In making the below article, a number of academics/tutors/teachers were consulted.
The hurry to find a better sustainable energy source is becoming increasingly important as terrifying projections on those remaining are made. Nuclear fusion has proved to produce huge energy outputs but only with methods requiring more energy than generated.
The general concencus from the academics/tutors/teachers was that:
When claims to achieving nuclear fusion relatively readily from sound waves intense scrutiny and criticism was inevitable. R.P.Taleyarkhan et al. published the original papers outlining exactly these results in 2002 that have since been dismissed by various scientists.
Taleyarkhan et al. claims to achieve fusion using sonofusion, the phenomena sonoluminescence (SL) under certain conditions. SL is when high velocity ultra sonic waves are focused onto tiny bubbles inside a liquid, the vibrations from the sound cause the bubble to collapse and give off a flash of light. The experiments performed in involve creating sonoluminescence in deuterated acetone with individual bubbles, generated using a pulse of neutrons. These proved more stable than minute air bubbles already present in the liquid, which enabled large pressure and temperature conditions.
If D-D fusion occurs the outputs of tritium and neutrons should be equal and occur simultaneously with the production of light. However, one source accepts that the results from the experiments don’t show this, with a tritium neutron ratio of a maximum 10:1, and they reason this with:
1)’Neutron energy reduction by scattering in the test chamber’
2) ‘Reduced detections efficiency for sizeable-angle knock-ons from 2.5MeV neutrons’
3) ‘Possible fluctuations in T concentration in the acetone’
M.J.Saltmarsh and D.Shapira repeated the experiment and stated that these reasons would only allow a 2:1 which doesn’t allow for the 10:1 ratio described in. They also queried the discrepancy in timing of the light from SL and the neutrons detected from the acclaimed sonofusion. Indicating the neutron counts were not harvested in the SL but were from background noise and combined with the neutrons being used to form the bubbles.
In answer to this report Taleyarkhan et al. said didn’t account for experimental discrepancies and that they had mishandled the data in their calculations. Taleyarkin et al. eventually published an additional article in 2004 citing that the previous results had been repeated with the addition of neutron emission on later cycles in the bubble implosions.
In 2005 the BBC weighed in, commissioning S.Putterman to do an independent experiment Puttermans results produced absolutely no correlation between the timing of the SL flashes and the neutron signals and so concluded negative.
The legislative side of this issue is also of huge interest, with Taleyarkhan being implicated by Dr.Suslick for scientific misconduct in 2006. This was not further investigated when a new report of Taleyarkhans results being repeated by E.Forringer et al was published later that year. However on September 10th 2007 it was declared more investigation was being reinitiated due to several issues including the re-produced results being produced in Taleyarkhan’s own labs.
The academics/tutors/teachers concluded that:
The riddle over sonofusion can be discovered with more experimentation and has the potential to revolutionise the modern world.
