What do Vorts make of the californium claim below?
Harry
Are days numbered for 'bubble fusion'?
18 March 2006
NewScientist.com news service
THE prospect of cheap energy from tabletop "bubble fusion" seems as far from
reality as ever, with its biggest proponent under scrutiny following the
failure of others to reproduce his results.
Bubble fusion is the idea that blasting a liquid with sound can make bubbles
grow within it and then collapse, generating high enough temperatures to
trigger thermonuclear fusion. Rusi Taleyarkhan, a nuclear engineer at Purdue
University in West Lafayette, Indiana, has published a steady stream of
papers over the past few years claiming bubble fusion works. Other
researchers have tried and failed to reproduce his work.
In January, Taleyarkhan released for the first time raw data of the energy
spectrum of the neutrons he claimed were by-products of fusion reactions.
His results were re-analysed by Brian Naranjo, a graduate student at Seth
Putterman's lab at the University of California, Los Angeles. Naranjo
concludes there is less than a one in a million chance that fusion could
have produced the observed spectrum. It is, however, a good match for
neutrons emitted by the element californium, Naranjo says, and he has
submitted his conclusions for publication. Taleyarkhan admits there was
californium near his experiment but denies it is the source of the neutrons
he saw. "I was very shocked by the allegations," he told New Scientist.
³Other researchers have tried and failed to reproduce the bubble fusion
results²
Purdue University's own internal inquiry into the allegations is expected to
last several months.
>From issue 2543 of New Scientist magazine, 18 March 2006, page 6
