Past Forword: The AD-X2 Affair

In 1947, a bulldozer operator named Jess M. Ritchie and a prominent physical chemist named Merle Randall began to market AD-X2, an additive they claimed extended the life of lead-acid batteries. Consumers raved about the results, and yet the National Bureau of Standards could not substantiate the claims when it tested the product. The dispute devolved into a politically fraught, multiyear affair involving Senate hearings, a post office ban, the resignation of the NBS director, and his reinstatement after more than 400 scientists threatened to resign in protest. The drama that played out in the press pitted an up-from-your-bootstraps David against an overreaching governmental Goliath. In the end, though, science won.