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Elements 116 and 118 are Bogus?
prostoalex writes "In this era of corporate misbehavior and overstatement of results who can you trust? Scientific sources, of course. Well, turns out people at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory lied about their discovery of elements 116 and 118. Associated Press has the story, quoting the lab officials charging the researchers with "scientific misconduct"."
Why does the story submitter say "people" and "the researchers" when the AP story clearly states that the fabrication was done by one person?
I have this sinking feeling prior earnings may have been overstated...
Beta only seems to work for Google. Such a shame.
And in related news... Element 142 nicknamed CowboyNealium has been discovered by a crack team of wallruses in antarctica.
Is it possible for elements to be "missing" actually. Like gaps in the chart? Do there have to be continuous numbers? Or can you count them ... 114, 115, 117, 119???
I am not a really big physics person, but I thought that there would be a way to put the extra proton in there and throw in an electron to make a heavier one...
Also, how did they mess it up in "Thinking" that they had found them, when they really hadn't? Again I am not a subatomic physicist, so this could be a stupid question..
Tibbon
tibbon.com
At least they didn't go shredding atoms.... [rimshot]
Looks as though they at least get the message that belated honesty is better than none at all.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
I just hope there was no research studies which "used" these elements... :)
I just ordered a new case for my dual Athlon Linux box made of Ununhexium with Ununoctium details! Man did I get screwed...
From a quick read of the article it doesn't like there's any big trust issue here...
The scientists rechecked there data and retracted there claims... where's the cover up? Isn't that pretty much normal in the scientific community?
(Ok... maybe they should have check their results before announcing anything, but its not like they denied anything or blatantly lied!)
This is not new news at all, in fact Berkeley scientists retracted their paper back in 2001. Here is a link: http://enews.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/118- retraction.html.
Here is the /. story.
Stock in Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory plummeted in afternoon trading, while the head researcher vigorously denied rumors that Arthur Andersen had provided proofreading services for the paper in question...
"The best argument against democracy is a five minute chat with the average voter."
--Winston Churchill
Every space in the Periodic Table should have a corresponding element. However, these elements may not occur in nature (eg. Technetium) or may have infinitesimally short half-lives (eg. most atomic numbers > about 100).
Freedom: "I won't!"
Despite much funding from nestle:
Choctonium:
Atomic Number: 118
Atomic Weight: Delicious
will now have to be eliminated from the table.
Oh, no!
Wasn't one of those elements up for being named "Bullonium" or "Baloneyum"?
Didn't also figure prominently in the list of ingredients required to initiate cold fusion?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
So what you're really saying is that they HAVE discovered Unobtanium and Younoseeum!
Microsoft has claimed the patent and IP on the element Carbon. This in effect stomps out two things.
It makes it so that Microsoft owns everyone, BUT they are only going to charge 1/1000c per year to use each carbon atom. This means that each person only owes a million or so a year. This also helps them control the judges, as they can now technically "own" them too.
A smaller note: now they can sue apple for using the name "carbon" for their OS products.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
I create element 120 in my kitchen sink. Look for my research to be published next month. I plan to call it slashdotium.
Very silly to pin the blame on one individual in the research group. Don't these guys read? Don't they know disgruntled physicists, especially when they're disgraced atomic/nuclear scientists, always come back as super-villains to wreak their vengeance on their enemies and an unsuspecting world?
How long before their suspect builds himself an atomic-powered titanium alloy suit with miniature particle accelerator blasters?
Krabappel:"Who can tell me the atomic weight of bolognium?"
Martin: "Delicious?"
Krabappel: "Correct. I would also accept snacktacular."
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
So they said they'd found something, but the confirming experiments didn't come through. They've retracted their claim. That's pretty much how it works. Seems like you can still trust science, precisely because of stories like this. Right?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
So when should I expect to see the girls of Lawrence Berkley issue of Playboy?
Erm... Maybe I'm daft, but I can't tell if you're kidding here. The strength of science is that it does not require faith. It actually becomes more reliable when faced with scrutiny.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
Maybe they announced their 'discovery' because they thought they were close to really producing the element, but did not want to let some other country (probably Russia or England) discovering it first and thus getting naming rights. There have historically been fights about who discovered what element first because everyone wants to get a chance to name an element in the periodic table.
> What Science needs most of all right now is credibility.
How on EARTH does science need credibility? Shit, even the missionaries wouldn't have been able to cross the water and do their (stupid/arrogant) thing without science. Anyone even reading this story is using something that relies on more than 1000 years of disiplined, reproducable science in order to function.
People can be irrational. End of story. It's not about building a stronger case for any particular ideology, its about dispelling and eradicating irrationality, IMHO.
"Old man yells at systemd"
ScienceWire has learned that Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories (DOE:LBNL) is under investigation from the Nobel Physics Committee regarding possible fraud with respect to the existence of Elements 116 and 118.
Lab director, Beef Shank, is "shocked, shocked, I tell you" that fabrication of research went on under his watch. "We have since fired Arthur Anderson from our peer review committee, and have commenced an aggressive investigation in concert with the Nobel Committee, and intend to release our findings when the facts come to light. No further comment."
The individual singled out by Shank, but not identified by him [what the fuck? sometimes satire writes itself -- Editor], was identified by several newspapers as fired physicist and author Victor Nabokov.
Nabokov was suspended by the lab in November, later fired, and has a grievance pending regarding his dismissal for writing books about a quest for an island of stability in a sea of daughter radioisotopes with short half-lives.
Shank lauded his own department for ferreting out the fraud. "There is nothing more important for a laboratory than scientific integrity," Shank told lab employees. "Only with such integrity will the Congress, which funds our work, provide us with more grant money. On the bright side, at least we can conclusively say that we've found at least two candidates for the element Unobtainium."
LBNL stock found no such stability, closing down almost 70% today, to $1.14 (US protons), or $1.84 (Euro neutrons), on heavy volume.
I think that this story PROVES the credibility of science.
:)
In June 1999, scientists at Berkeley discovered 2 new elements.
The scientists and other members of the scientific community attempted to reproduce these elements.
They couldn't.
In July 2001, Berkeley's claims were retracted.
So what if it turns out that one scientist or a group of scientists did something wrong? The point here is that they didn't get away with it. The scientific process is WORKING.
IMHO, of course.
Several engineering companies are distraught over learning that discoveries of the super-strong, super-light element known as Unobtanium were falsified as well.Unobtanium was reportedly discovered by the marketing departments of several prominent firms, but the discoveries were never confirmed by actual engineers.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Preachers arnt the only ones that can be caught with their pants down.
.. somebody finds out, and he's gone, right? Nope. How do you think a university feels about having to answer to the fact that nobody actually _checked_ his PHD with the university he got it from? Pretty badly. So when my mother reported him, the university told her to shut up or find another job.
.. ie, lots of money and reputations).
Case in point: My mother worked for a university (I'll save them face, because I'm sure it happens at every university) where her co-worker had faked his PHD, and was working on bogus research. All results faked. He didn't have a clue what he was doing.
Okay, no problem, you say
A few years later, they found a way of quietly dismissing him on legit grounds. Its all about vested interest - it makes these schools look stupid to admit that they dont have the time/money (nevermind that trust is still important, IMHO) to cross-check every single research project and prof they hire.
It's an unfortunate consequence of life - some people scam, and sometimes the scammed party wants to keep the details silent (having been sexually abused, its the same deal - you feel (wrongly) stupid for being the victim, although with the university, alot more than my pride is involved
Anyhow, dont think this is an isolated case. Take everything with a grain of salt, considering the money and prestige involved in the stakes of science, until its powering your coffee-maker.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Fortunately, science already has systems in place to handle conditions like this. The same mechanism, science's dependency on reputation, which sometimes temporary mislabels new research as a crackpot idea, does an excellent job of protecting the integrity of science as a whole. Since he has been shown guilty by his peers, if Victor Ninov can't find a way to clear his name, he will have a hard time ever publishing work again. And no work he does publish will ever be taken for granted.
Science requires trust to operate, he broke it, and science kicked him out of the game.
As for the title "Elements 116 and 118 are bogus", the elements aren't bogus, this just means they weren't seen that time. It would be extremely surprising if 116 and 118 didn't exist, since very well supported theories show they are there and predict some of their properties.
Let's avoid debate over the question of whether or not Joe Sixpack has "faith" in "Science"; I simply think no-one will have "faith" in an organization involved in a coverup. Announcing the error is all that can be done.
Covering it up is how crap like Enron and Worldcom happen in the first place.
John
According to this site, element 112, Ununbium, was also discovered by this guy, V. Ninov, who forged the results of the discovery of 116 and 118.
:)
It begs the question -- is 112 bogus as well? If not, it makes you wonder why he did this, after previously discovering a new element already. One was not enough?
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
Maybe I read too quickly, but I didn't pick up on the names of the "missing" elements.
Even if they don't exist, they can still have names, can't they? (I know that this wouldn't be scientifically valid, but hey, we're just naming numbers.) Presumably, if they're legitmately discovered, the discoverer gets to name them, but until then, we need placeholders.
I say we name them! How about fraudium and forgium? Worldcomium? Enronium? Coldfusigen? (Of course, we need to draw on more languages than English.)
Hmmm... I'm a physics student, and I just had a course on nuclear physics...
The existence of this stable element that your talking about has been theorised for a long time, but has never been observed or created in the lab. These guys that the story is talking about said they had found it, but actually didn't.
As far as experimental evidence goes, the largest completely stable atom is lead. The most stable atom (ie: the one requiring the most energy to upset) is iron.
In Soviet Russia, sig types you!
This page explains why all of the new elements have this strange Unun-something names, and how they are determined.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
In this particular case, one person lied. Not people, one person, and there was no coverup. Quite the contrary. Despite the fact that some basic check-and-balance procedures were not followed (designed to avoid emberrassment, as there will always be external peer review on this sort of thing as a matter of course), the standard peer review uncovered the fraud when other scientists couldn't duplicate the findings. It is all about checks and balances, whether you are talking about science, politics, engineering, or jurisprudence. Take away your checks and balances and things will go awry
I only wish more people in our society were aware of this basic and very important fact. It is what allows science to function and progress, and it is what allows our democracy to function despite personal corruption. Anytime anyone suggests a "reform" or change, in policy or procedure, that in some way diminishes the checks and balances that are in place *cough* ceeding unprecendented powers to the FBI *cough*, like not doing "the most elemenary checks and data archiving" suspicions should be raised, significantly.
However, in this case peer review and the usual checks and balances did in fact ferret out the fraud and make it known rather quickly. I think this demonstrates that, while individual scientists are certainly capable of misconduct, the scientific method and peer review regime we have works pretty well, and is quite trustworthy.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Open your eyes! We've been lied to this whole time about element 8 as well!
If you read even the summary of the slashdot article you mentioned, you'd see that, "It looks like he has left a few spots for new elements, and it is nicely modular, in the event an element is found not to exist."
"And like that
There is a long standing theory that due to the way certain atoms decay that there may be an island of stability as atomic number or mass increases that will allow these elements to exist much longer than just an instant.
One goal of the research is to eventually find or produce high-mass radio isotopes that will provide more energy and have less residue than exisiting nuclear fuels. At the moment, we're putting a heal of a lot more energy into the creation of these isotopes than we're getting out of them, but if we learn more we might learn how to get a break-even or a profitable reaction.
It's entirely possible that element 119, which will theoretically be an alkali metal with properties similar to cesium, will have a half life long enough to allow it to take place in non-nuclear chemical reactions.
Also of interest is the confirmation of the shape of electron orbitals at higher atomic masses. You've noticed the stair step pattern of the periodic table no doubt? If you insert the lanthanides and actinides between columns 3 and 4 of the period table, where they belong, the effect becomes even more noticable. This is a reflection of the way that electrons bind to nucleii in atoms. Each 'stair step' represents a new electron orbital which can contain a specific number of electrons. These get larger and more complex as the number of electrons in an atom rise.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Personally, I don't believe in Tungsten. And I'm not entirely sure I can trust Boron.
It kind of bugs me that they're constantly talking about "discovering" these "new elements". It's not like it takes a great leap of imagination to think that, "Hey, there's an element with 107 protons... maybe there's one with 108 protons too! *gasp*"
I mean in theory any atom with any integer number of protons CAN exist for some period of time greater than Planck time, I just wish they'd say "created an atom of..." or "synthesized in the lab" rather than "discovered". It just seems kind of misleading. If someone comes up with a truly new way to combine various chemicals to do something, you can say they "discovered" it, because it's not like anyone could have predicted that exact process would exist... but on the periodic table, taking the highest element that has been shown to exist at some point, and then adding one to it, doesn't seem like much of a "discovery".
Maybe I'm just nitpicking...
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
I needed those for my cold fusion project...
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Are they going to be eliminated or renamed Bogusium and Fullashitium?
If it is decaying at the predicted rate it should be gone by now, and you should have been wearing lead trousers.
Lasers Controlled Games!
The new names for these elements will be
"Fibbium" and "Bogusium"
Table-ized A.I.
Man. This hit a little close to home. I was on the team that helped "discover" those elements. I want to explain a couple of items about elemental discovery and answer some questions I saw repeated many times on this thread. Superheavy elements haven't been dug out of the ground and looked at in about 60 years. They are made either by atomic explosions in salt caves (which the CTBT forbids now), or by beam on target collisions using a cyclotron. Accelerate some particles (we used Kr), slam them into a target (we used Pb) and you get a little bit of fusion, resulting in a new element with 82+36 protons: 118. Robert Smolanczuk predicted this would be a good reaction for "cold fusion" (not the kind you are thinking of), and we could expect to see ~1 to ~10 nuclei if our detector efficiencies were high enough, with about a week of beam. (That's constant beam-- I had three midnight to 8 AM shifts on this run). We used the Berkeley Gas-Filled Separator, which is basically two 30-ton magnets and some time-sensitive avalanche and PIIPS detectors. We were looking for a characteristic decay chain. We can get the material from the target area to the detector in microseconds, sweep it onto a detector surface, "listen" for a decay on the order of 10 MeV alpha, then wait for the the element-116 left afterwards to decay with another characteristic alpha energy in a characteristic time, and so on. During the week, we had no cherry responses. The data was mined and we thought we had three promising chains. I guess now they weren't so promising. Of course, I've been kept up to date on the retraction and so forth, but I just thought the data was reanalyzed and the chains were no good or outside of statistical significance. I had no idea of this possibility until reading it here. Victor's work in Germany for 110, 111, and 112 is unbesmirchable. Those elements have been confirmed (i.e., made in another lab using the same reaction). They aren't named because the German group just hasn't named them. We bothered them for years, and I'm sure they still get requests. I know they wanted to name one for the valley the lab was in: Hassium or Lassium or something. Still hasn't happened. I'm a little embarrassed. I've lost one of my best conversation pieces--and a resume entry for that matter.
Berkeley admitted that gold does not exist either. It was all nothing more than bronzed lead that was sprinkled into rivers and streams to build some hype and interest.
"Boy is your girlfriend gonna be pissed", was heard just outside of a downtown jewerly store.
Table-ized A.I.
Is that the same as Bium?
c-hack.com |
...Arthur Anderson was supposed to audit the research, right?
"Lord, grant that I may always be right, for Thou knowest that I am hard to turn" -- A Scots-Irish prayer
i remember talking about millikan's famous oil drop experiments in freshman physics class. turns out he selectively edited his experimental results, because he had a vision of what the right answer was.
i'm not going to say with a straight face that what millikan did is the same as what this guy did. i'm just noting that these are two points on a behavioral continuum also known as "the slippery slope".
this guy had already discovered one element. he probably truly thought these other two elements were right there and if didn't hurry up and find them, somebody else would, and if he was right, what's the difference? he knew what the data should look like.
the lesson: peer review exists for a reason.
-- p
What it tells us is that no scientific result is credible until it has been independently replicated by others.
What is so depressing about these cases of fraud is that they discourage the replication of interesting but implausible results: if fraud is common, people aren't going to spend time and money on things that may be fraudulent. That is why this kind of thing really hurts science.
Scientists have just reported that Element 16 is also bogus.
We now bring you to our correspondent who is on the eckkackkk kuhcc
Context: I'm from the Australian National University Nuclear Physics department; and this is a topic for discussion this morning :-)
It has been suggested here that Victor Ninov is being made into a scapegoat.
Facts that you might be able to confirm or deny:
The Physical Review Letter was submitted when Victor Ninov was away for a few weeks.
He was furious because he didn't think the data was ready yet. (Implication from my colleague; not all the checks had been performed yet; if they had been the original announcement might never have been made. Colleague saw him at a conference not long after the paper submission.)
The paper was published based on the earliest analysis of the data. (I guess you've already half-confirmed this one.)
People here have said that although it's clear some data was faked, it is *not* clear why or when. They see no motive for faking the original data, prior to the first publication. (We're talking about a field where the truth will out, sooner or later; one success should be followed within a year or two by someone else's confirmation. Even if that weren't the case, sooner or later false results get detected and replaced. It takes a lot of time, discussion, work, etc, to determine a) that something is wrong, b) which something is wrong, and c) why, but it happens. (I've recently been involved in exposing the limitations of a particular experimental method.)) It is suggested that the false data may have been inserted after the appearance of the PRL paper, when re-examination of the original data failed to return the 118 decay chains.
And if *that* is the case, then it could all be a terrible mistake. Because I *can* imagine inserting a few events into a copy of the run data, just to make sure that the data mining was working as it should. Indeed, if results were disappearing on me, I probably *would* make such a set of test data. Would I label it t for test, f for fake, a for artificial? Actually, I personally tend to long filenames, but that's because I've learned from experienced programmers and I've seen the confusion that can arise when single letter codes are used.
My point is that although one individual would know a set of data was faked, they might not realise that others in their group were doing datamining on the wrong files. Was data faked to test the analysis procedures? Or to cover someone's tails after the PRL publication came out? I'd suggest 'go over the logbooks' but combining computer analysis and handwritten logbooks requires a certain discipline that is rarely rewarded. Experiments are recorded in exhaustive detail - analysis often is recorded in patches. Why write down new filenames every half hour? And even if you think you've recorded what you've done, why, and where you plan on going next, you can find your own logbooks uninformative. So there's only a moderate chance that they'll reveal the whole story (I expect people have already reviewed them anyway.)
I don't know. Ninov might be the one copping the flak because someone didn't like him. I met him at a conference in Australia about 18 months ago. He listened to my presentation, then asked why I didn't talk about some things and tried to explain to me that there was something wrong with my research. Being a student listening to a bigwig, I tried to get what he was on about. When we started the third round of the conversational loop, I gave up. He did the same thing to my supervisors - they had to tell him "shut up and let us finish explaining" three times before he *did* listen, and then admitted they were right. Being swift to imagine flaws in data or method is a good trait in a scientist. Combining that with being slow to listen probably *would* make you enemies.
Rachel
"In this era of corporate misbehavior and overstatement of results who can you trust? Scientific sources, of course."
Seeing most universities are businesses these days
why should we expect the to behave any differently
to any other business? Money and emphasis on growth is the all important thing that every entity must strive for. Lying and misrepresentation are something that a business does every day in order to attract investors, students, customers and employees. Why not lie about your research prowess too?
In my next incarnation, I hope to come back as a code monkey.
.......old news..... they've retracted their claim about 118 a long time ago.... id get the article for you, but im too lazy...
It's entirely possible that element 119, which will theoretically be an alkali metal with properties similar to cesium, will have a half life long enough to allow it to take place in non-nuclear chemical reactions.
Probably more likely it will resemble Francium.
Windownium (element 286) also includes elements 47 (silver), 78 (platinum), 79 (gold), and 92 (uranium), as well as a few other elements, SO there will no longer be a need to aquire those elements from 3rd party distributors.
Created by a patented process known as "Microsoft fusion".
When they called one of the new elements "Upsidasium". What fools!