A nuclear scientist at Purdue said yesterday that he would cooperate with the university’s review of his fusion research. “From a technical point, we stand by our data,” said the scientist, Rusi P. Taleyarkhan, a professor of nuclear engineering. In 2002, scientists led by Dr. Taleyarkhan, who was then at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, announced that they had achieved fusion, the melding of hydrogen atoms to produce light and energy, in a small tabletop device by blasting a jar of solvent with strong ultrasound vibrations. Scientists who have tried to reproduce the experiment say they have not seen any signs of fusion. The journal Nature reported on its Web site yesterday that several faculty members at Purdue, including Lefteri H. Tsoukalas, the head of the School of Nuclear Engineering who hired Dr. Taleyarkhan in 2003, now doubt the finding. According to the article, Dr. Taleyarkhan had not shared raw data from experimental runs that he said had successfully produced fusion, had argued against the publication of negative results by other professors who had conducted similar experiments and had removed equipment from a shared laboratory, impeding colleagues’ work. Dr. Taleyarkhan said that he saw […]