Roger:

Count me as an optomist! I think there's a 1 in 5 chance this thing might eventually work, and in any case it seems clear that there's SOMETHING funny going on, and at the very least chemists are going to have to rethink some basic ideas.

Dad got ahold of some lecture notes taken at the original presentation. The two chemists seem competent and freely admit that they don't understand how this thing works. They also warned replicators that this can be dangerous. Apparently the first time they set up the apparatus they went home for the night and when they came back the next morning the whole thing had been vaporized and there was a big hole in the concrete floor of the lab! Dad seems to think that if the equations are valid it might be possible to make a gun which could vaporize a house!

If this holds up there is an enormous amount of money at stake and the political infighting among scientists is already viscious! Have any juicy rumours spread to your end of campus, Cliff?