research they did not apply such criticism to Jones' much more modest, theoretically supported findings. Although critics insisted that his results likely stemmed from experimental error, most of the reviewing physicists indicated that he was a careful scientist. Later research and experiments supported the metallic cold fusion reports by Jones.
towers and World Trade Center 7 at a BYU seminar attended by about 60 people. Pointing to the speed and symmetry of the collapses, the characteristics of dust jets, eyewitness reports of explosions down low in the buildings, partially corroded beams, molten metal in the basements which was still red hot weeks after the event, and the notion that no modern high rise had ever collapsed from fire, Jones suggested that the evidence defies the mainstream collapse theory and favors controlled demolition, possibly by the use of thermite
or nanothermite. He called for further scientific investigation to test the controlled demolition theory and the release of all relevant data by the government. Shortly after the seminar, Jones placed a paper "Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?" on his page in the Physics department website, with a note that BYU had no responsibility for the paper.
He subsequently defended the research at Idaho State University, Utah Valley State College, University of Colorado at Boulder and University of Denver, the Utah Academy of Science, Sonoma State University, University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Texas at Austin.
On September 7, 2006, Jones removed his paper from BYU's website at the request of administrators and was placed on paid leave. The university cited its concern about the "increasingly speculative and accusatory nature" of Jones' work and the concern that perhaps it had "not been published in appropriate scientific venues" as reasons for putting him under review. The review was to have been conducted at three levels: BYU administration, the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, and the Physics Department. Jones' colleagues also defended Jones' 9/11 work to varying degrees, and Project Censored
lists his 9/11 research among the top mainstream media censored stories of 2007.
Jones' placement on paid leave drew criticism from the American Association of University Professors
and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
. Both organizations are long time critics of BYU's record on academic freedom. Jones "welcomed the review" because he hoped it would "encourage people to read his paper for themselves," however the review was abandoned (contrary to Jones' request) when Jones elected to retire, effective January 1, 2007.
Jones has been interviewed by mainstream news sources and has made a number of public appearances. While Jones has urged caution in drawing conclusions, some believe that his public comments have suggested a considerable degree of certainty about both the controlled demolition of the World Trade Center and the culpability of elements within the U.S. government. In one interview, he asserted that the attacks were "an 'inside job', puppeteered by the neoconservatives in the White House
to justify the occupation of oil-rich Arab countries, inflate military spending, and expand Israel
." His name is often mentioned in reporting about 9/11 conspiracy theories
.
Jones has published several papers suggesting that the World Trade Center was demolished with explosives, but his 2005 paper, "Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?" was his first paper on the topic and was considered controversial both for its content and its claims to scientific rigor. Jones' early critics included members of BYU's engineering faculty; shortly after he made his views public, the BYU College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and the faculty of structural engineering issued statements in which they distanced themselves from Jones' work. They noted that Jones' "hypotheses and interpretations of evidence were being questioned by scholars and practitioners," and expressed doubts about whether they had been "submitted to relevant scientific venues that would ensure rigorous technical peer review."
Jones maintained that the paper was peer-reviewed prior to publication within a book "9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out" by D.R. Griffin
The paper was published in the online peer-reviewed, "Journal of 9/11 Studies", a journal co-founded and co-edited by Jones for the purpose of "covering the whole of research related to 9/11/2001." The paper also appeared in Global Outlook, a magazine "seeking to reveal the truth About 9/11" and in a volume of essays edited by David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale Scott.
In April 2008, Jones, along with four other authors, published a letter in The Bentham Open Civil Engineering Journal, titled, 'Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction'. In August 2008, Jones, along with Kevin Ryan and James Gourley, published a peer-reviewed article in The Environmentalist, titled, 'Environmental anomalies at the World Trade Center: Evidence for energetic materials'. And in April 2009, Jones, along with Niels H. Harrit and 7 other authors published a paper in The Open Chemical Physics Journal, titled, 'Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe'. The editor of the journal, Professor Marie-Paule Pileni
, an expert in explosives and nano-technology, resigned. She received an e-mail from the Danish science journal Videnskab
asking for her professional assessment of the article's content.
until Jones and a majority of the scholars members left the organization. From mid-November 2006 until the end of that year, Jones, Fetzer and a series of other researchers and individuals engaged in an open dispute about the direction the organization should take. Fetzer claimed that Jones wanted to suppress exotic weaponry theories about 9/11, specifically those of Judy Wood which suggested that the destruction of the WTC may have been caused by directed energy weapons. Jones and others examined the claims — such as the hypothesis that mini-nukes were used on the WTC Towers — and delineated empirical reasons for rejecting them.
In December 2006, Steven Jones and about 4/5ths of the members voted to leave the Scholars for 9/11 Truth organization to establish Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice, a group of scholars and supporters dedicated to 9/11 research using the scientific method. While Jones is not a committee member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice, his work is supported and documented by the group. By April 2010, that organization had grown to over 800 members.
Jones is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Jones has been described as "a devout Mormon."
Jones is co-editor of Journal of 9/11 Studies.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
. For most of his career, Jones was known mainly for his work on muon-catalyzed fusion
Muon-catalyzed fusion
Muon-catalyzed fusion is a process allowing nuclear fusion to take place at temperatures significantly lower than the temperatures required for thermonuclear fusion, even at room temperature or lower...
. In the fall of 2006, amid controversy surrounding his work on the collapse of the World Trade Center
World Trade Center
The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
(Jones has produced alleged evidence showing it was destroyed by controlled demolition during the September 11 attacks), he was relieved of his teaching duties and placed on paid leave from Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...
. He retired on October 20, 2006 with the status of Professor Emeritus.
Education
Jones earned his bachelor's degree in physics, magna cum laude, from Brigham Young University in 1973, and his Ph.D. in physicsPhysics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
from Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping and rail magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the...
in 1978. Jones conducted his Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
research at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (from 1974 to 1977), and post-doctoral research at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
and the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility.
Research interests and background
Jones conducted research at the Idaho National LaboratoryIdaho National Laboratory
Idaho National Laboratory is an complex located in the high desert of eastern Idaho, between the town of Arco to the west and the cities of Idaho Falls and Blackfoot to the east. It lies within Butte, Bingham, Bonneville and Jefferson counties...
, in Arco, Idaho
Arco, Idaho
Arco is a city in Butte County, Idaho, United States. The population was 995 at the 2010 census. The city is the county seat of Butte County.Craters of the Moon National Monument is located along U.S. Route 20, southwest of the city. The Idaho National Laboratory is located east of Arco...
where, from 1979 to 1985, he was a senior engineering specialist. He was principal investigator
Principal investigator
A principal investigator is the lead scientist or engineer for a particular well-defined science project, such as a laboratory study or clinical trial....
for experimental muon-catalyzed fusion
Muon-catalyzed fusion
Muon-catalyzed fusion is a process allowing nuclear fusion to take place at temperatures significantly lower than the temperatures required for thermonuclear fusion, even at room temperature or lower...
from 1982 to 1991 for the U.S. Department of Energy, Division of Advanced Energy Projects. From 1990 to 1993, Jones studied fusion in condensed matter physics
Condensed matter physics
Condensed matter physics deals with the physical properties of condensed phases of matter. These properties appear when a number of atoms at the supramolecular and macromolecular scale interact strongly and adhere to each other or are otherwise highly concentrated in a system. The most familiar...
and deuterium
Deuterium
Deuterium, also called heavy hydrogen, is one of two stable isotopes of hydrogen. It has a natural abundance in Earth's oceans of about one atom in of hydrogen . Deuterium accounts for approximately 0.0156% of all naturally occurring hydrogen in Earth's oceans, while the most common isotope ...
under U.S. Department of Energy and Electric Power Research Institute sponsorship. Jones also collaborated in experiments at other physics labs, including TRIUMF
TRIUMF
TRIUMF is Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics. Its headquarters are located on the south campus of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia. TRIUMF houses the world's largest cyclotron, source of 500 MeV protons, which was named an IEEE Milestone...
(Vancouver, British Columbia), KEK
KEK
, known as KEK, is a national organization whose purpose is to operate the largest particle physics laboratory in Japan, which is situated in Tsukuba of Ibaraki prefecture. Established in 1997. The term "KEK" is also used to refer to the laboratory itself, which employs approximately 900 employees...
(Tsukuba, Japan), and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory is one of the national scientific research laboratories in the UK operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council . It is located on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus at Chilton near Didcot in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom...
at Oxford University.
Jones' interests also extend to archaeometry, solar energy,
and, like many professors at BYU, archaeology and the Book of Mormon
Archaeology and the Book of Mormon
Since the publication of the Book of Mormon in 1830, both Mormon and non-Mormon archaeologists have studied its claims in reference to known archaeological evidence...
. For example, he has sought radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 to estimate the age of carbon-bearing materials up to about 58,000 to 62,000 years. Raw, i.e. uncalibrated, radiocarbon ages are usually reported in radiocarbon years "Before Present" ,...
evidence of the existence of pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
s in the Americas, and has interpreted archaeological evidence from the ancient Mayans
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
as supporting his faith's belief that Jesus Christ visited America.
Muon-catalyzed fusion
In the mid-1980s, Jones and other BYU scientists worked on what he then referred to as Cold Nuclear Fusion in a Scientific AmericanScientific American
Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
article, but is today known as muon-catalyzed fusion
Muon-catalyzed fusion
Muon-catalyzed fusion is a process allowing nuclear fusion to take place at temperatures significantly lower than the temperatures required for thermonuclear fusion, even at room temperature or lower...
to avoid confusion with the cold fusion
Cold fusion
Cold fusion, also called low-energy nuclear reaction , refers to the hypothesis that nuclear fusion might explain the results of a group of experiments conducted at ordinary temperatures . Both the experimental results and the hypothesis are disputed...
concept of Pons and Fleischman . Muon-catalyzed fusion was a field of some interest in the 1980s, but its low energy output appears to be unavoidable (due to alpha-muon sticking losses). Jones led a research team that in 1986 achieved 150 fusions per muon (average), releasing over 2,600 MeV of fusion energy per muon
Muon
The muon |mu]] used to represent it) is an elementary particle similar to the electron, with a unitary negative electric charge and a spin of ½. Together with the electron, the tau, and the three neutrinos, it is classified as a lepton...
, a record which still stands.
Around 1985 Jones then became interested in the anomalous concentration of helium-3 found in the gases escaping from volcano
Volcano
2. Bedrock3. Conduit 4. Base5. Sill6. Dike7. Layers of ash emitted by the volcano8. Flank| 9. Layers of lava emitted by the volcano10. Throat11. Parasitic cone12. Lava flow13. Vent14. Crater15...
es. He hypothesized that the high pressures in the Earth's interior might make fusion more likely, and began a series of experiments on what he referred to as piezofusion, or high-pressure fusion. In order to characterize the reactions, Jones designed and built a neutron
Neutron
The neutron is a subatomic hadron particle which has the symbol or , no net electric charge and a mass slightly larger than that of a proton. With the exception of hydrogen, nuclei of atoms consist of protons and neutrons, which are therefore collectively referred to as nucleons. The number of...
counter able to accurately measure the tiny numbers of neutrons being produced in his experiments. The counter suggested a small amount of fusion was going on. Jones said the result suggested at least the possibility of fusion, though the process was unlikely to be useful as an energy source.
Stanley Pons
Stanley Pons
Bobby Stanley Pons is an American-French electrochemist known for his work with Martin Fleischmann on cold fusion in the 1980s and '90s.-Early life:...
and Martin Fleischmann
Martin Fleischmann
Martin Fleischmann is a British chemist noted for his work in electrochemistry. He came to wider public prominence following his controversial publication of work with colleague Stanley Pons on cold fusion using palladium in the 1980s and '90s.-Early life:Born in Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia,...
(Pons and Fleischmann or P&F) started their work around the same time. Their work was brought to Jones' attention when they applied for research funding from the Department of Energy
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
, after which the DOE passed their proposal along to Jones for peer review
Peer review
Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...
. Realizing their work was very similar, Jones and P&F agreed to release their papers to Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
on the same day, March 24, 1989. However, P&F announced their results at a press event the day before. Jones faxed his paper to Nature.
A New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
article says that while peer reviewers were quite critical of Pons and Fleishchmann's research they did not apply such criticism to Jones' much more modest, theoretically supported findings. Although critics insisted that his results likely stemmed from experimental error, most of the reviewing physicists indicated that he was a careful scientist. Later research and experiments supported the metallic cold fusion reports by Jones.
WTC destruction controversy
On September 22, 2005 Jones presented his views on the collapse of the World Trade CenterCollapse of the World Trade Center
The twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed on September 11, 2001, as a result of al-Qaeda's September 11 attacks, in which terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners, flying one into the North Tower and another into the South Tower...
towers and World Trade Center 7 at a BYU seminar attended by about 60 people. Pointing to the speed and symmetry of the collapses, the characteristics of dust jets, eyewitness reports of explosions down low in the buildings, partially corroded beams, molten metal in the basements which was still red hot weeks after the event, and the notion that no modern high rise had ever collapsed from fire, Jones suggested that the evidence defies the mainstream collapse theory and favors controlled demolition, possibly by the use of thermite
Thermite
Thermite is a pyrotechnic composition of a metal powder and a metal oxide that produces an exothermic oxidation-reduction reaction known as a thermite reaction. If aluminium is the reducing agent it is called an aluminothermic reaction...
or nanothermite. He called for further scientific investigation to test the controlled demolition theory and the release of all relevant data by the government. Shortly after the seminar, Jones placed a paper "Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?" on his page in the Physics department website, with a note that BYU had no responsibility for the paper.
He subsequently defended the research at Idaho State University, Utah Valley State College, University of Colorado at Boulder and University of Denver, the Utah Academy of Science, Sonoma State University, University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Texas at Austin.
On September 7, 2006, Jones removed his paper from BYU's website at the request of administrators and was placed on paid leave. The university cited its concern about the "increasingly speculative and accusatory nature" of Jones' work and the concern that perhaps it had "not been published in appropriate scientific venues" as reasons for putting him under review. The review was to have been conducted at three levels: BYU administration, the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, and the Physics Department. Jones' colleagues also defended Jones' 9/11 work to varying degrees, and Project Censored
Project Censored
Project Censored is a non-profit, media criticism and investigative journalism project within the Sonoma State University Foundation. It is managed through the School of Social Sciences at the university....
lists his 9/11 research among the top mainstream media censored stories of 2007.
Jones' placement on paid leave drew criticism from the American Association of University Professors
American Association of University Professors
The American Association of University Professors is an organization of professors and other academics in the United States. AAUP membership is about 47,000, with over 500 local campus chapters and 39 state organizations...
and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is a non-profit group founded in 1999 and focused on civil liberties in academia in the United States...
. Both organizations are long time critics of BYU's record on academic freedom. Jones "welcomed the review" because he hoped it would "encourage people to read his paper for themselves," however the review was abandoned (contrary to Jones' request) when Jones elected to retire, effective January 1, 2007.
Jones has been interviewed by mainstream news sources and has made a number of public appearances. While Jones has urged caution in drawing conclusions, some believe that his public comments have suggested a considerable degree of certainty about both the controlled demolition of the World Trade Center and the culpability of elements within the U.S. government. In one interview, he asserted that the attacks were "an 'inside job', puppeteered by the neoconservatives in the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
to justify the occupation of oil-rich Arab countries, inflate military spending, and expand Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
." His name is often mentioned in reporting about 9/11 conspiracy theories
9/11 conspiracy theories
9/11 conspiracy theories are theories that disagree with the widely accepted account that the September 11 attacks were perpetrated solely by al-Qaeda. These theories arose because of what proponents of the conspiracy theories believe to be inconsistencies in the official conclusions or some...
.
Jones has published several papers suggesting that the World Trade Center was demolished with explosives, but his 2005 paper, "Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?" was his first paper on the topic and was considered controversial both for its content and its claims to scientific rigor. Jones' early critics included members of BYU's engineering faculty; shortly after he made his views public, the BYU College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and the faculty of structural engineering issued statements in which they distanced themselves from Jones' work. They noted that Jones' "hypotheses and interpretations of evidence were being questioned by scholars and practitioners," and expressed doubts about whether they had been "submitted to relevant scientific venues that would ensure rigorous technical peer review."
Jones maintained that the paper was peer-reviewed prior to publication within a book "9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out" by D.R. Griffin
David Ray Griffin
David Ray Griffin is a retired American professor of philosophy of religion and theology. Along with John B. Cobb, Jr., he founded the Center for Process Studies in 1973, a research center of Claremont School of Theology which seeks to promote the common good by means of the relational approach...
The paper was published in the online peer-reviewed, "Journal of 9/11 Studies", a journal co-founded and co-edited by Jones for the purpose of "covering the whole of research related to 9/11/2001." The paper also appeared in Global Outlook, a magazine "seeking to reveal the truth About 9/11" and in a volume of essays edited by David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale Scott.
In April 2008, Jones, along with four other authors, published a letter in The Bentham Open Civil Engineering Journal, titled, 'Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction'. In August 2008, Jones, along with Kevin Ryan and James Gourley, published a peer-reviewed article in The Environmentalist, titled, 'Environmental anomalies at the World Trade Center: Evidence for energetic materials'. And in April 2009, Jones, along with Niels H. Harrit and 7 other authors published a paper in The Open Chemical Physics Journal, titled, 'Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe'. The editor of the journal, Professor Marie-Paule Pileni
Marie-Paule Pileni
Marie-Paule Pileni is a French physical chemist who was born in Tananarive, Madagascar. She is a Distinguished Professor at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie and a Senior Member, since 1999, and administrator of the Institut Universitaire de France, IUF...
, an expert in explosives and nano-technology, resigned. She received an e-mail from the Danish science journal Videnskab
Videnskab
Videnskab.dk is a Danish website launched by the Danish research ministry in April 2008 to encourage young people to show interest in research. Videnskab is the Danish word for simply "Science"....
asking for her professional assessment of the article's content.
Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice
Jones was a founding member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth for approximately one year as co-chair with James H. FetzerJames H. Fetzer
James Henry Fetzer is an American philosopher, professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota Duluth, and a well-known conspiracy theorist. He has written on the philosophy of science and on the theoretical foundations of computer science, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science...
until Jones and a majority of the scholars members left the organization. From mid-November 2006 until the end of that year, Jones, Fetzer and a series of other researchers and individuals engaged in an open dispute about the direction the organization should take. Fetzer claimed that Jones wanted to suppress exotic weaponry theories about 9/11, specifically those of Judy Wood which suggested that the destruction of the WTC may have been caused by directed energy weapons. Jones and others examined the claims — such as the hypothesis that mini-nukes were used on the WTC Towers — and delineated empirical reasons for rejecting them.
In December 2006, Steven Jones and about 4/5ths of the members voted to leave the Scholars for 9/11 Truth organization to establish Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice, a group of scholars and supporters dedicated to 9/11 research using the scientific method. While Jones is not a committee member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice, his work is supported and documented by the group. By April 2010, that organization had grown to over 800 members.
Affiliations
Jones had been co-chair of Scholars for 9/11 Truth up until December 5, 2006. Following a dispute with co-chair James Fetzer over the direction the organization was taking, Jones resigned his membership and joined Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice.Jones is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Jones has been described as "a devout Mormon."
Jones is co-editor of Journal of 9/11 Studies.
Recognition and awards
- 1968, David O. McKayDavid O. McKayDavid Oman McKay was the ninth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , serving from 1951 until his death. Ordained an apostle and member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1906, McKay was a general authority for nearly 64 years, longer than anyone else in LDS Church...
Scholarship at BYU; National Merit Scholar - 1973-1978 Tuition Scholarship and Research Fellowship at Vanderbilt University
- 1989 Outstanding Young Scholar Award (BYU); Best of What's New for 1989 (Popular SciencePopular SciencePopular Science is an American monthly magazine founded in 1872 carrying articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. Popular Science has won over 58 awards, including the ASME awards for its journalistic excellence in both 2003 and 2004...
); Creativity Prize (Japanese Creativity Society) - 1990 BYU Young Scholar Award; Annual Lecturer, BYU Chapter of Sigma XiSigma XiSigma Xi: The Scientific Research Society is a non-profit honor society which was founded in 1886 at Cornell University by a junior faculty member and a handful of graduate students. Members elect others on the basis of their research achievements or potential...
External links
- BYU energy research
- Brookings.com - 'Cold Fusion'
- The BYU Solar Funnel Cooker/Cooler and Solar Cooker on Project Gutenberg
- Physicist Challenges Official 9-11 Story - 'Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007,' Project CensoredProject CensoredProject Censored is a non-profit, media criticism and investigative journalism project within the Sonoma State University Foundation. It is managed through the School of Social Sciences at the university....
, Nov, 2006. - Podcast of WTC demolition debate between engineer Leslie Robertson and physicist Steven Jones on KGNU radio, Oct. 26, 2006.
- Analysis of the World Trade Center Destruction by Steven Jones, video recording of the one day conference "Lifting the fog: the scientific method applied to the world trade center disaster" held at the University of CaliforniaUniversity of CaliforniaThe University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
, Berkeley Campus, November 11, 2006. - PESWiki feature page - features Jones' work in alternative energy and 9/11 research.
Links covering Steven Jones' Cold Fusion research
- Infinite Energy Magazine article covering Cold Fusion with mention of Jones' contributions
- WIRED Magazine article covering Cold Fusion with mention of Jones' contributions
Links covering Steven Jones' 9/11 research
- Scholars For 9/11 Truth & Justice
- 'Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?' by Steven E. Jones
- 'Answers to Objections and Questions' PDF presentation by Steven E. Jones
- 'Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction', by Steven E. Jones, Frank M. Legge, Kevin R. Ryan, Anthony F. Szamboti, & James R. Gourley. The Open Civil Engineering Journal, Volume 2, Issue 1, pp. 35–40.
- 'Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe', by Niels H. Harrit, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, Kevin R. Ryan, Frank M. Legge, Daniel Farnsworth, Gregg Roberts, James R. Gourley, Bradley R. Larsen. The Open Chemical Physics Journal, Volume 2, pp. 7–31.