The geeks have spoken.

An innocent little story in the Sept. 16 edition of the Deseret Morning News about an electrostatic-inertial confinement plasma device is now officially the most-viewed story on the paper's Web site ever (at least since the paper started keeping track of these things about four years ago).

The story was about a clever Spanish Fork High School student, Craig Wallace, who built a plasma device out of parts he and his dad scrounged up from scrap metal yards. Wallace used the plans of Utah resident Philo Farnsworth — the reputed inventor of television — to build it.

And, oh yeah, it induces fusion between deuterium ions. That bit got people pretty excited.

As a result of the article, the Canadian version of the Discovery Channel came down and taped a piece with Wallace at Utah State University, where he is now a freshman in physics. Paul Harvey mentioned those "two Utah State University students, Craig Wallace and Philo T. Farnsworth," on his newscast. Network morning news shows and The Ellen DeGeneres Show have requested interviews. Australian magazine The Picture requested photos. Humor writer Dave Barry put a link to the story on his Web log (blog) — in fact, more than 50 different Web sites (probably many more) have links to the story, along with energetic forum discussions. The Internet version of the story has received more hits — 237,510 as of Friday — than stories on Elizabeth Smart, the Nauvoo Temple dedication and even (gasp!) BYU football.

Now that's big.

Hundreds of e-mails have poured in from all over the world (Germany, England, Japan, the Pacific Islands and South Africa, among others). Before you consider writing, however, keep in mind that the device is not an energy source — thus, it is not, nor does it claim to be (as cold fusion did), the answer to the world's energy problems. It is a scientific curiosity, a cool little thing built by a clever teenager. That's about it.

"I'm surprised, actually, that it's got that much attention," said Utah State University physics department chairman John Raitt. "I suppose some people are equating this with cold fusion because it comes out of Utah."

It's not just the device itself that is generating the excitement. One of the most common e-mail subjects takes issue with this statement: "Utah's own Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television."

Blasphemy! the missives (particularly from the United Kingdom) have thundered. "Sorry to ruin your provincial view of the world," one indignant reader wrote, "but the acknowledged inventor of television is John Logie Baird of Scotland, not Philo Farnsworth of Utah."

The invention of television is fraught with competing claims. Utahns consider Farnsworth to be the inventor, but others clearly aren't backing down.

E-mail subjects ran the gamut, from disputing the science to editing the grammar. One e-mail corrected the story's use of the Latin phrase sine qua non, which had been used to mean "the ultimate achievement" — the writer accurately defined it as "an essential element or condition."

Just goes to show how smart Deseret Morning News readers are.

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E-mail: aedwards@desnews.com