Could we perhaps break the usual rules on this blog and have somebody
post the actual facts related to the "deuterium EOS" issue? What
actually happened, or didn't happen that was supposed to?
It would be acceptable to accompany the facts with the usual diatribe, but maybe put that in a separate paragraph?
Scooby's note: what the heck is "deuterium EOS:?
99 comments:
Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 483–486 (1997)
Absolute Equation of State Measurements on Shocked Liquid Deuterium up to 200 GPa (2 Mbar)
L. B. Da Silva, P. Celliers, G. W. Collins, K. S. Budil, N. C. Holmes, T. W. Barbee Jr., B. A. Hammel, J. D. Kilkenny, R. J. Wallace, M. Ross, and R. Cauble
Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550
A. Ng and G. Chiu
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
We present results of the first measurements of density, shock speed, and particle speed in liquid deuterium compressed by laser-generated shock waves to pressures from 25 to 210 Gpa (0.25 to 2.1 Mbar). The data show a significant increase in D2 compressibility above 50 Gpa compared to a widely used equation of state model. The data strongly suggest a thermal molecular dissociation transition of the diatomic fluid into a monatomic phase.
http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/prizerecipient.cfm?last_nm=Collins&first_nm=Gilbert&year=1998
http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/prizerecipient.cfm?last_nm=Da%20Silva&first_nm=Luiz&year=1998
http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/prizerecipient.cfm?last_nm=Celliers&first_nm=Peter&year=1998
http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/prizerecipient.cfm?last_nm=Cauble&first_nm=Robert&year=1998
After winning the 1998 John Dawson Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research for their Nova experiments, their results were shown by Markus Knudson and his collaborators on the Sandia Z facility to have been spurious.
But this still sounds like hearsay. If it really was a serious problem, then there would have been consequences. But to my understanding, nothing has come of this. Which leads me to believe that maybe the "accusations" are questionable or that the issue is not clear-cut?
That, or it just doesn't matter, and the results are unimportant (but were the basis for awards anyways).
Academic results like those cited above are often found to be erroneous or simply in error due to experimental difficulties. There is not any "accusation" about it. Not all experiments yield true or accurate results. Get a grip. Of course the "issue" is not "clear cut" - it is research!! And of course the results are "important" - that is why the experiment is done in the first place. It won't solve your plumbing problems tomorrow; if that is what you expect from scientific research, you are an uneducated fool.
It's a normal thing to publish corrigendums when there are errors in publications, so there is no big deal. Alot of journals allow you to have the actual data used in the analysis on file, so that the analysis can be verified on the actual data. So it seems to me that assuming that these measures were being applied, that there is no issue beating a dead horse.
Put more simply the scientific method of observatioon, hypothesis, theory and then repeat by independent others has some important practical information left out.
First, time is not cited. Verified theories can take decades or centuries.
The second is aging, ideas age and are superceded by new techniques and information as he eons pass.
Third is loss, some information is lost over time. One wonders what is lost from the ancient Alexandrian library of an almost complete set of ancient Greek texts.
The most germane is that the process involves many errors, that is where the insights are discovered. In the errors. Most ongoing experiments have been or will be updated so that they more correctly isolate the phenomena under study. In other words, if the designers has known what they know now, they would have approached the problem differently.
No surprize that Z data conflicts with/updates/illustrates with Nova. Should happen again on NIF on NIF Upgrade on Z upgrade ad nauseum. The way to stop this progess is to stop looking.
I thought that the issue was that the data analysis was shoddy and not of the calibre you expect from a national laboratory, and that this isn't the first time nor last in which there were "problems."
If that is so, please start listing the publications that you are referring to.
Everyone else is wasting their time by dwelling in the past for this D2 EoS work. You should be evaluating the current works out of NIF. If it is top notch work, it will stand the test of time and they will be vindicated. If it is weak, it will get shot down and we should be asking whether this is tax-payer money well spent.
They are putting resources into EoS and high pressure strength experiments according to my understanding. I know that I speak for many others when I say that I look forward to evaluating the results and the raw data coming out of these unclassified experiments. If they are TRULY able to compress materials along the isentrope to produce EoS data with error bars smaller than from other methods, then they certainly deserve great credit for that kind of accomplishment.
Spurious results from a previous laser EoS campaign is highly relevant to how we should evaluate the EoS data produced using NIF. There is no explanation for why these laser EoS results differed from the pulsed power results from the other labs. They just let the issue slide into the past. No retractions. No corrigendums. No argument that their data was indeed correct.
And NOW we are back to do more laser EoS experiments on a bigger laser and each shot is enormously expensive. I never really appreciated this connection until now, and I think I understand why someone or a group is someone's were bringing this up quite a bit.
Here is the paper by Knudson that corrected the flawed Nova paper:
Equation of State Measurements in Liquid Deuterium to 70 GPa
M. D. Knudson, D. L. Hanson, J. E. Bailey, C. A. Hall, J. R. Asay, and W. W. Anderson
Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 225501 – Published 8 November 2001
Cited 134 times
Using intense magnetic pressure, a method was developed to launch flyer plates to velocities in excess of 20km/s. This technique was used to perform plate-impact, shock wave experiments on cryogenic liquid deuterium ( L-D2) to examine its high-pressure equation of state. Using an impedance matching method, Hugoniot measurements were obtained in the pressure range of 30–70GPa. The results of these experiments disagree with previously reported Hugoniot measurements of L-D2 in the pressure range above ∼40GPa, but are in good agreement with first principles, ab initio models for hydrogen and its isotopes.
The Sandia researchers went on to publish three other Physical Review Letters on deuterium:
Use of a Wave Reverberation Technique to Infer the Density Compression of Shocked Liquid Deuterium to 75 GPa
M. D. Knudson, D. L. Hanson, J. E. Bailey, C. A. Hall, and J. R. Asay
Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 035505 – Published 24 January 2003
Cited 65 times
Principal Hugoniot, reverberating wave, and mechanical reshock measurements of liquid deuterium to 400 GPa using plate impact techniques
M. D. Knudson, D. L. Hanson, J. E. Bailey, C. A. Hall, J. R. Asay, and C. Deeney
Phys. Rev. B 69, 144209 – Published 29 April 2004
Cited 76 times
Time-resolved optical spectroscopy measurements of shocked liquid deuterium
J. E. Bailey, M. D. Knudson, A. L. Carlson, G. S. Dunham, M. P. Desjarlais, D. L. Hanson, and J. R. Asay
Phys. Rev. B 78, 144107 – Published 21 October 2008
Cited 14 times
The back story is that LLNL managers (Miller, Goodwin, Moses) were arguing that NIF was going to be superior to Z for EOS and material strength measurements. This happened during the DOE review to decide whether NIF should be scaled back to a smaller number of beams to reduce its cost, which was held before the 2001 Knudson publication.
It is ironic that the senior leadership in Defense Programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration includes former managers of the Sandia Z facility during the time of the Nova D2 awards. They are intimately familiar with this sordid history.
NIF is being used as a platform for stockpile stewardship, but nobody is saying that is mainly being used to generate accurate laser EoS or high-pressure strength data. Is this the case? that stockpile stewardship experiments really means non-laser EoS/strength? I thought that either laser-EOS/strength was not being pursued by LLNL, or that it was at a miniscule level. That would make sense if indeed lasers are not the right driver for these kinds of experiments.
If EoS and strength are truly the focus area of stockpile stewardship, as people seem to be implying, then this D2 information is highly troubling. Two of the three legs (fusion power production, ignition) have been knocked out by the recent failures. The only remaining leg that keeps it standing with respect to life-support is stockpile stewardship. But not, people are saying that even there, that last leg supporting NIF is very weak.
Is this 1997 paper out of the lab simply a one-off fluke? Were there other laser EoS published papers out of the lab that are considered to be high-quality by the academic standards? It's hard to imagine that there is a systemic problem from a lab that receives many billions of dollars in funding over a decade in support of the stockpile to be having the kinds of problems that people are implying here.
LLNL has a huge group for laser EoS and Strength. I don't know what the FTE level is and the shot allocation will be for this year. But it certainly is large enough that the body of work from that group in this area can be evaluated.
Academic results like those cited above are often found to be erroneous or simply in error due to experimental difficulties. There is not any "accusation" about it. Not all experiments yield true or accurate results. Get a grip. Of course the "issue" is not "clear cut" - it is research!! And of course the results are "important" - that is why the experiment is done in the first place. It won't solve your plumbing problems tomorrow; if that is what you expect from scientific research, you are an uneducated fool.
December 4, 2012 7:23 PM
The poster is right! It's like the cure for cancer. Don't be condemning all cancer researchers now because they didn't find a cure!
You ain't seen nothing yet till you see the science out of NIF. I have never seen such creative implementations and justification of error bars in my life. Fiasco? Yes. Systemic? Yes. Internal controls? Non-existent.
To give context to the audience who is not familiar with some of this, EoS refers to "Equation of State," or the "constitutive properties" of a material.
In a model or code, you not only have the physics included, but you also need additional information regarding how a material will behave, for example, under different local conditions of temperature and stress. So Pressure = f (Density, Temperature) is a simple example of an "equation of state" that one needs for a material.
EoS plays an important part in the stockpile stewardship. Since we are relying on computer codes and modeling, the push is to experimentally determine equation of state in regimes (e.g., pressure, density, temperature) previously inaccessible. It was the early papers out of Sandia (I forgot the names, but maybe some can help me here) that demonstrated the ability to produce high-quality Equation of State data at high pressures, using a concept called isentropic compression, that made this area a focal point of NNSA science. I believe that it was soon after, that LLNL and others began to try to use the same techniques to generate equation of state data but using lasers as the driver. There is another way, including the use of gas guns, with impactors designed to attempt to produce the kinds of "ramp-waves" needed in order to compress a material along the isentrope.
And so it does seem to be a valid question regarding these older deuterium results, and whether there are technical weaknesses either to the analytical capabilities of the authors or to the laser-based technique itself. Either way, we need closure on the issue and assurances that indeed moving forward on lasers-based EoS is based on sound technical arguments and a solid scientific foundations.
My compliments and thanks to most posters for a surprising calm, professional, and enlightening discussion. Especially to the first few posters who took the time to provide the references.
I did not expect this!
I don't think the issue is related to the technical ability of the investigators. Using laser drive is simply inherently more difficult to control the temporal profile of the driver, and you have to build alot of assumptions into it. You're really looking at weaknesses, uncertainties and complications in the technique, and to my knowledge (I have not done due diligence to say one way or the other, but perhaps someone has the references showing the evolution of the sophistication and improvements in terms of analyzing the data out of the experiments) it is improving, just seeing snipets and of various different works.
Regarding the comments on the error bars, I'm not sure what is being implied here, but if the error bars are large, I would not be surprised given the somewhat greater complexity of the laser-drive concept and all the physics involved. A feature of the pulsed power concept is that it is inherently easier to control the force profile on the flyer.
So if the problem is not with the investigators, but rather, related to the technique, then I would also have to conclude that using NIF to support stockpile stewardship experiments in this way, is questionable.
I don't think the issue is related to the technical ability of the investigators.
December 5, 2012 1:25 PM
No, of course not. Let's blame the taxpayers for being dumb or stupid enough to pay for this contraption (NIF).
Anytime the managers at the NNSA labs begin to worry about one of their scientific "toys", they yell "Stockpile stewardship... we need it for stockpile stewardship!"
Some facilities like DARHT are important for the stockpile stewardship mission. That's what they were built for in the first place. Other facilities, like NIF and LANSCE, have a dubious position when it comes to their usefulness to maintaining the weapons stockpile. They were built for political reasons (management promotion, fun "toys" to use in esoteric physics experiments, etc).
I think we hit a nerve in this thread.
This is a situation where the lab can either explain the poor results and differences between their laser EoS and the pulsed power EoS on either weaknesses in the investigators and the way they conducted the work, or weaknesses in the laser based EoS technique itself. The latter option is an admission that this is a failed path for stewardship application giving nnsa absolutely no basis for continuing funding. Would they throw their own people under the bus?
Deuterium EoS is just one issue. Material strength is a whole other topic that congress and the public should be aware of.
Does the lab try to prevent it's own employees from reading these threads? Vitriol and slung mud is one thing that is so easy to dismiss. Bringing back something this bad is quite another, especially when the issue has been buried rather than resolved. And these are the types of issues that confirms all the criticisms and accusations made by skeptics of NIF. Why does the lab keep making bad decisions and why do they keep painting themselves into corners? I almost have to wonder if they do this intentionally. They seem to have mastered the art of "failing big."
When you have the kind of intellectual in-breeding, group think, and "i know nothing, i see nothing" mentality where people turn a blind eye to everything, then you can see why this type of issue arises, and why they do nothing to address it when the crap hits the fan. Indeed, material strength is yet another topic where exceptionally shoddy work and unjustifiably bad analyses can be found coming from the lab. There are more, each capable of supporting its own thread. Shall we start naming other areas where there are real problems with the work?
I'm pretty sure the lab comes down hard on its employees who question things. Which makes this all so amusing to watch considering Parney is of such a different community. It's probably essential for him to have blinders on to these types of issues, focusing only on specific objectives, in order to not lose his sanity. But Parney can probably get any job he wants. Many of the employees are prisoners of a system that punishes those who are seen as disloyal rebel terrorists against the state of NIF. You kind of have to have blinders just to make it through the day. In any case, these problems with the quality of science... is for management to deal with. The scientists just work there. It's just a job. It just pays the rent.
Anytime the managers at the NNSA labs begin to worry about one of their scientific "toys", they yell "Stockpile stewardship... we need it for stockpile stewardship!"
Isn't it amazing how in the media, these two words act so well as topical "black holes?" Basically an article moves on to other things, after bringing up "stockpile stewardship."
Journalists are smart enough to understand and report on these types of issues. They should all be informed of threads like this, so that the can verify information and come up with further questions themselves, and add more substance to their own contributions to public discourse.
Regarding some of the historical events surrounding this issue, the lab management retaliated against a highly regarded senior scientist working at the lab who took a dissenting position against these results. His name escapes me. But this just another element adding to the fabric of the "sordid affair" mentioned by others.
Any attempt to portray these events as a natural part of the discovery process is simply propaganda. This is a common practice at the lab - to silence employees who raise legitimate technical and scientific issues that management deems to be inconvenient or not in support of its agendas.
Deuterium EOS is a full case study in itself for those studying organizational structures and organizational behavior.
If someone can recall the name of the LLNL employee that was blackballed, I would appreciate it. This was a truly shameful injustice that the lab management committed.
Dr. William Nellis, now at Harvard University.
http://physics.aps.org/authors/william_nellis
Phys Rev Lett. 2002 Oct 14;89(16):165502. Epub 2002 Sep 26.
Shock compression of deuterium near 100 GPa pressures.
Nellis WJ.
Source: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, University of California, 94550, USA.
Abstract
The shock-compression curve (Hugoniot) of D2 near 100 GPa pressures (1 Mbar) has been contro-versial because the two published measurements have limiting compressions of fourfold and sixfold. Our purpose is to examine published experimental results to decide which, if either, is probably correct. The published Hugoniot data of low-Z diatomic molecules have a universal behavior. The deuterium data of Knudson et al. (fourfold limiting compression) have this universal behavior, which suggests that Knudson et al. are correct and shows that deuterium behaves as other low-Z elements at high temperatures. In D2, H2, N2, CO, and O2, dissociation completes and average kinetic energy dominates average potential energy above approximately 60 GPa. Below approximately 30 GPa, D2, H2, N2, CO, and O2 are diatomic. D2 dissociation is accompanied by a temperature-driven nonmetal-metal transition at approximately 50 GPa.
"You kind of have to have blinders just to make it through the day." (10:07 AM)
Blinders, chastity belt, thermal gloves and "shoes that GRIP!". Just wearing blinders doesn't cut it any longer.
Will someone please post a reference to the corrigendum or addendum to the 1997 paper? The aps link does not seem to have one, but people here seem to be referring to one. Thanks.
The spurious 1997 Nova publication has never been retracted or disavowed. It is simply ignored by Livermore and everyone else. There were never any "consequences" for this mistake.
This all sounds too fantastic to be actually be true - particularly the kind of two-bit thuggery that you describe as part of the culture of the national laboratories. This must all be some elaborate joke on the readers - creating a story and throwing in scientific references to lend it some credibility. Nice job, and kudos to you. You had me believing this for a short while.
Blinders and chastity belts just to make it through the day? I was thinking that you labbies need Costco sized mouthwash, sanitizers, and extra soft seat cushions to survive through the day. Those managers require so much servicing. Remember to gargle after your one on one.
I bet LLNL management will blame NNSA for letting these technical issues fester and not "fixing these problems" at LLNL.
I forgot who the LLNL managers were who signed off on the retaliatory actions, and what "justifications" they used. But I heard that they are all still there and in very prominent positions at the lab. While it was so long ago, just hearing about the incident trickle out to academia, it was chilling and disturbing.
Any response from LLNL/NIF management and PR regarding these things? It's all anonymous so you can make up whatever you want without having to worry about getting caught.
This is not an "either-or" issue regarding weaknesses in the scientists and the way they did the experiments, or weaknesses in the laser EoS technique. You have both. One starts to speculate that the LLNL scientists are just "making up" error-bars on the data they produce. That's really a sham for people making upwards of $150,000 and more in salary each year.
Wow. What started as a reasonable discussion sure took a turn into the toilet. Thanks a lot.
Summarizing the facts of the thread: some measurements were made at LLNL, some other measurements were made at SNL, and they don't agree. That's all. Everything else is "i heard this" and "I bet that", with a large quantitiy of unsupported adjectives.
bah
That's right. put those blinders right on. Make sure it fits snugly. Convince yourself that's all there is to it.... slowly sip the chamomile tea, and all those bad things people are saying will just "go away"
The LLNL results were determined to be WRONG. If you think otherwise, the physics community is ready to listen to your arguments. There are direct implications to work generated out of NIF.
The blackballing of Dr. Nellis was not an unsubstantiated conjecture. It actually happened and there is no question that it was retaliation by the lab against him. Absolutely no question.
I would have to say that this thread is still being very informative, and what I might have naively misinterpreted as "going down the toilet" is actually very relevant and timely considering the decisions surrounding the National Ignition Facility. Regardless of whether there was retaliation or not against Dr. Nellis, the fact that no effort was made by the lab to correct their error, or to understand or explain why their laser-based experiments to produce equation of state data failed, clearly demonstrates the inability of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to undertake such work. As such, there is no basis for supporting the claims made that the National Ignition Facility will support stockpile stewardship.
It's not difficult to understand why the Nova experiment was wrong. It was performed using only two laser beams; one to drive the shock and the other as a backlighter. The shock front was not planar and its curvature increased as the shock propagated. The schlieren determination of the shock front lagged progressively behind the true shock front, which was then misinterpreted as excess compressibility.
Bill Nellis is a giant in the field of shock physics. The Nova guys were amateurs.
Livermore is able to get away with mistakes like this because most of the managers at NNSA cannot distinguish good work from bad.
Bill Nellis is a giant in the field of shock physics. The Nova guys were amateurs.
And so the scientist who was able to bring some clarity and closure to this issue is blackballed by the lab instead, while the "amateurs" are rewarded. We can do a google search of some of those names to see what plum assignments they have gotten since.
NNSA was formed in 2000? So the start of the fiasco was pre-NNSA obviously. Indeed many people in NNSA now are familiar with this incident, as they were at the labs and were working on equation of state related work. It's a good thing that many of those people are in NNSA now (as opposed to the authors of the ill-fated 1997 LLNL paper).
Jeez. Some experiment was done and the results were later proven incorrect by another experiment. I bet that's the first time that has ever happened!! Let's hang somebody! Or at least drag their name through the mud! I really hope that the majority of posters here are not actual scientists.
Can someone please provide a list of references for laser-based equation of state experiments from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory since the time of this 1997 paper? I don't have remote access to the university library databases, and was hoping not to wait until Monday. Just the references (and abstracts if possible). Thanks in advance.
Let's hang somebody!
Oh that already happened. Bill Nellis was the first in line for a good ole fashioned lynching
In response to December 7, 2012 9:11 PM:
Some of the same cast of characters are leading technical work on NIF. If your assertion that this one paper is a fluke, then history will have confirmed that. We have a 15 year period over which to confirm that indeed, this one paper is a fluke.
In response to December 7, 2012 9:11 PM:
Some of the same cast of characters are leading technical work on NIF.
December 7, 2012 9:20 PM
So you think that publishing one erroneous set of data should be grounds for disallowing all further professional advancement? Or just advancement in one's chosen field? Or to management thereof? The degree of conspiracy theory, vindictive, punitive desire, and outright hate on these NIF threads is amazing. So much sturm und drang for so little substance. What a hell-hole of twisted egos. Get a clue: NIF and the whole subject of ICF or laser-driven anything matters not one whit to anyone except you pin-heads. Especially not taxpayers whose hard-earned money funds your sandbox playtime.
Deuterium EoS is only the start....
Keep up your little defense. It'll be more dramatic that way when someone is defending the lab.
It's so amazing when the lab tries to pretend like it's the victim as opposed to the offender. Amazing!
I think someone hit a nerve again in this thread.
Saying that putting what amounts to "intellectual children" into technical leadership positions for huge projects on a 6 billion dollar facility does not mean that the poster is accusing the lab of a "conspiracy." The poster is saying that the lab is "putting intellectual children into technical leadership positions for huge projects on a 6 billion dollar facility." But the door is wide open to refute this. You should have 15 years worth of EoS and materials strength publications from the technical leads of these efforts. This is the lab's chance to shine, and show off 15 years worth of world-class research demonstrating that it is indeed a leader in the field of experimental EoS and strength measurements.
That's kind of hard to do, given that the lab blackballs scientific leaders like Bill Nellis. Notice how they never mention his name or even acknowledge his existence. They always skirt around that particular issue.
You hit the nail right on the head. That's why he is being brought up in this thread.
With 6 billion dollars at stake on the NIF facility, the authors of that 1997 article are fair game.
This is the lab's chance to shine, and show off 15 years worth of world-class research demonstrating that it is indeed a leader in the field of experimental EoS and strength measurements.
But the scientific community already knows the answer to this. We don't need you to tell us what we already know - that they don't have the "critical mass" of scientific leadership in these fields. This is your "head shot" for the media to see, isn't it.
LaLaLaLaLaLa. Anything more about NIF? Who cares? Jeez, I think the entire Livermore Valley has poisoned water. You people are amazing. Such incredible parochialism. Get a life.
Yeah it's really bad when the whole thread stays on topic!! The nerve of these people who stay on topic!
Lions: 2; Christians: Nil
The only "ignition" NIF will ever achieve resides in this ongoing flamefest.
Yeah, I make more neutrons when I hit "Publish your comment" than ...
Did they even return/rescind the awards they got for this paper? Surely they should not be circulating their CVs with this paper or the awards they received due to it. The paper itself was not the only mistake here. Clearly, the awards were also mistakes.
putting what amounts to "intellectual children" into technical leadership positions for huge projects on a 6 billion dollar facility
That's for sure. Somewhere there is an org chart floating around for NIF and WCI to find the EoS and Strength groups. Correlate that information with journal databases to see for yourself.
How can you question the stature and scientific integrity of those people on the 1997 paper? Many went on to receive numerous awards and distinguished positions. Your character assassination attempts do not jibe with their record of accomplishments since. Do you people have no shame?
Are you seriously not able to see the irony in what you just wrote?
"...putting what amounts to "intellectual children" into technical leadership positions for huge projects on a 6 billion dollar facility.."
The NIF construction project, valued at about $3.5B, was completed two years ago. It was successful. The laser works brilliantly (pun intended). Whatever mistakes or mastery in leadership (I take some credit here) has been mooted by time. A lesson learned is that a 500Mw, 1.8Tw, blue laser composed of 180 beams with pointing and timing accuracy that can paint a "bb" with DT targets three times a day with adequate diagnostics and a skilled staff to understand the events cost +/- $3.5B not $1.8B. Two destroyers not one. Old news. Wildly successful.
A more accurate target for your "technical leadership" shot is the management of the much smaller current experimental program probably now under 500 people and $250M per year. Significant but much smaller.
To be credible, you need to keep your facts straight. Otherwise, you solve the wrong problem. No need to manage the NIF project. It's over.
When do we get to start hearing about the problems surrounding laser-based material strength experiments?
Is it just coincidence that the LLNL NOVA experimental data points sit right on top (within error bars) of the LLNL theoretical predictions? Just downloaded and examined the Nellis PRL. What are the odds that two supposedly independent papers from the same lab (and directorate) are both incorrect, but matching each other within the error bars? Does anyone else find this odd?
I consulted with a colleague just now who mentioned the existence of a third modelling paper (maybe an internal report only?) out of the lab whose data also sits on top of the incorrect results, but I could not find this reference.
Your observation speaks for itself. Also, that third paper will probably never see the light of day unless rogue reviewer copies have found their way into the wild. To my knowledge it has never been published. However, it they went through proper review channels prior to journal submission attempts, then the document should exist in the systems complete with a UCRL identifier.
If you can't get your hands on it through normal channels, you can get it through a FOIA request. It is content generated out of tax-payer funding and there is no sensitivity to the subject matter is sounds like. In guessing that you just need help on the authors, title and date.
December 8, 2012 12:02 AM: With 6 billion dollars at stake on the NIF facility, the authors of that 1997 article are fair game.
You did not go far enough here. With 6B at stake, the technical leads of all the experimental efforts related to NIF are also fair game and it is our duty to scrutinize their track record of scientific contributions and peer-reviewed journal publications in those fields.
To think that this is all about a single paper snowballing into a fiasco is shortsighted. The 1997 paper is simply the tip of the iceberg.
Headline for the future: NIF cries "uncle" as experimental programs to measure material strength are discredited
Byline: "We never cared about that stuff anyways, we just wanted the money to support ignition and LIFE." Lab then throws its own EoS and Materials Strength scientists under the bus as human sacrifice to appease the gods with several pounds of flesh. Lab then discredits its own EoS and strength programs, further justifying a focus on ignition for NIF.
While you say that in jest, you capture a subtle truth about the lab. LLNL oesn't care about stable revenue generation and growth opportunities. They don't put resources promoting capability development to be more relevant to its sponsors, nor do they care about WFO. It's true that they never put the resources and guidance needed to build a credible EoS and materials strength program. If they cared, they wouldn't be led by golden boys who are clearly out if their league. They will fire the staff but the golden boys get promoted when fiascos like this happens. There is truth to the previous post. The lab doesn't care that the technical work in various areas is bad. All they care about is taking care of the insider golden boy network. And if nnsa likes your little project, that usually means that the lab will squeeze you for funding until your project dies.
Well it's no secret that the likes of AD Ned Flanders rages, everyone within earshot down the hallway will all froth and get angry and rage with him for the next few weeks, even though they don't know why they should be angry. Or maybe they do know the reasons why should be angry. And who knows, maybe they have been given the correct reason. It may be true that Don Cook is really evil and has a low iq and limited intellect and vocabulary. Maybe Z is truly inferior to NIF when it comes to EoS and strength measurements. You never know. But in that one square mile, there is no such distinction betwee fact and fiction. If Ned Flanders says it, and you are an employee of llnl, then you had BETTER believe it. Ned can smell a non-believer from 10 miles away.
Not true. The furthest he could detect is approximately 1.4 miles, the maximum distance between two opposite corners of the facility. You might have to add a bit if he is standing in one corner at a higher elevation while the non-believer is at the other corner and standing in a very deep hole. In that case, he could still detect. In any case, anything outside is irrelevant.
So who is the technical lead of laser EoS experiments? I heard it was someone who indeed has no experience or publications in experimental EoS or strength. Or even significant publications at all in the last 10 years.
He's a sharp kid but yeah there isn't any substance in his track record over the past 10 years. Doesn't have anything at all to contribute when I see him at multi-lab nnsa meetings. Probably just someone who will do what the lab will tell him to do and he will get rewarded handsomely so long as he doesn't get a clue about how bad his group is performing. All in all, advantage: rest-of-the-universe.
Yeah nothing really new, most of them are like that at the lab.
That third set of data out of LLNL that confirmed the INCORRECT LLNL D2 EOS result came out of Gulia Galli a professor now at Davis. How ab initio results would sit right on top of incorrect experimental and other modeling results is beyond me. It reeks of scientific misconduct on the part of all of those involved.
Misconduct is not the right word. Fraud is more appropriate.
It's only 2 sets of data and one is just calibrating off of the other. I don't see that there is any problem here. And how is this relevant to NIF? That data has no bearing on ignition issues right now.
The ab initio results were published in 2004 more or less confirming the Knudson results. I'm not sure if this is the same data others are alluding to. Regardless it looks like the authors here are covered, their results as published do not sit on the spurious Nova Hugoniot. So it looks like we're down to explaining two data sets.
Does anyone really care about that old work? That was my question. Give them the Nobel prize for all I care. NIF's design is based on the updated EoS anyways.
Really. If you can give Nobel prizes to O'bama for doing nothing, the EU for failing and Krugman for being a loud, politically correct hack.... while ignoring Teller, well, it just goes to show...
there's no business like snow business.
I was involved peripherally with the Nova experiments, and closely with many of the principles in other experiments (no I am not a co-author on the 1997 PRL), and if there were errors it was not for lack of trying in planning and executing a heroic set of experiments that shook the field. If there were mistakes, part of the reason was that there was huge pressure to demonstrate that big laser facilities could do quantitative EOS experiments, period. There was deep skepticism that it was even possible, and the well-earned awards were because of that demonstration, not because of the details of the results themselves. Sounds like some previous posters dont understand how this world works. What happened later, I dont know, but that does not detract from the original experiments themselves.
Yeah we are being unfair when pointing out how three different sources of data all sit on top of the wrong curve.
They didn't even publish a corrigendum! wtf
I remember very clearly, this was (and still is) a very sordid affair. I cannot believe how anyone can see it otherwise. You must really live in a bubble there at LLNL.
Also, it is critically important never to forget the fact that LLNL retaliated against Bill Nellis for doing the right thing when he tried to get to the heart of matter (see above). His PRL was unprecedented at the time.
The main author of the 97 PRL left the lab in a cloud of controversy around the time the s**t hit the fan about the erroneous results. He was, ah, somewhat ethically challenged, and it would not be a surprise if he had deliberately fudged things, and ground internal dissenters into the dust, to make a splash.
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