Taleyarkhan and Bubble Fusion

Jolb

Rusi Taleyarkhan published many papers in pretty well-respected journals claiming that he was able to achieve hydrogen-hydrogen fusion using bubble cavitation/sonoluminescence. However he was found guilty of falsifying his research and got his funding revoked.

Has anyone with a background in fusion/nuclear physics been following this? What do you make of it? Was he just being completely dishonest or is there something to bubble fusion?

Drakkith

I don't have a background in those areas, but from what I've read the evidence is inconclusive. You have some that claim they had neutron detection, and other than claim they didn't. If it really were possible I would expect the evidence to show up under most experiments.

Vanadium 50

"found guilty of falsifying his research" is pretty serious. Universities don't make statements like this without very, very, very strong evidence. They don't do this just because they think someone made a mistake.

llynne

I watched a show on bubble cavitation/sonoluminescence, Taleyarkhan was definiely onto an interesting phenomenon, but like cold-fusion, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion) people get inspired to find what they want to see rather than keeping an open mind. Anyone caught falsifying results loses the right to call their work scientific
http://www.sciencemag.org/site/featu...le/index.xhtml