Slashdot Mirror
Bubble Fusion Researcher Faces Fraud Trial
An anonymous reader writes "In 2001, Rusi P. Taleyarkhan shocked the world by claiming he had successfully produced a positive net energy bubble fusion reaction; cold fusion. The New York Times reports that a congressional hearing is now under way against Taleyarkhan, even though Purdue University has already cleared the scientist of any wrongdoing. Dr. Taleyarkhan said last night in an e-mail message that the subcommittee's report represents 'a gross travesty of justice.' He asked, 'Where are the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons of the Asian community during this episode that has caused this biased and openly one-sided smear campaign?' You can view the full (colorful) e-mail at Dailytech."
WOW, that's a loaded statement. Let me correct a few things:
1. Taleyarkhan didn't report his research until 2002.
2. I have never seen a source that claims that sonofusion is currently net positive. That's an incredibly difficult feat to achieve, and has been an active point of research.
3. Bubble Fusion is NOT Cold Fusion any more than a Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor is. In fact, the reaction is hotter than hades. (About 10 megakelvins, or about as hot as the center of the sun.)
This is a bit of a misstatement. According to TFA, the Congressional subcommittee that's responsible for funding various scientific endeavors into new energy sources asked Purdue to review its finding. So Purdue reopened the case, and is again putting Taleyarkhan through the wringer.
On a side note, shouldn't this be listed under "Science" rather than "Hardware"?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
... to question him all day and then award him some grant money to help him find his missing "cold bubbles".
Invoking the names of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, the two biggest perpetuators (is that a real word?) and perpetrators of racism in this country, loses all credibility in my eyes. Stand on your own two feet and let the facts speak for themselves.
Don't they mean "Rusi P. TaleyarKhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!"
'Where are the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons of the Asian community during this episode that has caused this biased and openly one-sided smear campaign?'
Holy crap, I think the Asian community can do without the likes of people like Jesse "Heimy Town" Jackson and Al "Tawana Brawley" Sharpton. They represent their communities about as well as David Duke represents his...
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
From TFA, it would appear that it has to do with the administration of research grant money. If you make false/exaggerated claims, manipulate your results, omit your name from being party to research that substantiates your claims, all while having your research federally funded (at least partially), is why congressional oversight is getting involved.
I thought that was Frank Lloyd Wright's studio?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
If Taleyarkhan has made errors of judgement with regard to the authorship of papers, I would sincerely like to know that and for him to come forward.
e rsy.htm might wonder what is really going on here.
On the other hand, mastershake_phd makes an interesting comment. "There must be something im missing here, what motive could congress have to investigate this guy? This isnt some major incident, most of the public hasnt even heard about this. I wonder what they are after."
Run your clock back a year ago. He was accused of spiking his experiment with Californium. Turns out that that whole assault was based on theoretical calculations and speculation. As much as some people wanted to "prove" that he had committed experimental fraud, they have so far, failed to make their case.
I suspect that there is much more to this story than reported by the Times. An inquisitive person who looks at the larger span of events, http://newenergytimes.com/BubbleTrouble/BFControv
As someone who has spent the last six years investigating controversial science, I have a good sense of the difficulties of new, poorly-understood science.
The challenge of replication in unchartered scientific territory is not to be taken lightly and readily dismissed as "evidence" of non-science. Many people in the field of science, when pushed, will admit that one can never prove a negative, no matter how may attempts fail.
I am also keenly aware of the multitude of human issues in high-profile science; among these, intellectual property, intellectual primacy, competition for funding and grants.
The bold, outspoken criticisms of respected scientists in the popular media do not always make it easy for the lay reader to distinguish between science fact and science politics.
The important question to ask here, is, why all the fuss, and why a Congressional inquiry about who is listed on a science paper?
Steven Krivit Editor, New Energy Times
I got bored/frustrated trying to decipher the article.
;)
I decided it is simpler to call it a good distraction for a few congresscritters so they don't attempt any real work and let it go at that
Irrespective of the merits of the reverends Jackson and Sharpton, and regardless of whether criticism of Teleyarkhan in this case is motivated by racism, it remains a fact there are no highly visible individuals or organizations that can create a big media storm against cases of anti-Asian or anti-Indian racism.
The correct response is, "If my research is correct it will be independently validated and these resurrected charges will prove moot."
Instead Taleyarkhan responded with an Appeal to motive, a logical fallacy. Big red flag in my book.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
No, you're just anonymous (like me!), provide no details (verifiable or otherwise), and ask us to believe you on account of using the phrase, "I'm not kidding."
Did you guys know that a friend of mine saw the parent AC torture fluffy kittens in his backyard? I'm not kidding.
My guess is that you didn't RTFA. If you had, you'd realize that despite what the posting says, he is not "on trial for fraud" - he is undergoing a second ethics review at Purdue that is in response to new allegations that arose after he was cleared in an earlier one, and *in addition* a Congressional Subcommittee issued a report finding that the original review was not up to the standards to which they expect a university that receives Federal research funds to hold.
I've done summer research for my Physics degree on Sonoluminescence, and I can definitely attest that it isn't a waste of grant money. I've read Dr. Taleyarkhan's sork, and I can say that a little deuterated water, some radiation detectors, and a piezo-electric speaker is a pretty cheap way to try to do fusion. So what if it never is going to achieve break-even? So what if only a few neutrons of fusion are produced, if any at all?
Sonoluminescence is really one of the easiest, cheapest ways to achieve simultaneously high pressures and high temperatures in a controlled fashion. Seriously. All you need is a jar of (ideally "de-gassed" or boiled) water, a piezo-electric speaker, something to drive it with at a certain frequency, and another microphone to detect when you are in resonance. Heck, you don't even need a microphone (by the end of the summer, I had developed my sense of hearing that I could detect the resonance and achieve the sonoluminescence without a microphone and a scope).
Trust me, people don't understand sonoluminescence well enough yet to actually rule out the possibility that enough heat and pressure occur to produce a few fusion reactions. These are a few of the something like a half-dozen theories on the source of the light of sonoluminescence: the Casimir effect (relativistic accelerating refractive index interfaces... more unlikely than sonofusion), Bremsstrahlung radiation, smeared spectral lines, and plain old Blackbody radiation.
I am glad some research money went to this guy. I say he should get more! I mean, this is NOTHING like cold fusion, and I believe that money should be spread out when it comes to fusion research, not just concentrated into a money-hole like the ITER project, which if it produces any positive net-energy, it will be from burning the $100 bills of the tax-payers (not just US tax-payers, either).
Inability to replicate is what keeps most fringe sciences on the fringe. It's not taken lightly as you say, but very seriously as the concept of independent experiment replication is the foundation of the scientific method. These things take time, especially when even "hot" fusion hasn't reached the break-even point. How long did Phlogiston and Aether stay in the science books?
All that aside, how did you get Arthur C. Clarke to write the foreword to your new book?
I may make you feel, but I can't make you think.
Er, I think us Asians are a bit under-represented in the "superstar lawyer / advocate" category.
Not that it's a bad thing.
Given that the US is generally an innocent-till-proven-guilty society, if it's case of fraud, the burden of proof is on the accuser, or in this case, the good (or bad) doc's teammate. But y'all knew that. Like lots of folks, I guess I'm puzzled why Congress should even bother: this is an academic tussle after all, and this is very far from settled science. Photo-op, maybe? Or, show that they can say "deuterium?" I suspect a grandstanding session inbound.
Science never settles, never rests.
If Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton were actual civil rights leaders, they work to benefit all races, not just theirs. If Jackson, Sharpton, and the NAACP (the 'c' is for 'colored') did their jobs correctly, no one would ever be caught asking about the Asian variation of Jackson and Sharpton.
Unfortunately, Jackson and Sharpton are simple charlatans using race as a springboard for their own agendas. Civil rights is color blind. It'd be handy if people we believe to be civil rights leaders would start practicing that.
Has anyone ever heard of a case where Jackson and Sharpton have acted in the interest of the Asian community? Hispanic? American Indian? Arab Americans? Yugoslavs? Romanians? Jews?
You're changing the argument, which is understandable since you can't argue the merits of Sharpton or Jackson. They certainly don't fight to improve the situations that you list.
What Sharpton and Jackson do is insert themselves into situations where race is an issue for their own gain. They care nothing about the people involved - only the increase of their fame, wealth, and power. They frequently involve themselves in situations where their presence is not needed or wanted. The latest example is Jesse Jackson meeting with the Atlanta Braves because of the lack of black ballplayers on their roster. It's ridiculous to think that a professional sports team would want to hire any but the best players they can afford. If the Braves were in a position to hire Ryan Howard, Barry Bonds, and Derek Lee, do you think that they would hesitate because the players are black?
The worst thing about Jackson and Sharpton is that they insult blacks because they further the notion that blacks need help to get ahead.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
Because it was supposed to be independent verification of Taleyarkhan's claims. If he really did coauthor the paper, then his research was NOT independently verified. If his research was not independently verified, then funding may have provided on false or misleading data.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
As someone who has spent the last six years investigating controversial science, I have a good sense of the difficulties of new, poorly-understood science.
As someone who has actually done controversial science for a living, I have a good sense of how all science worth doing is new and poorly understood, and how little appreciation of that fact people on the fringe have.
In every experiment there are things that make you go, "Hmmm..." Almost all of the time they are irrelevant, and it is a matter of taste and good judgement as to when you spend the time and effort to follow up on them. People who have never done real experiments or who are very badly trained fail to appreciate this, and therefore ascribe to every anomaly a significance that it does not have.
There are several consequences of this: good scientists sometimes miss significant anomalies; bad scientists sometimes make important discoveries; good scientists spend almost all their time generating well-quantified reproducible results that accumulate to the betterment of humanity; bad scientists spend almost all their time pursuing irrelevant anomalies and telling everyone how smart they are.
Every experimental scientist knows that it is possible to prove a negative, and we do it all the time. They are called null results. The entire field of physics beyond the standard model has been generating reams of these for the past couple of decades. We know, for example, that neutrinoless double beta decay does NOT happen with a lifetime of less than some large number. The ABSENCE of a signal is the result. Likewise, we know that the 17 keV neutrino does NOT exist, and the experiments that proved it were designed in the manner of all such: they demonstrated that A=>B, and then showed !B, and therefore !A by modus tollens.
For example, if you have a working tachometer, and it reads zero, your engine is not running, because if your engine is running your working tachometer will read more than 100 RPM. Any such experiment involves a good deal of secondary experimental work to demonstrate that the tachometer really is working, and isolating it from any possible unexpected effects, but at the end of the day you are always detecting a phenomenon that is well-known, like a beta spectrum or the number of neutrons being produced, or in the case of a tachometer a spinning shaft.
Fringe scientists have a tendency to invoke "new physics" to explain why no one else measures the shaft spinning when they do. Good scientists understand that spinning is spinning, no matter what causes it, and that for the fringe scientist to be right everything we know about tachometers must be wrong, and that is simply not plausible.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
...of the truth of Cold Fusion/SonoFusion/WhateverFusion, this kind of thing has no business infrom of a buch of ignorant, empty headed, fatass, pisant politicians.
If the taxpayer was defrauded, then the local AG should be handling it.
If it is an issue of scientific misconduct or fraud, then the university should handle it.
If they handle it in an inqdaquate manner, then they will pay the price in reputation and future grants.
All congressional hearings will get you is more global warming.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
It's called the Carbon-Nitrogen-Oxygen cycle.
Just as a chemical catalyst reduces the energy needed to perform a chemical reaction, and allows certain reactions to take place that couldn't happen directly, so does a nuclear catalyst allow nuclear reactions to take place at lower energies than would otherwise be needed.
This also explains why oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon are so common, as well.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Most of the helium in the universe was produced as the universe expanded and cooled from a very hot state, so hot and dense that is is thought that the forces of nature had similar strengths (physics was quite different). Once the universe has cooled enough to form deuterium and have it stick around for a little rather than breaking apart again then nucleosynthesis could proceed. The universe is cooling and rapidly so the neutrons are coming from an equilibrium state of about equal to the the protons but they have not had 14 minutes to decay. With all those neutrons around, He3 was turned into He4 and tritium-duetrium fusion also produced He4. There is a d+d->He4 reaction as well but it has a low branching ratio, though, owing to its particular symmetry, it may play a role in cold fusion. This page http://www.einstein-online.info/en/spotlights/BBN_ phys/index.html has some diagrams.
s -selling-solar.html
This mode of fusion is quite different from the way that stars do fusion because free neutrons are not available. Fusion in stars starts with proton-proton fusion (rare in the big band) or in more massive stars, carbon acts as a catalyst, something that never happened in the big bang.
--
Get fusion now: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Graying, shrinking Europe? The EU is expanding, the economy is on the rise in almost every sector in almost every member country (you've heard of the Irish Tiger?), and let's not forget that there are over 450 million of them.
By contrast, as an American living in Europe, I have watched the buying power of my savings in USD drop by 40% vs. the Euro since 2001.
Who is shrinking?
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.