The essence of science is reproducibility. That is PRECISELY what separates the practice of science from fable. Read Msafwan’s post for a better take. It is absolutely incumbent upon the researcher to provide a reproducible roadmap. If they cannot, and moreover resist the effort, their experiment is worthless or worse, misleading & they are at least lousy scientists, and likely worse.

Taleyarkhan was given a challenge (show neutron generation coincident with the light pulse) – he failed to meet that, and would not assist the other team. that shows bad intent.

Part of this aspect of reproducability is that some other person can get a similar result. Having Taleyarkhan re-do his experiment, as someone else with a similar misunderstanding about the basis of science complained, does not at all go to the issue of reproducibility. He was asked to cooperate, and refused.

Why sympathize with the man? Taleyarkhan made claims he couldnt/wouldnt back up. I don’t understand the carping. The fact that a TV show could fund an experiment to disprove this fellow’s audacious claim indicates they were doing work any other university might have undertaken themselves, and subsequently have. Good for them.

In 2008 the man was stripped of a named professorship and forbidden from being a graduate thesis advisor for three years, on the basis of a rigged corroboration paper by some of his graduate students (source: bubble fusion: wiki). That might tell you something.

And why should a pulse of neutrons need to be observed within the same nanosecond as the light burst? If there is an obvious cause and effect, that should be sufficient. The timing between them might only be a matter of the variance in the distance between the reaction and the instruments of measurement, or the inherent variance within the reaction between the burst of light and the creation of neutrons.

I think more effort should go into following up Taleyarkhan’s experiments. Oh wait.. I just read Wiki:

“He is debarred for 28 months, until September 2011, from receiving U.S. Federal Funding, due to legal actions taken by the Office of Naval Research, which previously funded some of his research.[3] Taleyarkhan received in September 2008 a $185,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to investigate bubble fusion in spite of misconduct investigations, so the ONR added in 2009 his name to the ‘Excluded Parties List’ to prevent further grants.

I guess we’re all stuck with oil for a few more years. Somebody doesn’t want this pursued.

Now I just wanted to recommend a documentary on the subject of clean energy and science behind it. It’s called “Energy From The Vacuum” It may not be as interesting for most but none the less it’s a great documentary and (in my humble opinion)should be featured here for people to see.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/can-we-make-star-on-earth/

In this video, all these scientists say that they will create a star on earth. While in the process, a mini black hole will be created. However, cold fusion, not possible. Hmmmm? One thing is clear: the nations of the world are scrambling behind the scenes to develop this stuff. Now look at the 60 minutes video recently made stating that cold fusion is possible after all. http://goo.gl/ALvJ