Rusi Taleyarkhan
Rusi P. Taleyarkhan (* 1953 in DOHaD ) is originating from India, American physicist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. His work in the field of nuclear fusion (and later Cold Fusion ) is controversial.
Life and work
Taleyarkhan comes from a prominent Parsi family and grew up in Bombay and in the state of Gujarat. He studied mechanical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras with a Bachelor 's degree, went in 1977 to the United States where he studied nuclear engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ( Nuclear Engineering ) to the master's degree and was awarded the doctorate. With his wife Navaz Rusi he has three children named Pervin, Manaz and Meher.
Taleyarkhan claims to be able to generate a vesicle fusion in the field of sonoluminescence. Taleyarkhan published on 8 March 2001 his research results in the issue of Science magazine. This sparked international controversy among researchers of which still continues today, since his experiment has not yet been reproduced completely independent.
The TV and radio stations BBC undertook the experiment in February 2005 for the exact templates Taleyarkhan. However, no nuclear fusion could be detected. Taleyarkhan claimed that the experiment of the BBC had errors and thus the merger did not take place.
The investigation into the allegations
The persistent allegation of scientific misconduct ultimately led in the spring of 2007, the Committee on Science and Technology of the U.S. House of Representatives ( House Committee on Science and Technology) to its own investigation after two internal audits of operations through commissions from Purdue University in mid-February 2007 in the journal Nature had been criticized as opaque.
In May 2007, an evaluation of the Committee Chairman, Brad Miller, known, in which he described the internal checks of the university as " not careful " ( "not thorough " ) and as not the usual rules for checking possible scientific misconduct following. Moreover, had not been previously attempted to check the validity of the experiments ( "never Addressed the validity of the underlying research" ). Subsequently, the University set up a third commission, which was occupied "because of their familiarity with the matter " ( "familiar with the issues" ) with members of the two previous commissions of inquiry. This Commission considered scientific misconduct against Taleyarkhan in 34 cases. In two of these accusations Taleyarkhan was found guilty in 2008. For one on one of his publications he had named a co- author who had not made a relevant contribution to the study; through the designation of which have Taleyarkhan will only prevent the possible criticism that his study had been carried out by a single person. Secondly, the assertion in a 2006 published in Physical Review Letters article, its results had been now reproduced independently of him; this statement is but wrong.
On 27 August 2008 he withdrew from the management of the Purdue University as a professor ( Arden Bement Jr. Professorship ), forbade him for at least three years training graduate students, but granted him continued membership in his faculty.
Among the accusations and condemnation by the University said the nuclear engineering professor Günter Lohnert (University of Stuttgart ), editor of the published journal in an interview that the commission of inquiry had taken to the relevant technical issues not comment and criticism only trifles: " This whole 30, 40 pages verdict are only formal matters, not one is somehow for the theme itself. " However, Lohnert had early distinguished himself as a supporter of cold fusion, the Sonofusion called Taleyarkhan proven and supported. That's why he had come into their own criticism. Lohnert was replaced in 2009 as an active editor of the published journal.