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"Tabletop" Fusion Researcher Committed Scientific Misconduct
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sun Jul 20, 2008 09:23 AM
from the rebranding-doesn't-always-work dept.
from the rebranding-doesn't-always-work dept.
Geoffrey.landis writes "A Purdue University panel investigated allegations against nuclear engineering professor Rusi Taleyarkhan, finding that he had in fact committed scientific misconduct in his work.
Taleyarkhan had published papers in which he reported seeing evidence of nuclear fusion in the collapse of tiny bubbles in a liquid subjected to ultrasonic excitation — a finding that would be groundbreaking, if true, but one that apparently could not be replicated by other researchers. The allegations against Taleyarkhan were made in March of 2006. A local Indiana paper gives the full list of allegations against Taleyarkhan, and the resolution of each by the panel. The full report (PDF) is also available. Of the nine specific allegations, only two were found to comprise scientific misconduct. The committee 'could not find any other instances of scientists being able to replicate Taleyarkhan's results without Taleyarkhan having direct involvement with the experiments,' but notes that this comes 'just short of questioning whether Taleyarkhan's results were fraudulent.'"
We've discussed this gentleman's work and the scrutiny it has received several times, and members of the scientific community seem to have given him the benefit of the doubt in many cases.
Related Stories
[+]
Table Top Fusion Courtesy of Tiny Bubbles 326 comments
Erik Baard writes: "The peer-reviewed journal Science is carrying a cover story about the possibility of table top fusion. Not cold fusion, mind you, but the apparatus might look that way to some. Oak Ridge and other labs say they have gotten the fingerprints of fusion (neutron production) from collapsing bubbles in liquid, a process that heats a local area to temperatures as hot as the surface of the sun, and releases photons.
The disputes are already here -- notably from Dr. Robert Park of the American Physical Society and from critical reviewers who say they haven't repeated the neutron production. But the authors say the critics didn't calibrate their equipment correctly. Articles regarding the discovery can be found on
Eureka Alert " CD: Looks legit, but Pons and Fleishman (and the University of Utah for that matter) talked a good game. I suppose I'll belive in tabletop fusion when a generator comes atached to my next laptop. The author of this post also has a longer article up at the Village Voice
[+]
Hardware: More Evidence for Tabletop Fusion 244 comments
heptapod writes "Researchers at Purdue University have statistically significant evidence that their tabletop fusion experiments were successful. Yiban Xu's experiment different from an earlier Oak Ridge experiment using a different and cheaper source of neutrons than Oak Ridge's pulse neutron generator. Surpassing break-even point still eludes the grasp of science."
[+]
Slashback: OSX Security, DoD Filtering, Anonymous Posting 211 comments
Slashdot tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including some favorable results from the University of Wisconsin's Mac OS X Challenge, skeptics investigate cold fusion claims, more on DoD web filtering, AT&T cuts 10,000 jobs after BellSouth merger, more child-proofing efforts for MySpace, Why Windows Vista Will Suck: a rebuttal, Harvard Professor punished for reporting bugs, Assemblyman Biondi backpedals on NJ anonymous posting bill, and a followup on Chinese TLDs -- Read on for details.
[+]
Cold Fusion Scientist Exonerated 171 comments
Icarus1919 writes "New Scientist reports that the scientist who discovered a possible cold fusion reaction by bombarding a solvent with neutrons and sonic waves has recently been exonerated of accusations of scientific misconduct following the verification of his results by another scientist."
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Fraud... (Score:3, Insightful)
Better late than never, this guy has been either bullshitting or been genuinely incompetent for years.
When I first heard about his whole ultrasonic bubble excitation fusion experiment, I honestly thought: WTF? This was quite a while ago, and all the evidence was against him then as well.
It is people like these who give research scientists a bad name...
Re:Fraud... (Score:5, Informative)
When I first heard about his whole ultrasonic bubble excitation fusion experiment, I honestly thought: WTF?
The bubble itself is a quite interesting phenomenon, thought it is most likley not fusion as Taleyarkhan claims.
For those not familiar of Taleyarkhan and the issue of the bubble this is a good BBC video [google.com] I saw a while back on the who topic and controversy. Either way the bubble was discovered by someone else and I personally think should be investigated for other properties other than table top fusion.
Parent
Re:Fraud... (Score:4, Interesting)
i just saw that video a few days ago and was more fascinated by the ultra-sonic bubble than the prospect of cold fusion.
Yep... but note that the ultrasonic bubble collapse thing-- "sonoluminescence"-- isn't something that Taleyarkhan discovered. It was his claim that sonoluminescence produces fusion that was noteworthy, not the sonoluminescence itself.
Parent
I spoke too soon... (Score:2)
How disappointing. (Score:5, Insightful)
I really want to see one of these fusion processes work. It would make a radical change in our society, by removing any reason for the US government to care what happens in the middle east.
-jcr
Re: (Score:2)
What we can look forward to is a bunch of free energy nut jobs raving about how the oil companies are covering up this wonderful discovery...
Re: (Score:2)
"bunch of free energy nut jobs?" Are there in fact a "bunch" of them out there? Is this really a thing where you live, there being a bunch of people who are crazy about free power? I think what's more likely to happen is the linux nutjobs somehow getting involved. Like as soon as we do discover cold fusion, they'll be protesting until someone specifically says that it can be used to power linux too.
Not that it's likely, just that I personally am dubious as to how many people there are out there that can
Re: (Score:2)
Free energy, as far as nutjob themes go, is fairly popular. Wikipedia has an article [wikipedia.org] on it. Even MythBusters has gotten in on the act.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:How disappointing. (Score:4, Insightful)
I really want to see one of these fusion processes work. It would make a radical change in our society, by removing any reason for the US government to care what happens in the middle east.
I really want to see one of these processes work, but it's massively shortsighted to care on the basis of what happens in the middle east. We're talking about the next step in world energy here, not the end of one government's petty feud with a geographical area.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I really want to see one of these fusion processes work. It would make a radical change in our society, by removing any reason for the US government to care what happens in the middle east.
You really think the USA is going to abandon Israel?
Or that the Suez Canal will suddenly stop being a critical transportation juncture?
Will combatting Islamic terrorists suddenly stop being an issue?
Be honest with yourself:
the best case scenario is that OPEC prices drop to match synthetic oils
the worst case, the sellers of synthetics match prices with OPEC
Re:How disappointing. (Score:4, Insightful)
You're ignoring the cause of the problem, which is that we stick our noses into everyone's business.
Parent
Re:How disappointing. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
You misspoke. If the world didn't need oil, the ME wouldn't have the money and power to be a threat. 9/11 might just as well happened--bin Laden's excuse is that he didn't like US troops on the Arabian peninsula. However, he cut his teeth against us in Somalia (no oil there) and against the Soviets in Afghanistan (no oil there either).
But now I have no reason to flog myself for the atrocities perpetrated against my society. :-(
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
the locations don't change the fundamental reasons for Bin Laden's hatred of the U.S: actions by U.S. in Lebanon, support of Israel, support of what he considers amoral leaders in the middle east.
Bin Laden, unlike G W Bush, has no reason to lie about his motives regarding terror.
I think you are wrong. (Score:2)
"If we didn't need oil, we wouldn't have troops in the ME. If we didn't have troops in the ME to begin with, 9/11 would never have happened."
As long as Israel continues to exist, and receives funding from the United States, Al-Qaeda would have reason to attack the United States.
Read Bin Laden's letter to America [guardian.co.uk], it explains all of this.
You don't even need to go far in the letter:
"As for the first question: Why are we fighting and opposing you? The answer is very simple:
(1) Because you attacked us and conti
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>.
The root cause is deeper and simpler.
Bin Ladin dreams of a pan-Islamic medieval caliphate.
This isn't Islamic civilization in its creative prime. It is a redaction of that culture embalmed and hermetically sealed.
He hates the West because the West has been successful - and the success of the West has never been one-dimensional. The West exports culture as effortlessly as it exports food and new tech
Re: (Score:2)
'Tis a funny game, acting blameless with the blood of millions on our collective hands. Americans are quite good at it. Blameless for the situation of the black bottom class, how dare they be bottom class. Blameless for the middle east, how dare they be mad at us for 50 years of murder.
Maybe if the US would follow some of the morals it claims to follow through the Bible when it's politicians pander to those groups, we wouldn't have ever seen a 9/11, because we never would have murdered anyone.
I guess it's e
Re: (Score:2)
Let's put the blame where blame belongs. The United States has made some poor foreign policy decisions in the past. Certain factions in the middle east are responsible for using America/Jew-hating to empower themselves and for creating their own underclasses of hopeless young men/women with nothing but the hate. These men/women are personally guilty for carrying out acts of terror on civilians.
So let's all take responsibility for the things we've actually done wrong instead of trying to pile all the blam
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow. "The United States has made some poor foreign policy decisions in the past." is how you euphemise 50 years of assassination, war, murder, and propping up murderous regimes while tearing down democracies with the hidden talons of the CIA.
You're too well indoctrinated. I doubt you could take responsibility for something if you wanted to.
Watchmen and Bullies (Score:2)
I'm not disputing whether the US has "blood on its hands". But being perfectly innocent does *not* protect you from things like 9/11, or worse (see Sudan). In fact, the bullies of the world prefer helpless victims to ones that might fight back. If you are strong, you can either be a bully, or you can use your strength to protect those weaker than you from bullies. Of course, then there are complications like the guy you are protecting being lazy and not taking basic realistic steps for self-defense.
As a
You don't need future tech (Score:4, Informative)
You don't need future tech to give the middle finger to the Middle East - you can do it now.
One way you can reduce the Middle East's influence is to drive down the value of oil and you can do that by switching your car to natural gas. There are several companies like this one [cngoutfitters.com] that will sell you a kit to make the switch. Googling "cng conversion kits gas" brings up a host of sources.
Since natural gas is not taxed as heavily and demand is lower, a gallon-equivalent of natural gas costs about half what gasoline costs. The conversion kits allow you to choose between natural gas and gasoline so if you're somewhere you can't find a natural gas station, you can switch back to gasoline. If you there isn't a natural gas station near where you live, you can install a natural gas compressor [myphill.com] in your garage that'll fill your car overnight. The downsides are you lose some trunk space to the extra tank, natural gas stations aren't as numerous as gasoline stations and since methane doesn't store as many calories as gasoline, you lose about 10% of your engine's power. For me, the later issue isn't a big deal since my car has more power than it needs to get me around.
Natural gas is domestically produced and there's enough of it to last 100 years and that's not counting the undersea hydrate fields. I'd rather burn domestic gas than give Al-Qaeda a cut of every dollar I spend on gasoline.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
That's fine when it comes to gasoline consumption.
But gasoline consumption is but one use of oil. In the long term, we need to rethink the infrastructure of a whole slew of industries which use petrochemicals as their input feedstocks.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
You're right that we could provide more of our oil. Had we drilled in ANWR when it was first proposed in the 90's, we'd have an extra 1.5 million barrels/day or about 15% of our domestic consumption. That would help a lot. Offshore would help on top of that.
But the fact is we didn't and it's going to take time to get Congress to wake up to that fact and act.
In the meantime, those of us who aren't Congress can do something today that'll help cut the flow of funds to people who really don't like us. It really
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The problems with the "we need to drill more domestically" solution are:
1) Most people in favor of more offshore drilling are typically the ones who are looking for a solution that requires the least amount of effort on their part. Just imagine how things would be different if people actually conserved energy instead of buying the biggest SUV they could find simply because gasoline was cheap.
2) Developing countries (eg China) have a growing demand for gasoline, which is driving up the speculative price of
Re: (Score:2)
It's "TABLETOP fusion", not "under the hood fusion."
In all honesty, if this worked and was able to be implemented soon, this would eliminate our need for coal, not oil. We would have to make fusion power plants, then get people to start using their electric cars before this would make much of an impact on oil imports.
Re:How disappointing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Fusion (in the most viable tokamak form) does produce radioactive waste products because of all the neutron flux, but (like lots of forms of fission) the waste isn't dangerous in the long-term. I also haven't seen any real data on how much fusion would cost on a practical level.
So I don't see why fusion should be treated as anything more than a possible improvement to fission in the future; why aren't we going for fission as the technology to free us from the Middle East in the meantime?
That's what the US did last time there was an oil crisis, and it worked out well, but this time our reactors are much better and safer for the experience.
Parent
Wanting something doesn't make it true (Score:2)
I really want to see one of these fusion processes work. It would make a radical change in our society, by removing any reason for the US government to care what happens in the middle east.
Unfortunately, wanting something doesn't make it real [xkcd.com]
looking back (Score:5, Informative)
When I was in graduate school/postdoc, I wrote for the Stanford Daily a couple of times for fun as way to practice my writing skills. One of the articles I wrote was on this research [stanforddaily.com]. Interestingly, I interviewed Nobel winner Douglas Osheroff and he shared his thoughts with me on this research. If memory serves me, he thought it was interesting, but prematurely published.
Interesting to look back on this in light of this finding.
No more flying cars ? (Score:2)
Mr. Fusion (Score:2)
Who cares about tabletop fusion?
I want my "Mr. Fusion" that I can slap into my car!
Because one did commit misconduct... (Score:5, Informative)
you still shouldn't out the others working on similar things:
-------------
By 1991, 92 groups of researchers from 10 different countries had reported excess heat, tritium, neutrons or other nuclear effects.[73] Over 3,000 cold fusion papers have been published including about 1,000 in peer-reviewed journals (see indices in further reading, below). In March 1995, Dr. Edmund Storms compiled a list of 21 published papers reporting excess heat and articles have been published in peer reviewed journals such as Naturwissenschaften, European Physical Journal A, European Physical Journal C, Journal of Solid State Phenomena, Physical Review A, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, and Journal of Fusion Energy (see indices in further reading, below).
The generation of excess heat has been reported by (among others):
* Michael McKubre, director of the Energy Research Center at SRI International,
* Giuliano Preparata (ENEA (Italy))
* Richard A. Oriani (University of Minnesota, in December 1990),
* Robert A. Huggins (at Stanford University in March 1990),
* Yoshiaki Arata (Osaka University, Japan),
* T. Mizuno (Hokkaido University, Japan),
* T. Ohmori (Japan),
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion#Experimental_reports [wikipedia.org]
"Despite a backdrop of meager funding and career-killing derision from mainstream scientists and engineers, cold fusion is anything but a dead field of research. Presenters at the MIT event estimated that 3,000 published studies from scientists around the world have contributed to the growing canon of evidence suggesting that small but promising amounts of energy can be generated using the infamous tabletop apparatus."
"MIT's Peter Hagelstein, on the other hand, said "cold fusion" reactions have yielded surplus energy from as far back as the initial experiments in 1989. Verification of these controversial results is not the problem -- many labs around the world have reproduced parts of the results many times. "
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/08/cold_fusion?currentPage=all# [wired.com]
U.S. Navy Report Supports Cold Fusion:
http://www.infinite-energy.com/iemagazine/issue44/navy.html [infinite-energy.com]
""Last March, scientists at the annual conference of the august American Physical Society heard presentations on cold fusion. Next month, the Second International Conference on Future Energy will be held in Washington, D.C. The vast majority of physicists remains skeptical, but at the Office of Naval Research, six of the nine experiments performed produced an unexplainable amount of excess heat.""
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060808/REPOSITORY/608080316&SearchID=73253345954312 [concordmonitor.com]
"Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a tabletop accelerator that produces nuclear fusion at room temperature, providing confirmation of an earlier experiment conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), while offering substantial improvements over the original design."
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/ny_team_confirms_ucla_tabletop_fusion_10017.html [scienceblog.com]
Science in Neglect - Nobel Laureate S
Re:Because one did commit misconduct... (Score:4, Informative)
Despite a backdrop of meager funding and career-killing derision from mainstream scientists and engineers, cold fusion is anything but a dead field of research.
The same can be said of creationism, but that doesn't mean it isn't totally bullshit.
BTW, the "tabletop" fusion in the current article isn't at all the same thing as CNF. This work is based on the observation that collapsing bubbles in a fluid generate extremely high temperatures, which some people think could be used to trigger ordinary hot fusion.
Parent
Scientific Fraud (Score:3, Informative)
There was a TV programme on this guy a couple of years ago. No other scientists were able to duplicate his work so as part of the investigation the TV production company gathered together the finest fusion scientists they could find and they tried one last time to duplicate the experiment. Although Rusi Taleyarkhan agreed to interviews he refused point-blank to take part in the on camera experiment and (surprise surprise) there was no evidence of fusion.
Ganty
Re:Scientific Fraud (Score:4, Interesting)
There was a TV programme on this guy a couple of years ago
NB: The following is more about the quality of the TV show than any attempt to wish away the apparent irreproducability of Taleyarkhan's results so that we can all have Mr Fusions for Xmas.
If I believed in Taleyarkhan, that TV program certainly wouldn't have changed my mind. The scientist conducting the experiment appeared to be an outspoken critic of Taleyarkhan and we (the audience) had to accept his word that differences in equipment c.f. Taleyarkhan's experiment were inconsequential. As far as I remember, the originally stated purpose of the experiment was to check if the neutrons detected were in sync with the flashes from the bubbles (something not shown in T's results). We were told at the end that the experiment had failed, but with little explanation as to how (no flashes? no neutrons? not in sync? the first two of those would not have been "as was to be demonstrated").
As for Taleyarkhan attending the experiment, why would he do that? If he'd participated in any way, it would have destroyed the independence of the test.
...which was a pity, because in an earlier show they gave the same treatment to a test of the "memory of water" theory beloved of homeopathic medicine: in that case the experiment was presented beautifully, from the careful setting up of independent, blind tests through to analysis of the results for statistical significance. One of the best science documentaries I've seen.
The "desktop fusion" show was not up to the same standard.
Parent
Not necessarily "Nothing to see here"... (Score:2, Interesting)
I see two possibilities there...
First, he could have made up numbers. Absolutely unforgivable, and we should all break out the tar and feathers.
However, if reputable scientists have reproduced his work, even with his direct involvement, then he has accomplished something interesting (even if not necessarily what he believes).
Re: (Score:2)
What I want to know, given that results have apparently been reproduced with him involved, is what is happening different when the guy is involved? Is something different about his device, his sensing equipment? Does he just like setting up one part at a different angle? Does his body odor involve a strange mutant chemical that effects the results of the experiment? Or is he just really good at making people see what they want to see?
I have no clue about how the experiment is done, so I don't know what
Both not repeatable and a tiny effect (Score:5, Informative)
It's really frustrating. When Pons and Fleischman originally announced "cold fusion", there was an immediate attempt at Stanford to replicate the result. The researchers gave a talk, which drew hundreds of people. In their first attempts, they had the apparatus surrounded with radiation detectors and alarms, in case there was a sudden burst of radiation. After a while, they realized that wasn't going to happen. The effect, if any, resulted in a few extra neutrons per hour over background.
They saw some variations in neutron flux, but discovered that people standing around the apparatus affected the result. Humans have lots of water and are neutron reflectors. So they moved the apparatus into a cube of lead blocks. No more neutron emissions.
Somebody may eventually get fusion this way, but probably won't get out more power than they put in. If you can figure out some way to put a macroscopic amount of energy into a microscopic volume, you can get a little fusion. It's been done with big capacitor banks, with lasers, with explosive compression, and with the Farnsworth Fusor. But far more energy goes in than comes out.
Re: (Score:2)
I think we'll have real fusion power plants once we figure out how to scale up the current methods enough to be self-sustaining. That's not easy, though, as it amounts to containing a small sun
Cold fusion and antigravity (Score:2)
The perpetuum mobile machines of the present.
Now, I don't want to discount it as snakeoil altogether, but it's one of the fields where a lot of money is pumped into questionable "research". It saddens me that some self proclaimed scientists manage to siphon money away from honest, hard working researchers by producing spectacular (if only ... ok, I don't find a better word, fraudulent) results that surprisingly nobody can reproduce.
Partly at least this can be blamed on our society that wants immediate retur
Simple Fix... (Score:4, Funny)
The committee 'could not find any other instances of scientists being able to replicate Taleyarkhan's results without Taleyarkhan having direct involvement with the experiments'
The fix for this is very simple. Rename the entire process to the "Taleyarkhan Effect." Taleyarkhan will then be directly involved in every experiment, and the results will be reliably reproducible.
This ain't copyright infringement (Score:5, Informative)
In fact, there is no copyright in data (that is, in the facts); actually, using data published by others is a hallmark of scientific progress. That's why they published the data in the first place. If he had claimed the data as his own it would be scientific misconduct; if he failed to attribute the data to its authors it would be scientific misconduct. But there is no way for him to break copyright laws by publishing facts that were generated by others. In fact, even if he used the author's actual graphs and tables (which may be copyrighted), it is not so obvious that he actually broke copyright laws -- scientific use (with attribution) may very well come under the defense of fair use. We are seeing here the results of the propaganda campaign to extend copyright beyond all bounds.
Re:This ain't copyright infringement (Score:5, Informative)
scientific use (with attribution) may very well come under the defense of fair use.
It helps to read the report. Attribution was missing, that was the whole point of this allegation.
Parent
Plasma wakefield accelerator (Score:2)
Strikes me as odd that one one has tried to implement a plasma wakefield accelerator in a configuration that would fuse hydrogen.
Re:OMG.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe all the other scientists just don't understand the 'problem'.. because you don't know how something works (even with full documentation) doesn't mean it is impossible..
You're quite right. I don't know the details of this specific case, but generally speaking, replication isn't as simple as it may seem. Even given full documentation and information, there is often an element of intangible know-how that goes along with an experiment - "tacit knowledge." [wikipedia.org] I'd suggest reading the chapter on the TEA laser [wikipedia.org] in H.M. Collin's Changing Order [amazon.com] for anyone interested in learning about the difficulties involved in replication.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Railroading (Score:4, Insightful)
did you even read the summary? No one has been able to duplicate his work. ever. while it is interesting and someone should study the work for other possible effects overall it has been a massive failure.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
did you even read the summary? No one has been able to duplicate his work. ever. while it is interesting and someone should study the work for other possible effects overall it has been a massive failure.
and?
I don't see how "i couldn't replicate it" turns into "scientific misconduct".
I agree with GP on this, something smells fishy here.
Re: (Score:2)
Uhh, they have refuted his work experimentally, or at least failed to reproduce it despite trying. While I agree that one of the claims sustained against him was petty (adding a student's name to a paper when the student didn't do the work), the other claim -- that his work was independently reproduced when it in fact was not -- goes