Victor Ninov

Victor Ninov ( Bulgarian Виктор Нинов ) is a Bulgarian physicist and nuclear scientists.

Victor Ninov studied at the University of Darmstadt and received his doctorate there in 1992. After that, he was employed by the Society for Heavy Ion Research (GSI ) in Darmstadt- Arheilgen there and involved in the discovery of elements with atomic numbers 110 ( Darmstadium ), 111 ( Roentgenium ) and 112 ( Copernicium ). He was regarded as a leading expert in the field of heavy ion research, in particular the need to elaborate computer software for monitoring the radioactive decay processes. After working in Darmstadt, he was at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ( LBNL ) in Berkeley, USA, busy.

Ninov researches and teaches at the private University of the Pacific in Stockton in the U.S. state of California. He is married to Caroline Cox, a professor of history, which is also active at this university.

Ninov was to have forged mainly by accusations measurement data, the much-publicized lay a report on the alleged production of chemical elements 116 ( Livermorium ) and 118 ( Ununoctium ) at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory based on familiarity. This report was published in 1999 in the journal Physical Review Letters ( with a total of 15 authors with Ninov, Kenneth Gregorich ), but withdrawn in the following year from LBNL, as the results described above, the experimental arrangement by other scientists in Germany, Japan, and finally the LBNL themselves were not to reproduce. Ninov was after an extensive investigation into the incident dismissed by LBNL 2001. He sees himself as a scapegoat, still maintained his innocence and refers to measurement error of the apparatus used.

Promising evidence for the generation of the two elements 116 and 118 have been reported in the meantime, the Russian nuclear research center in Dubna.

As a consequence, the measurement results in the discovery of the elements 110 and 112 in Darmstadt, where Ninov was involved were examined again. Again, a decay chain was found in the detection of element 110 as a fake, but there were enough other observations before, so no release had to be withdrawn.