Friday, July 26, 2002
1. BUBBLE FUSION: THE BUBBLE SEEMS TO HAVE COLLAPSED.
In March, against the advice of physicists, Science published an article
by Taleyarkan et al. claiming to get fusion out of sonoluminescence (WN
1 Mar 02). Two experienced nuclear physicists, D. Shapira and M.J.
Saltmarsh, using better neutron detection in the same apparatus, said
there was no evidence of fusion. Science refused to hold up publication
of the Taleyarkan paper until the Shapira and Saltmarsh findings could
accompany it, or even add a note warning that there were contrary results.
Not to worry! The Shapira and Saltmarsh paper is about to come out in
Physical Review Letters, and is expected to directly refute the Taleyarkan
et al. paper. And in this week's Nature, a letter by Didenko and Suslick
seemed to rule out bubble fusion entirely. Reactions of gases trapped
inside bubbles soak up so much energy that bubble temperatures could never
get close to the threshold for fusion.
2. ENTROPY: THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS STILL HOLDS.
Claims that the Second Law of Thermodynamics has been violated are often
found in fringe journals. This one is in Physical Review Letters http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v89/e050601.
The title: "Experimental Demonstration of Violations of the Second Law
of Thermodynamics in Small Systems and Short Timescales," says it all.
The authors discovered that when statistical laws are applied to systems
that aren't statistically significant, they don't work. I experienced
this myself. As a boy I once batted 1,000 for an entire day. Ted Williams
batted only 406, and for that he has to hang upside down in liquid nitrogen
until science figures out how to revive him. The statistics aren't promising.
3. MONEY: PHYSICS GETS A BREAK ON CAPITAL HILL.
After a dismal
decade, math and physical sciences got better news this week from
Senate appropriators, who increased NSF's MPS account by almost
15 percent. DOE also got some relief, as the House began work on
Rep. Judith Biggert's (R-IL) science authorization bill. The
goal of doubling the Office of Science budget was supported by
Nobelists Jerome Friedman and Richard Smalley, who testified
before the Energy Subcommittee. Terrorism, the possibility of
war with Iraq, and a tanking stock market seem to have persuaded
Congress that it's time to support the physical sciences.
4. SECRECY: SELF-CENSORSHIP REPLACES GOVERNMENT INTIMIDATION.
In
December, WN heard that the White House was pushing the American
Society for Microbiology to develop guidelines for withholding
information that could help terrorists. Today's NY Times says
Ron Atlas, ASM President, is now concerned that scientists may
want to withhold information to keep others from reproducing
their results. Atlas reportedly favors a full-disclosure rule
for all ASM journals. We should all have such a rule.
|
