"Tabletop" Fusion Researcher Committed Scientific Misconduct

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.

Comments

Railroading

[transami]

I call B.S. Taleyarkhan is being railroaded. They are trying to discredit him on the basis of mis-representative claims of reproduction and authorship, rather then refuting his work experimentally, as is proper science.

This whole thing has the bad smell. Why is Congress so involved in this... writing letters pressuring Purdue to discredit Taleyarkhan? How can two other schools be involved and not share any of the blame? See...

    http://www.physorg.com/news10336.html

If there's any chance this type of fusion might work, there should be plenty of people and $ involved in research. That kind of research will discredit or accredit Taleyarkhan. Anything else is politics. And I for one and sick of it.

Re:OMG..

[Grave]

If it can't be replicated by others, it is useless to the world. After all this time, for him to not have been able to demonstrate it for others, means he is full of crap. End of story.

Global Climate Change...

[Illbay]

...is an example of "scientific misconduct" masquerading as mass hysteria.