In 1997 a physicist created a limitless supply of clean, cheap energy while narrowly avoiding revolution in Russia. Unfortunately for oil-guzzling consumers, it happened in \The Saint""'a movie.
In the March 8 issue of Science magazine, researchers claim they have truly accomplished this feat, colloquially know as ""tabletop"" fusion. The scientific community remains no more hopeful than it was in 1997.
Using a low-pressure chamber, researchers blasted a liquid solution with sound waves to create, and burst, tiny bubbles. In those rapid bursts, the researchers, led by Rusi Taleyarkhan of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, saw evidence of locally high pressures and temperatures, conditions they believe resulted in two deuterium ions fusing together. This process, known to physicists as nuclear fusion, is the source of the sun's seemingly boundless energy.
If this phenomenon were to ever be utilized in a commercial setting, it would provide almost limitless amounts of clean, cheap energy.
""It could be a tremendous resource for mankind, potentially,"" Richard Lahey, another physicist on the project from the Renesslear Polytechnic Institute, told The Washington Post. ""It really has the potential to solve a lot of the problems we've had in nuclear energy with radioactive waste, safety and the availability of fuel. If this thing can be made to work, these problems could go away.""
Researchers have been studying fusion for decades, with little luck finding a way to harness it to work for mankind's benefit. Most experts do agree that if fusion was utilized, it would all but eliminate the planet's power crisis.
This study has not elicited the type of enthusiasm one would expect from its potential applications. As a result, Lahey and the study's supporters are forced to use a tone of cautious optimism.
""This would have to be repeated for me to be convinced, and even then they would have to go further than the current paper to convince me this is fusion,"" said Jake Blanchard, UW-Madison associate professor of engineering physics.
Blanchard's pessimism is not uncommon. Experts nationwide have clearly stated their skepticism based on the methods and results of the study.
The debate over the article's worth was only exacerbated when some of Teleyarkhan's colleagues at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory announced they had trouble reproducing the desired results. When using the same model but only a different detector to measure the deuterium ions' marriage, the results were inconclusive. This did not stop Science, widely considered the most prestigious scientific journal, from publishing and hyping the article.
""[Science] seems to have an agenda to hype [the article] more than it deserves, more than it should be,"" said Raymond Fonck, UW-Madison professor of engineering physics.
Fonck sees Science attracting undue attention in two ways: It made the article both the cover story and the source of a defensive editorial. The article received the added attention even when other stories could have gone on the cover and the editorial was not crucial to the article's impact.
This added attention has some worried that the public will become overly hopeful when the study is far from complete.
""The general press and the public at large are very gullible and are easily influenced by sensational articles that offer 'amazing' results that are too good to be true,"" said Robert Austin, Princeton University professor of physics.
If Science had any intention of letting the fusion article slip by as just another study, matters were further complicated March 1 when Robert Park, on behalf of the American Physical Society, issued a ""premature dismissal"" of the fusion article, according to Science. That move likely made the article more visible and anticipated only one week before its release.
A separate storm of criticism charges that the system of peer review, which forms the foundation for modern research was used strategically.
To be published in any research journal, each article is subjected to review by experts in that same field. In this case, not all referees saw the study as promising.
Seth Putterman, a physicist from UCLA, was one referee for the fusion article. After reviewing the article he told The New York Times his impressions: ""I think the paper is wrong.""
Unanimity amongst referees is not a prerequisite for publication. There are times when referees split or an editor makes a judgement call on his own.
""Reviewers can be wrong. The editor has to make a judgement,"" said Blanchard. ""Without the facts, I hesitate to judge, but it appears that the editor should have waited until he had more information.""
What can be agreed on is that controversial work is good for science and should not be shunned. Some of the most important findings have been controversial when first mentioned, from evolution to Galileo's discovery that the planets revolve around the sun. What the future holds for this incarnation of ""tabletop"" fusion is unclear. If the past has anything to offer, it does not bode well for the study.
In 1989, two researchers claimed they unlocked the keys to ""cold"" fusion, a different twist on the same phenomenon. Today, that study is considered completely flawed and virtually worthless.
Still, there has been no death knell for the research, and some remain optimistic. Frederick Becchetti, a University of Michigan professor of physics, wrote in an accompanying article in Science: ""The experiments by Taleyarkhan [and colleagues] appear to have been carefully done and have been subjected to peer review. Hence the results are credible until proven otherwise.\
