An Experiment to Save The World

Ratings: 4.75/10 from 12 users.


An Experiment to Save The WorldIn March 2002, the scientific world was rocked by some astonishing news: a distinguished US government scientist claimed he had made nuclear fusion out of sound waves in his laboratory. Rusi Taleyarkhan's breakthrough was such important news because nuclear fusion is one of the most difficult scientific processes, and also one of the most coveted. It could solve all of our energy problems for ever. In principle, sufficient fuel exists on earth to provide clean, pollution-free energy for billions of people for millions of years.


Taleyarkhan's fusion breakthrough was based on a little-understood process called sonoluminescence. It's a process that magically transforms sound waves into flashes of light, focusing the sound energy into a tiny flickering hot spot inside a bubble. It's been called the star in a jar. The star in a jar effortlessly reaches temperatures of tens of thousands of degrees, hotter than the surface of the sun. Many scientists had wondered if the core of the bubble was even hotter – maybe even as hot as the core of the sun. If so, fusion would happen there. But until Taleyarkhan, no one had been able to either prove it or disprove it. (Excerpt from

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Comments and User Reviews

  • rtm

    This Doc seams sort of full of crap, Taleyarkhan’s fusion breakthrough might have a actually been a success, and the team that tried to "recreate" his experiment was just a bunch, of skeptics,who didn't even follow everything to "t". It's all a cover up so that money can continue to made.

  • BOB

    Of course the machines cannot solve all problems and are not fully capable of doing all experiments.
    Humans are skeptics ,they claim if one scientist cannot done the experiment so it's not possible as done by Talleyrand.
    If this was finally done many scientists would loose jobs and gas companies would be out of business -that's why humans make stupid excuses to pour more money into the research.
    He may not provide all details cause the experiments go by trial and error and sometimes is done.

  • JDJ

    I would not have watched this program if I had known in advance that the experiments conducted disproved the original. I feel as if my time was wasted.

  • http://curious... mercury

    A: This is by the BBC. (one of the 5 media giants) B: When experiment one was "checked", it was done by an Department of Eneregy member in the U.S. C: When it was "checked again", it was done with a member of The Department of Energy for the U.K... AND the agent from the U.K. Gov. SWITCHED EQUIPTMENT! D:The data was, quote,"sent to the U.K. to insure impartiality"...what does that mean? The people of the U.K.? NO. A Collage? NO, they would have said the name. The U.K. Government? YES! Consider...if the experiment WAS a succes, as the good Doc said, then every country and government on the planet would have only two choices: 1) Tear itself apart and re-build itself from the ground up. OR 2)Steal the data, discredit the good Doc. publicly, and wait until such a time as is seen fit to use the "Holy Grail of Science" to whatever end is seen fit. Wich will it be?

  • The info cell

    Stanley Meyer done this many years ago, there is patents for it all over the world. By using high frequency electrolyse of water. every object have critical resonant frequency where if is amplified enough object will break down on molecular bases. Smaller object is higher frequency needed. Thanks to days electronics we can reach them around 20kHz pulse and break down H2O to hydro-oxygen gas useful as fuel. Question is who could make money on it nobody :))))) it's FREE energy from 5V,0.3A,20kHz = 1 litre of gas /minute = 0.7litre of Natural 95 !!!

  • mm24

    This documentary didn't feel neutral to me for some reason. It almost seemed like there was an undertone that was toward the side of the skeptics.

    Another annoying thing was they kept saying "shortcut to nuclear fusion." I'm pretty sure the scientists documented in this video did not think of it as a shortcut. People have poured their lives into this area of study. These are simply potential ways to achieve nuclear fusion, not shortcuts.

    Hopefully Taleyarkhan continues to refine his experiment so we can truly find out if it is achieving fusion.

  • Bluesmanwalking

    OK now, so we have the US & UK together on this. We know for a fact that they lie like a rug. We also know that before any other kind of energy is accepted, the corporations have to make money with it, and lots of it. So, what happen to this guy, is his life as destroyed as the other scientist ? Is his family threaten ? CIA, MI6, Mossad they all sleep together. So he definitely as no protection what so ever.
    Actually he's at Purdue U with his nut sac tied. All his equipment and notes have been taken away and he is being sued by Naval Intelligence whom gave him the grant in the first place. Wow, nice.

  • Quark

    Can someone tell Taleyarkhan to upload is ideas here? It's free and there are no US or UK government agents controlling the info either.
    Internet can be used for good things
    I've seen some documentaries "Made in BBC" to objectly discredit people/ideas. Can someone do one to discredit the Allmighty BBC?

  • noneutrons?

    Taleyarkens experiment might work or might not- this documentary as the chap above said was a masasive waste of time and effort- they do not challenge the science but challenge the assumptions made by Taleyarken, assuming he actually knows what variables were needed to be reproduced in order to reproduce the results- they are not a reproduction of what he actually did. In changing the neutron source and overall energy input of the thing then its just another but independent attempt at nuclear fusion? If teleyarkhan is right -its amazing and he is a giant of science- whilst standing on his shoulders to see further- (like newtons metaphor) then this experiment is like standing on the giants shoulders whilst someone kicks the giant in the back- if it was presented as a different attempt at the same result then fine but in reality its a nasty little hit piece on aman who is just doing science- he may be doing it badly but you cant disprove him by doing it worse!
    The arrogance of science when it becomes such a personal thing -its like watching two little boys fight over a toy car and in doing so pulling its wheels off.
    The best test would be to reproduce it under taleyarkhans supervision but with the more accurate testing equipment- then any dispute taleyarken would have would be meaningless.
    waste of time and energy.
    Nothing to do with govts or conspiracy just scientific cockmeasuring and point scoring.

  • maroonedinohio

    To quote John Muir... if it isn't "dollarable" the powers that be don't really give a rats patootie. The "dollarable" word was his creation. I added the rest. If anything like this ever comes to fruition you really don't think that the Energy Corporations would let the World have it. No free lunch folks....Sorry but it's just the nature of the beast. Like Enviro Voraxial Technology has the equipment to do the seperation technology for the oil spill but they want to go Hollywood instead and buy Kevin"Lollygagging with Lupus's"Costners little invention instead from what I've gleened.

  • drdrae

    This documentary was a disappointment. It never followed the Taleyarkhan exact specifications found in his paper. The "scientist" chosen to reproduce his work, did not even have the "appearance" of taking his work seriously. I would not trust them to run an objective review of his experiment. And at the end of it all, private energy corporations which made record Billions in profits, the greatest wealth producing instruments off all world history, will NEVER allow FREE ENERGY to exist without them being FORCED to accept it.

  • Carl Hendershot

    Hmmm well i guess this is a no go.

  • horanm5

    I agree with most of what has been written here but would like to point out that Taleyarkhan was invited to take part in the attempt to prove/disprove his findings and he declined.

  • Samusakis

    Hi Vlatko! I love this site and hope it will be found by more and more people in the near future.

    Now I just wanted to recommend a documentary on the subject of clean energy and science behind it. It's called "Energy From The Vacuum" It may not be as interesting for most but none the less it's a great documentary and (in my humble opinion)should be featured here for people to see.

  • Barb

    Taleyarkhan if you ever read this PLEASE DON'T GIVE UP!!!
    we the comun people,we who don't unerstand scientists are countingon you, for a better World to live!
    Certainly the big oil companies will do anything for you to fail,they will be lossing so much money.
    My only hope is that somebody find a better way to get energy.

  • Msafwan

    If nobody IN THE WORLD can create the same experimental result as Taleyarkhan's then it means that it won't happen, if nobody except Taleyarkhan can create the result then it means that Taleyarkhan's paper is wrong, if only Taleyarkhan can create sonofusion then Taleyarkhan is superman? (does superman exist? no) .If an experiment doesn't work then it just DOESN'T WORK, if you built a car and a car cannot even have a slighly different design then the car is NOT REAL!, only possible things happen; impossible things doesn't happen. Taleyarkhan's experiment is a failed experiment unless he can show to others how to do it right, other people need fusion not Taleyarkhan, fusion is for others not for a person.

  • toddy

    It may well be a sound idea. It's an idea and interesting, because of the potential of sound and what various frequencies can do to various things.

  • Soeren

    "if it fails, one of our dreams will surely die" not really. i just started watching, and for the reason that i dont have cheap energy, means it failed, but who says its gonna end? maybe in 10-20 years other ppl will find a way

  • azilda

    everything fails many times before some one finds a way to make it work.
    One's failure becomes ones success. That's how we came to write here.

  • Google Searcher

    If Horizon really wanted to recreate the experiment and results, they should have asked Taleyarkhan to set it up himself instead of using his obvious rival.

    And why should a pulse of neutrons need to be observed within the same nanosecond as the light burst? If there is an obvious cause and effect, that should be sufficient. The timing between them might only be a matter of the variance in the distance between the reaction and the instruments of measurement, or the inherent variance within the reaction between the burst of light and the creation of neutrons.

    I think more effort should go into following up Taleyarkhan's experiments. Oh wait.. I just read Wiki:

    "He is debarred for 28 months, until September 2011, from receiving U.S. Federal Funding, due to legal actions taken by the Office of Naval Research, which previously funded some of his research.[3] Taleyarkhan received in September 2008 a $185,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to investigate bubble fusion in spite of misconduct investigations, so the ONR added in 2009 his name to the 'Excluded Parties List' to prevent further grants.

    I guess we're all stuck with oil for a few more years. Somebody doesn't want this pursued.

  • tariqxl

    If I had developed a method of flipping a coin so it always lands on heads and someone else tries to recreate that, if the smallest detail is off they will get a tails

  • Brandon Cooper

    you can watch the last 10 minutes and still get everything thats in it.... kinda sad!!

  • InsanePorcupine

    BBC is far from objective. I rarely watch BBC documentaries now because they are so politically one sided its ridiculous. Usually I just watch the ones that appear to have no reason to be poitically one sided but I guess I made a mistake because I wasnt thinking about BP vs fusion. By the way does anyone beleive they are not one sided? Just watch the documentary on pot where a retarded women goes to Amsterdam and literally spouts ever proven myth about marijuana like its fact.

  • InsanePorcupine

    I wouldnt want to oversee a bunch of people butchering my years of experimentation either.

  • RileyRampant

    @InsanePorcupine/Assorted critics of Horizon's approach

    The essence of science is reproducibility. That is PRECISELY what separates the practice of science from fable. Read Msafwan's post for a better take. It is absolutely incumbent upon the researcher to provide a reproducible roadmap. If they cannot, and moreover resist the effort, their experiment is worthless or worse, misleading & they are at least lousy scientists, and likely worse.

    Taleyarkhan was given a challenge (show neutron generation coincident with the light pulse) - he failed to meet that, and would not assist the other team. that shows bad intent.

    Part of this aspect of reproducability is that some other person can get a similar result. Having Taleyarkhan re-do his experiment, as someone else with a similar misunderstanding about the basis of science complained, does not at all go to the issue of reproducibility. He was asked to cooperate, and refused.

    Why sympathize with the man? Taleyarkhan made claims he couldnt/wouldnt back up. I don't understand the carping. The fact that a TV show could fund an experiment to disprove this fellow's audacious claim indicates they were doing work any other university might have undertaken themselves, and subsequently have. Good for them.

    In 2008 the man was stripped of a named professorship and forbidden from being a graduate thesis advisor for three years, on the basis of a rigged corroboration paper by some of his graduate students (source: bubble fusion: wiki). That might tell you something.

  • Nikhil Sadalkar

    well in my opinion this could also be a cover up? I mean maybe they are continuing research behind everyone's back. Just think of it, free unlimited energy at your finger tip, IT WILL TURN THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN! I feel the day we discover unlimited free energy like zero point energy we will start on the next phase of our evolution. Lets just hope, politics, greed and nationalism just doesnt fuk it up :X

  • jiggerj

    Why does fusion have to happen at the same moment as the flashes of light? Aren't the flashes of light merely a sign that the liquid environment is now hot enough for fusion to occur?

  • Matt Kukowski

    Some scientists just like the mental masturbation of it all. After all... imagine you are a scientist that spends all his waking hours thinking about a particular experiment... you would convince yourself YOU are right and the rest wrong.

    This is just human nature. I do not think scientists should put down and name call other scientists that fail.

    It seems that scientists are just as nasty to each other as regular people.

    Point is... if a scientific experiment is proven wrong, do not say harsh words AT ALL, because they do not understand all the pain and passion that went into the attempt.

  • Kurt OConnor

    Got to hand it to those who look for the need to create rather then destroy. Testing dirty bombs with no concern of life makes less sence then making the Atom Bomb (Gadget) test much smaller.

  • Dennis Nilsson

    Mahatma Ghandi has the answer in this quote: "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed."

  • jamie elkins

    The reality is that this documentary as well as most of the people commenting on it are subject to this greed. In light of such a discovery every scientist in the field will do anything to discredit one another. Lets get down to it, we do not know everything and those that think they do are a detriment to existence. Who cares if Rosi's experiment created something that we coined "fusion"? Nobody focuses any attention on what clearly is there (except Rosi who has moved forward with his research). The original intention was to create something that could save us from our own greedy consumption of energy whether or not its called "fusion" this "star-in-a-jar" has created very large amounts of energy with the same properties as fusion and we as a society can still benefit from the fruits of this mans work regardless of what the process is called.

  • Joe

    Religion, Oil politics and greed, the combination will be the end up of us.

    the last 30 or so min of this false documentary, something didn't seem right, its as if it was aiming to please these politicians in scientist clothes.

    This was not about Fusion from the start, but how to trigger fusion, detecting these particles came to early in his research, he should persue this further, except now he needs to suround this bubble with materials that will make fusion.

    Most of these fake's calling themselves scientists in this video need to be sent off to china, maybe we will get lucky and they wont shoot them on the spot, maybe they will help them progress in the manor I just saw in this video., leave us only with the ones who actually want to do something other then politics.

    there is no breaking point, once human development takes that certain dip in quality, there will be no going back.

  • Quinton Beaudry

    to be honest.. this would weed out those with greed.. oil and gas energy are the resources that harvest more greed.. well atm anyhow but before anything like this would be released im sure the professor would be assassinated so the greedy can keep selling energy or murdering for it.. like all the wars right now... its all about the flow of energy to or from allies or neutral government bodies.. fusion would bring an end to that in a foreseeable future.. whoever the man be his life would surely be in danger... i think you have the wrong idea off greed.. however im pretty sure fusion at 1st would have an exhaustible price tag.. but overtime it and technology would be very viable for clean free energy.. and i dont mean free as in us paying or not.. i mean free as in we wouldnt need to burn combustible matter and pollute our planet or our bodies any longer..

  • Berar Darvinius

    This..''documentary'' the best example of how bureaucracy fks up everything, from entire countries to science, and i think is the reason of why in last years the technological evolution slowed down such drastically. To prove if is write, in all this years of arguing, yes, no , yes, no, over damn crap misprinted papers, just build a small scale reactor whit this principle. Simple, if is cheap energy should be even cheaper to do a small scale test, and hook up a voltmeter on it to prove for all human kind that works or not. But even so, IF, someone would discover this, i bet some company would have monopole over the construction of these 'clean' reactors so even so would not be ''cheap''. Was the car cheaper ore cleaner then the horse?
    And one very important thing: to create a sort of star in a jar, with such high surface temperature could be even more useful as fusion. A, and almost forgot, u guys really think that the US department of energy will make public the discovery of cold fusion and bury the big oil companies witch found the political campaigns? :D:D:D, get real and check the history. This sort of discovery would be possible only if would be made by some small independent scientists and would be published after would have been the first reactor build and put in practice so the whole world sees and understands the result.
    (I am sorry for my spelling, non English person )

  • Scott Doyle1976

    Did you actually watch this documentary??? Surround the bubble with material that makes fusion??? what do you think the deuterium the bubbles are formed in does??? One H+is kicked out when deuterium is bombarded with neutrons, these H+ fuse together when the bubble collapses forming water molecules of H2O and Helium. The problem with the internet is everyone gets a voice whether they have a clue what they are talking about or not.

  • Gordon Giroux

    many many dead links

  • russ apechin

    I believe he is correct in his making of cold fusion. The neutrons are in the hydrogen oxygen gasses they are so "desperately looking for " . Atoms do not care about temperature, Atoms make temperature. . The other scientists are attempting to derail this man . They have to or else they will lose the "oil enriched " government funding for the projects they are working on.

  • Richard Neva

    Such a discovery is anathema to the world of the rule by the rich. This idea will be quickly destroyed and hidden because it will liberate the people from poverty and that will never happen!

  • Kenneth Kelly

    This kind of tale has been applied to many things ever since people could tell them. Cold fusion has been claimed several times and so far they all have been nothing more than wishful thinking. These stories always attract those conspiracy lovers, It is the government or the corporations especially energy companies that are preventing these inventions from being developed. If these great inventions were actually what they claim they would offered huge amounts of wealth for their ideas. The largest contributors to alternative energy are the energy companies in an effort to sustain their business when fossil fuel declines. Don't be stupid, stop and think of all the failed people claiming they were prevented. That is a lie to save face