ORNL Nuclear Cavitation – Shapira Confirms He Did Not Replicate (Part 11)
Oak Ridge Nuclear Cavitation Confirmation
July 28, 2013 – By Steven B. Krivit –
This is Part 11 of “2001 Oak Ridge Nuclear Cavitation Confirmation Uncovered.”
This is a New Energy Times Special Report. The first part of this series published on July 18, 2013.
Shapira Confirms He Did Not Perform Replication
In preparation for this report, when New Energy Times began to learn from the Taleyarkhan group that Shapira and Saltmarsh did not, in fact, do their own experiment, we called Shapira and asked him what he and Saltmarsh meant by “We have repeated the experiment of Taleyarkhan.” The following excerpts of the full transcript and audio recording of the March 28, 2013, interview provide Shapira’s explanation.
Steven B. Krivit: Back in 2001, you were attempting to confirm or disconfirm the Taleyarkhan group’s experiment. You brought your own neutron detector into their laboratory, and you tried to observe data.
In your PRL paper published a year later, you wrote, “We have repeated the experiment of Taleyarkhan.” I’m trying to understand what you meant by “have repeated the experiment.”
Dan Shapira: We left his detector in and added our detector. We had both detectors in.
What happened is, he borrowed a detector from me, which I told him was not a neutron detector. It was a plastic detector. It was a detector that detects also neutrons, but it’s mostly gammas, charged particles, anything. That’s how he published his first results.
I didn’t initiate it. I was asked by the lab associate director, [Jim Roberto], to confirm the experiment. F irst, they asked me to review the paper he wrote. It didn’t hold water.
Jim Roberto asked me, “How long would it take you to do a good experiment to detect neutrons and clear away anything else that could have happened?” And, you know, “make sure it’s not neutrons from the neutron source and things like this.”
I said, “Well, you know I did an experiment at Brookhaven, and it will take me about a year to get the setup right.”
He said, “OK, well, you have three months, and together with Taleyarkhan, you should repeat the experiment.”
So essentially, Taleyarkhan set it up. The only thing I brought is my own neutron detector. I told him to add it to the setup, that’s all.
I was asked to do it. I didn’t volunteer to do it. I wasted a year on the analysis and the write-up and setting up the experiment. As far as I was concerned, it was a waste of a year of my time.
I didn’t get a great “thank you,” but that’s OK. I did what I thought was right, and I was required to do it. I couldn’t tell the lab associate director, “No, I’m not going to read the paper. No, I’m not going to do the experiment.” That was not my choice.
I think the lab associate director did the right thing. My question was, “Did we see it?” No, we didn’t. That’s all. If someone else saw it, fine. They have to prove it to me or to anyone.
I’m not a stakeholder. I don’t deal with fusion energy. I deal with neutron measurements. I deal with measurements of charged particles. I’m good at nuclear measurements. That’s my expertise.
Next Part: Reflections on a Scientific Battle
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