US Taxpayers pay for the Greatest Hoax in the History of Science

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) April 10, 2004 -- The qui tam complaint alleged over 10 years of misconduct by US scientists in the field of sonoluminescence (SL) � at US taxpayer expense. SL is known to produce light as bubbles in water collapse under ultrasound at frequencies from 20,000 to millions of cycles every second. But the bubbles are filled with water vapor � not air � there is no time at ultrasonic frequencies for air dissolved in the water to diffuse into and fill the bubbles every cycle prior to collapse.

To explain the light, the SL scientists performed computer simulations of bubbles filled with air to support their claims in US government funded research that temperatures from 2000 to 10 million degrees were produced in bubble collapse. The SL scientists even claimed nuclear fusion could be achieved in a bubble.



But air is not water vapor. Upon a decrease in volume, the temperature of air does become high, but water vapor condenses to liquid without any increase in temperature. Known by Le Chatelier�s principle for over 100 years, the vapor remains at ambient temperature as the volume vanishes to obey 2-phase liquid-vapor equilibrium.

The SL scientists knew the US government would not fund research where vapor bubbles are required by Le Chatelier�s principle to collapse at ambient temperature. Thus, to obtain high temperatures to gain funding, computer simulations assumed bubbles filled with air. By claiming what they knew to be false, the qui tam complaint alleged the SL scientists violated the FCA. But the Baltimore and Fourth Circuit Appeals court never ruled on this qui tam allegation.



More recently in March 2002, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) performed bubble fusion tests that received national and international attention by preliminary results that showed neutron production. Although shown later to be false, the US taxpayer paid for the folly of ORNL tests that were supported by predictions of high temperature by SL scientists from computer simulations that improperly simulated vapor condensation.

Given the fact that Le Chatelier�s principle requires bubbles to collapse at ambient temperature, the bubble hoax - computer simulations that erroneously predict temperatures from 2000 to 10 million degrees to support the high bubble temperature theory - might be the greatest hoax in the history of science. Until now, the Piltdown Man hoax in Britain exposed in 1953 - the jawbone of an ape planted next to the skull of a man to support the evolutionary theory - was the greatest hoax in science, but at least the US taxpayer did not pay the bill !!!