Posted on 09/12/2006 1:05:40 PM PDT by saganite
On May 8, 2006, science journalist Eugenie Samuel Reich published a series of four articles in Nature which came as close as possible to accusing Purdue physicist Rusi Taleyarkhan of committing fraud without actually saying so.
Taleyarkhan's research -- nuclear reactions in a novel mechanism that could have immense technological potential -- apparently seemed too good and too profound to Reich and Nature.
Reich's series of four stories in Nature was replete with innuendo and groundless speculation, building a house of cards on which to base the thesis that her journalistic investigation would lead to "the end of bubble fusion."
The core of the Reich/Nature allegation was based on speculations made by physicist Seth Putterman and his associate Brian Naranjo at UCLA that an on-hand source of Californium-252 was responsible for the novel results claimed by Taleyarkhan.
Months earlier, Putterman, after receiving $800,000 from the U.S. government, failed in his effort to replicate the Taleyarkhan experiment.
Taleyarkhan's collaborator, Richard T. Lahey Jr., a professor of engineering and physics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, told IEEE Spectrum that "Putterman was using a design 'that was doomed to failure' and that he told him so when visiting his laboratory at UCLA last year."
Putterman and Naranjo disagreed with Lahey and told IEEE Spectrum that the UCLA team performed the replication "according to blueprints provided by Taleyarkhan's group."
Naranjo, with the help of Putterman, a direct competitor of Taleyarkhan for research funds, speculated that the nuclear emissions from Taleyarkhan's experiment were the result of contamination. But there was little to suggest that this was just an innocent mistake, according to the way the story was reported by Reich in Nature.
Taleyarkhan is far too experienced a scientist to make such a careless mistake: allowing contamination from on-hand source of Californium-252 to interfere with the results. The very clear implication was that Taleyarkhan had spiked his experiment intentionally.
And thus, within a matter of hours after the Nature story broke, Taleyarkhan's name and reputation, as well as Purdue's, were being defamed around the world in print and electronic media.
Reich never mentioned the word fraud; she didn't have to. It was a well-executed assist, though Reich told New Energy Times that she failed to see New Energy Times' perspective that her story was "ugly journalism." Reuters introduced the word "fraud" in the story and used the word fraud in its suggested headline. Many newspapers picked up Reuters' story.
Two days later, on March 10, New Energy Times investigated the controversy and identified numerous questions about the manner in which the Reich/Nature story developed.
Since we completed our March 10 investigation, we have been following this story closely. There is much more to it. This article will not go into all of the details; however, New Energy Times has received important news this week, as well as a set of key facts that appear to vindicate Taleyarkhan.
Earlier this week, Physical Review Letters accepted for publication a paper by Brian Naranjo, who initiated this controversy by speculating that Taleyarkhan's bubble-fusion neutrons were the result of Californium-252 contamination.
However, Taleyarkhan has been a busy man in the last few months. In addition to hiring attorneys to help him defend his personal and professional rights, undergoing a University administrative examination, and enduring numerous personal challenges and disruptions, he decided to tackle Naranjo's charge head-on.
He and his colleagues, Robert Block and Richard Lahey Jr. of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Robert Nigmatulin, former president of the Ufa branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences; and Yiban Xu, a postdoctoral research assistant at Purdue, tested Naranjo's speculation empirically. They performed experiments in which they intentionally exposed the test device to Californium-252.
According to their findings, a different spectrum results, refuting the Naranjo claim.
"Rather than argue about the merits or demerits of attempts at a computer code calculation for a ‘presumed experimental configuration and instrument settings-cum-performance,’ we directly obtained additional experimental data with our laboratory’s Californium-252 source with the same liquid scintillation and sodium iodide detectors and settings used before. We then show by direct one-on-one comparison that the reported spectra in our [earlier] paper for neutron and gamma photons are significantly different from corresponding spectra derived from a Californium-252 source."
This paper, too, was peer-reviewed and accepted for publication by Physical Review Letters earlier this week.
Yet another paper by Taleyarkhan is also on the way.
Andrei Lipson from the University of Illinois, an expert on the use of CR-39 track detectors, had submitted comments regarding the Taleyarkhan work to Physical Review Letters in the traditional manner. The Taleyarkhan group's rebuttal to Lipson has been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication, as well.
Furthermore, Taleyarkhan reports to New Energy Times that there have been four successful public demonstrations of his bubble fusion phenomenon since March 2006.
Taleyarkhan told us that he and his colleagues invited outside visitors and experts into their laboratory to offer real-time demonstrations of bubble fusion. Taleyarkhan asserts that all four successful results have been acknowledged in written affidavits and documentation. He has provided us with three of these, which are summarized below. The fourth has been promised.
One independent group, a professor and two students from a university in Texas, obtained successful results in an audit of Taleyarkhan's experiment, confirming the key elements of the discovery with two independent detection methods. One used a liquid scintillation detector; the other used a passive CR-39 track detector. This group has submitted its results for peer review in the proceedings of a forthcoming international conference as well as a respected peer-reviewed journal.
Taleyarkhan has requested that the identity of this group be withheld pending review of its papers; however, New Energy Times has obtained a pre-print of the paper. The summary reads as follows:
"Neutron production during self-nucleated acoustic cavitation of a mixture of deuterated acetone and benzene has been verified with two independent neutron detectors. No neutron production is observed for the deuterated liquid when cavitation is not present, and neutrons are not produced with or without cavitation for the non-deuterated liquid. These observations support previous results showing deuteron-deuteron fusion during self-nucleated acoustic cavitation of a mixture of deuterated acetone and benzene."
William Bugg, a nuclear research professor at Stanford University with more than 50 years' experience, visited the Purdue laboratory on June 6-7 and provided a strong endorsement of Taleyarkhan’s use of CR-39 track detectors, generally considered to be an unambiguous diagnostic method for detection of nuclear emissions. Observers can see results from such detectors with their own eyes instead of depending on complicated electronic devices.
CR-39 track detectors permanently record neutron or charged particles emanating from a nuclear source by an etching procedure after exposure. They are used routinely by health physicists to measure exposure of individuals to neutrons, which, unlike charged particles, can present a serious health risk. The detectors provide a permanent record of the exposure and can be examined microscopically track by track at any time after the experiment.
Bugg's report says he found "statistically significant excess neutrons over the background in the two deuterated sample detectors located on the chamber and none in the undeuterated sample."
The third testimonial New Energy Times has obtained is that of Ross Tessien of Impulse Devices Inc.
Tessien wrote, "The experiment conducted yesterday revealed that the background sample tracks were in the range of about 15-16 tracks, whereas the chamber-mounted detectors experienced an increase to approximately 28 and 39 tracks, respectively."
The math and the physics frequently follow behind unusual experimental results. If there is anything to bubble/cold fusion or sonoluminescence the physicists and mathmaticians will get around to explaining it if they ever are able to obtain consistent lab results.
I thought you were a little un-clam there.
Maybe I was wrong.
I agree on both counts.
Any insight you can bring to bear here?
Yes. We are in complete agreement in that regard. (Given the "if".)
As an aside, having obtained my physics degree long ago (early 70's), I'm quite used to the idea of new models coming along, old models being thrown out, assumptions being revised, all that. The 30 years since I was in school have turned a number of things I learned as "the best we know" into so much mush.
I don't expect our models of the universe to stabilize in my lifetime, and that's okay.
We each reach our "understanding" of the universe in our own way, and even then have only a fraction of a sliver of an inkling of a clue of how the universe actually works, but it's enough to appreciate the magnificence of Creation.
If these folks' work contributes meaningfully to our collective understanding, then regardless of whether they've got a perpetual motion machine or just a nice toy, it will have been worth it.
Sympathetic? Didn't you even read the first sentence of the article?
ping for tomorrow
Yep, and the writer spent the rest of the article refuting that view.
It's kind of like a BS detector, only for a different part of the conversation spectrum.
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