Bubble Fusion Researcher Faces Fraud Trial 154
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."
Clearing Up Confusion (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [wikipedia.org] 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"?
Re:Clearing Up Confusion (Score:3, Interesting)
Food for thought -- just supposing Taleyarkhan really produced sonofusion (however much of a stretch that might be), who stands to gain and who stands to lose if someone really produces a net-positive energy fusion reaction? How quickly would Congresscritters bought and paid for by big oil want to shut him up?
I'm not saying he did or didn't do it -- it's just that I'm betting if someone comes up with a net-positive reaction that can be reproduced easily and cheaply we'll never hear about it.
Re:Clearing Up Confusion (Score:4, Interesting)
You need to remember, Tokamak is basically a REALLY LARGE Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor. It uses different technologies to accomplish its goal, but both devices perform plasma confinement to achieve fusion.
Oops forgot to mention (Score:1, Interesting)
Sonoluminescence is very, very cheap. (Score:5, Interesting)
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).
Re:Clearing Up Confusion (Score:5, Interesting)
On another note. I always found it interesting that D+D = He4 fusion is rejected by the physicists because the resulting He4 would have too much energy and eject a neutron to become He3. So why then does He4 constitute 90-something percent of the naturally occurring helium? What is the reaction that is supposed to produce this atom? It's just a question, I'm not claiming anyone is right or wrong with this. I really want to understand where it is supposed to come from.
Re:Nevertheless, the question is valid. (Score:2, Interesting)
Which is interesting. The Asian community is a "victim", if you will, of positive racism. Meaning, folks automatically assume they are smarter than the rest of us. Who was the Asian guy on "American Idol" or one of those clones who wanted to sing and he was complaining that folks thought he was a chemist and not a singer? I thought that was a perfect example of that form of prejudice. It's the same in Silicon Valley. I once read somewhere that Indian expatriates have an easier time getting venture funding than us lazy dumb Americans.
It's the same in other areas (Liberal and Fine Arts) where having an English accent makes you more credible. Isn't interesting that all of the American Idol clones have a guy with an English accent?
Re:Sorry! (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as congress, they are simply doing what will get their faces, and more importantly their names in the media, so that they will win their next election. They would be getting free campaign advertising out of it, more than money can buy. They look like they are serving the public interest, when there are more pressing issues, which are more difficult to navigate politically. This issue is 'safe'. If they 'convict' the guy, they come out as heroes; if they've suffered an innocent man, then there is little political fallout, in terms of election, special interest group ( and no, pressure from the scientific community is not strong enough to motivate congress ), corporations who finance their campaigns... and they still get their names in the papers and on TV.
It's basically a popularity competition... <sigh> I guess representative democracy is the least worst form of government that has been shown to work. Personally, I'm in favor of direct democracy.
CNO cycle - nuclear catalyst (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Clearing Up Confusion (Score:2, Interesting)
Good question. A quick bit of research leads me to believe that, at least in stars around the size of our Sun, the answer is the proton-proton chain reaction [wikipedia.org]. It starts off with individual hydrogen-1 (ie, protons) being fused to form hydrogen-2, and finishes (usually) with helium-4 being produced by the fusion of two helium-3 nuclei, with two excess protons being released and feeding back into the top of the cycle.