User:MattKapnick/sandbox

Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservatory evaluation

• The article is overall underdeveloped: being very vague on the functions of the conservatory, and very little information on it's research
• Completely missing any information of forestry activities alluded to in the summary paragraph
• Only has 1 reference source
• Verbose and confusing when talking about old Beadel house with no link to what that is
• Minor grammar errors

~~~~

Fixed: grammar errors, removed and replaced sentence about Beadel house

Victor Ninov edit

• Banner labeled poor sourcing
• Needs further development of article, missing childhood, discoveries, training, further detail of fraud, modern life, and implications of fraud
• Needs a wording refresher: broken up poorly and confusing currently
• Pictures would be nice (him, discovered elements, laboratories)
• Talk page states must adhere to biographies of living persons policy
• last edited 2013

Research

Atomic Lies: How One Physicist May Have Cheated in the Race to Find New Elements

• Moved from Communist Bulgaria in the 1970s. Moved from house to house in West Germany.
• His father disappeared and was found dead shortly after he moved of causes unknown
• went to school at the Technical University of Darmstadt for a degree in physics, and pursued doctoral work on GSI's cyclotron (particle accelerator)
• At the cyclotron he worked with a team smashing particles into each other trying to make and discover new elements of the periodic table.
• At GSI he distinguished himself as being very capable of building scientific instruments and running computer analysis
• He was given sole control of GSI's computer analysis program
• He also was the designer of gas separators at both Berkley and GSI that acted to clear out debris from the experiments so that the sensors could detect the heavy elements they were looking for
• Was hired on to the Berkeley cyclotron research team in 1996 and was given full control once again of the computer analysis program. He was the only one on the team who knew how to use it
• in 1999 he and his team were investigating the theoretical element 118 by fusing Pb and Kr
• Reported several sightings of element 118 and 116 - both never seen before
• Further research failed to verify this, including that of the original research team, the original data is reinspected by someone other than Nivov and there is no evidence of element 118 or 116.
• following this berkley recalls its paper on its finding and Ninov is dismissed for allegedly fabricating a scientific discovery
• GSI investigated the original data from Ninovs co-discoveries of elements 110, 111 and 112. They found that a sighting of element 110 and one of 112 were faked, but there were still many sightings of all the elements that were real
• Ninov still asserts his innocence
• Married to Caroline Cox, a history professor at University of the Pacific

Lawrence Berkeley Lab concludes that evidence of element 118 was a fabrication

• Berkeley laboratory conducted an investigation and retracted the discovery of element 118 in 2002, claiming that Victor Ninov made a "wrongful claim"

California lab fires physicist over retracted finding

• 1 year long investigation into the discovery of elements 118 and 116 lead to the conclusion that the sightings were fabricated by Ninov and that no other member of the team was involved in the fraud
• Ninov was fired
• Review of Ninovs GSI projects revealed that two sightings "were spuriously created", however it was the conclusion of GSI the "discovery of elements 111 and 112 still stands"

Heavy-element fizzle laid to falsified data. (Heavy-Ion Physics)

• Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) concluded that the discoveries were based on falsified data

Heavy Suspicion.

• "Ninov... intentionally misled his colleagues-and everyone else-by fabricating data."
• Heavy elements were discovered 116 and 118 were discovered and verified in a joint nuclear research center in Dubna, Russia, and were observed contrary to LBNLs observations.

Fraud in science

• After the Ninov fraud became more known, it became apparent that on all of his fraudulent discoveries had many coauthors, making the discovery seem more legitimate than it was. This set off a chain of events that resulted in stricter guidelines being set for coauthors. these rules " in effect requiring all coauthors to vouch for their contribution to published work."

Final assignment: Family, friends and colleagues help complete late Pacific professor’s book

• Ninov's wife, Caroline Cox, died july 11 2014 of cancer. They had been married 29 years.
• Victor had lived in Sofia, when he was in Bulgaria
• Ninov also worked at stanford for a time

Early Life

Victor Ninov was born in Communist Bulgaria in 1959. He grew up in the capital city of Sofia. In the 1970s, when Victor was a teenager, he and his family left for West Germany; they bounced around from house to house. Shortly after the move Victor's father went missing, and turned up dead 6 months later in the Bulgarian foothills due to causes unknown.

Career

Technical University of Darmstadt

Victor Ninov attended Technical University of Darmstadt near Frankfurt, Germany. Here he distinguished himself as very capable physicist: he was particularly good at building scientific instruments and coding analysis programs for them. This landed him a job at the nearby German research center GSI (Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung) where he worked on his doctorate and postdoctoral work of creating new elements. For his expertise he was given sole control of the computer analysis program. Here he became a rising star by co-discovering elements 110, 111, and 112 (Darmstadtium, Roentgenium, and Copernicium respectively) by smashing heavy elements with protons in GSI's cyclotron (a type of particle accelerator) and analyzing the debre. These discoveries were made with the help of his addition of a gas separator to the particle accelerator to help filter out everything but the heavy elements they were looking for. He worked at Stanford for a time. He was hired at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in 1996 as a world class expert for particle accelerator debre sensors, and analysis programs.

Fraud

This is LBNL' 60 inch Cyclotron; Victor Ninov worked on an improved 88 inch version during his alleged discovery of element 118 and 116

While working at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) Victor Ninov and his team pursued a hypothesis that element 118 could be formed at relatively low energies by smashing Kr-86 and Pb-208 ions together. Ninov initially doubted the hypothesis he was pursuing; he is quoted in saying "We didn't know how many orders of magnitude he was wrong" of the scientist who created the hypothesis. Victor, again, held sole control of the data analysis program, and he was the only one on the team that knew how to use it. In 1999 Ninov and his team reported sightings of element 118, almost exactly as predicted, and a decay chain that also produced element 116. However, other laboratories were unable to reproduce the results. Eager to prove their discovery, the team double checked their instruments, and tried again. One more sighting was made by Ninov, but it was dismissed by a colleague, and a full formal investigation was spawned to get to the bottom of elements 118 and 116. The original element 118 data was independently analysed, and in the original binary data, there was no indication of the presence of element 118 or 116. The investigation dragged on for a year, until it was concluded that "Ninov... intentionally misled his colleagues-and everyone else-by fabricating data". Victor Ninov, who had been placed on leave, was fired. The rest of Ninov's team officially retracted their claims in 2002. There was also an investigation conducted into Ninov's unsupervised science at GSI; it was found that "two sightings were spuriously created". However, very perplexingly, these false flags were found amongst lots of real data that still supported that his co-discoveries were still legitimate. It was the conclusion of the GSI investigation that "discovery of elements 111 and 112 still stands". At minimum it is certain that Victor Ninov made a "wrongful claim" about elements 118 and 116. The heavy elements 116 and 118 were discovered and verified in a joint nuclear research center in Dubna, Russia, and were observed contrary to LBNLs observations. Victor Ninov maintains that he was innocent to this day.

Impact of fraud on scientific community

This fraud came as quite a shock to other scientists as Victor Ninov had previously regarded as a very respected physicist. In the aftermath of the fraud it was troubling to many that so many co-authors on the papers about LBNL were none the wiser, to learn they had contributed to a false statement. So, in a twist of fate, the falsifying of scientific data by Victor Ninov resulted in stricter guidelines being set for coauthors; these rules "clarify co-authors' roles and duties" and they are "requiring all coauthors to vouch for their contribution to published work". The American Physical Society has also called for increased ethical training and oversight at research institutions, and has sponsored several speakers in an effort to make the scientific community more comfortable and resilient to scientific fraud.

Current life

Victor Ninov is still alive today, but is retired from physics. He lives in California. His wife, Caroline Cox, a former history professor University of the Pacific, died in 2014 of cancer. They were married 29 years. Victor helped finish her book, "Boy Soldiers of the American Revolution", and it was published postmortem. He is an avid sailor, and pilots a four seater plane.