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Bubble Fusion Inquiry Under Wraps

Posted by timothy on Mon Jul 24, 2006 07:01 PM
from the shhh-or-it-might-explode-or-might-not-explode dept.
The Almighty Buck Power Education Science
hubie writes "Purdue University launched an investigation last March into the questionable research behavior and actions by Prof. Rusi Taleyarkhan following his controversial claims of achieving bubble fusion. The investigation has completed but the results are being kept secret. The alleged behavior is remeniscent of another tabletop fusion incident from a number of years back. Coincidentally, Purdue University has just secured Federal money to open up a new energy center. A more cynical person than I might suggest that there is a connection between the two."
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[+] Hardware: Bubble Fusion Researcher Faces Fraud Trial 154 comments
An anonymous reader writes "In 2001, Rusi P. Taleyarkhan shocked the world by claiming he had successfully produced a positive net energy bubble fusion reaction; cold fusion. The New York Times reports that a congressional hearing is now under way against Taleyarkhan, even though Purdue University has already cleared the scientist of any wrongdoing. Dr. Taleyarkhan said last night in an e-mail message that the subcommittee's report represents 'a gross travesty of justice.' He asked, 'Where are the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons of the Asian community during this episode that has caused this biased and openly one-sided smear campaign?' You can view the full (colorful) e-mail at Dailytech."
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  • An overwhelming urge (Score:5, Funny)

    by Umbral Blot (737704) on Monday July 24 2006, @07:05PM (#15773186) Homepage
    Must. Invest. Giant. Gobs. Of. Money. (thank god I'm not a VC)
    • Must. Invest. Giant. Gobs. Of. Money.

      Try to remember that fusion has always been said to be 10-20 years in the future, since the 1950s, for commercial use, and that cold fusion ... well ... let's just say investing in it would have hurt more than Enron.

  • I've noticed... (Score:4, Funny)

    by MillionthMonkey (240664) on Monday July 24 2006, @07:06PM (#15773195)
    When I roll my chair wheels over that bubble packing material and pop the plastic bubbles, lots of neutrons come flying up from the floor. Has anyone else noticed this?
    • You've discovered the Plastic Neutron Bomb! Contact the Pentagon [npr.org] immediately!

      • Re:I've noticed... (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2006, @08:49PM (#15773491)
        BEDEVERE:
                Ah, but can you not also pop bubblegum?
        VILLAGER #1:
                Oh, yeah.
        RANDOM:
                Oh, yeah. True. Uhh...
        BEDEVERE:
                Does helium lower the pitch of your voice?
        VILLAGER #1:
                No. No.
        VILLAGER #2:
                No, it raises it! It raises it!
        VILLAGER #1:
                Inhale the gas from the bubbles!
        CROWD:
                Inhale it! Inhale the gas from the bubbles!
        BEDEVERE:
                What also raises the pitch of one's voice?
        VILLAGER #1:
                Bread!
        VILLAGER #2:
                Apples!
        VILLAGER #3:
                Uh, very small rocks!
        VILLAGER #1:
                Cider!
        VILLAGER #2:
                Uh, gra-- gravy!
        VILLAGER #1:
                Cherries!
        VILLAGER #2:
                Mud!
        VILLAGER #3:
                Uh, churches! Churches!
        VILLAGER #2:
                Lead! Lead!
        ARTHUR:
                A kick to the groin!
        CROWD:
                Oooh.
        BEDEVERE:
                Exactly. So, logically...
        VILLAGER #1:
                If... the bubbles... hurt... the same as a kick to the groin,... they are made of helium.
        BEDEVERE:
                And therefore?
        VILLAGER #2:
                Fusion!
        VILLAGER #1:
                Fusion!
        CROWD:
                Fusion! Fusion!...

  • I reproduced their results (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2006, @07:08PM (#15773202)
    I tried this bubble wrap fusion.

    there is an audible release of energy.

  • But no Texans will own it! (Score:4, Funny)

    by eronysis (928181) on Monday July 24 2006, @07:18PM (#15773230)
    It's too bad about the series of car accidents, toaster explosions, and falling yaks that decimated the staff involved. Praise the Lord though we have clean burning coal!!!
    • I was just about ready to laugh at your joke, but then realized you are probably spot on.

      If I was even remotely connected to the group that finally provides indesputable proof of cold fusion, I'd hide and keep running. The powers that be do not play by any rules, and anything or anyone who threatens their power are fair game. No doubt in my military mind about that.
      • If I was even remotely connected to the group that finally provides indesputable proof of cold fusion, I'd hide and keep running.

        Really? I think I'd publish EVERY LAST BIT of info I had, as far and wide as possible, making it utterly useless to harm anyone over it. Patents, for one, and immediately and fully accessible to the public.

        But I guess I flunked my tin-foil hat class.

        • Re:But no Texans will own it! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by ultranova (717540) on Tuesday July 25 2006, @06:01AM (#15774981)

          C)Nuclear is dangerous, and has far more dangerous (though more manageable) pollution.

          I'm going to make a wild guess and state that, in all likelihood, nuclear power has killed or seriously or otherwise harmed far less people than fossil fuel per megawatt produced, even if you count the direct and indirect victims of nuclear weapons and weapon tests against nuclear power.

          In terms of pollution, the very thought of comparing constant smog in every major city against a few tons of solid or liquid nuclear waste, buried beneath bedrock for the next few thousands of years at least, is ridiculous.

          Uranium is dangerous. Breathing oil fumes is dangerous. Coal dust is not healthy either. Which is easiest to contain and handle, a solid metal, a highly flammable liquid, or a highly flammable powder ?

          I'm really starting to hate the various enviromental groups that want to keep me from sucking up carsinogens and other poisons from coal- and oil-burning power plants, when there's a nearly completely clean alternative. All this because of the Chernobyl accident (the worst accident in the history of nuclear power (the kind of which is impossible with modern reactor designs) killed a whopping 47 people and is estimated to kill 4000 from increased cancer rates [wikipedia.org] - compare this to the 100 000 who are estimated to die in Europe from power plant micro-particle emissions alone (sorry, don't have reference for that)), the apparent inability to understand the difference between a nuclear power plant and a nuclear bomb, and the strange believe that "God created the atoms and they weren't meant to be broken" (which is clearly nonsense since they uranium is a radiactive material and decays on its own without any human intervention - and yes, this is an argument that I've actually heard being used seriously).

          Or, to be more exact: I support enviromentalism as in "Let's make sure we don't have to start wearing gas masks when we go out and can see plants and animals besides museums and zoos". The "enviromentalists" who are against nuclear power (and windmils, since they are "unnatural" and "spoil the view") are the biggest obstacle for meeting that goal, since it is not only illogical to simultaneously demand lessening pollution and demand that non-polluting power plants aren't built, and because such illogical demands make all enviromentalists seem like a bunch of hysterical idiots without capacity for clear thought.

          Oh, and we need nuclear rockets to make cheap space travel a reality. Chemical rockets can't do that, the amount of impulse needed to reach orbit makes that certain.

            • Re:But no Texans will own it! (Score:5, Informative)

              by ultranova (717540) on Tuesday July 25 2006, @08:33AM (#15775566)

              Do realize though that this "mostly clean" waste it produces is stored underground, and is highly radioactive.

              Since I stated that the waste is buried beneath the bedrock, I think it's safe to assume that I understand that it's stored underground ;).

              What happens when the shielding on its casing decays, or a seismic shift ruptures the storage facility?

              The shielding is a few hundred meters of rock, so it will take a while to decay. And there is plenty of stable rock around the world - don't put the darn thing near a geologically active area. Finally, while bad things can happen with nuclear power, bad things are happening with coal and oil constantly, killing at the very least thousands of people each year - that's just from emissions, not from accidents.

              Besides, even if some catastrophe tore open the burial place, we are still talking about heavy solid or liquid substances on the bottom of a hundred-meter chasm. They aren't going to fly out of there on their own, so you can simply reseal the chasm. Naturally you don't want to place a nuclear dumping ground underneath a habitated area, but neither do you want to place any other kind of dumping ground or power plant there.

              What happens to the ground water around the facility, which feeds the local plant and animal life, which we may eat and we do drink water?

              A hundred meters of solid granite is surprisingly good at keeping water from getting to the surface. Especially if you make the walls of the burial chamber from rustproof steel or some other suitable matter.

              As for nuclear-powered rockets, ARE YOU MAD? Imagine for an instant Colombia was nuclear-powered.

              Well, since a nuclear-powered rocket has enough raw power to make a powered landing, as opposed to dropping from the orbit like a meteor, and doesn't need to save weight everywhere it can, meaning that it can be built with lots of safety margins everywhere, I'd say that if the shuttle was nuclear-powered, Colombia would have landed safely and been carted to receive repairs - assuming it had been damaged in the first place, since, like I said, a nuclear-powered rocket could have a lot stronger structure - while the crew went to their homes.

              Instead, Colombia was chemically-powered, and operating with almost no safety margin, so it blew up as soon as something went wrong, killing everyone onboard and spewing dangerous chemicals over the whole area.

              Now imagine the radioactive material being spread over much of the US, also being carried world-wide by air currents.

              Hmm... A few tens of kilograms of radiactive material, spread over millions of square kilometers. Not healthy, of course, but hardly something to get worried about either. And propably a lot less radiactivity than is released as a byproduct of mining each year, or created in the upper atmosphere by solar radiation, or simply background radiation.

              Radiactivity is a natural occurence. Your body also has natural defenses against it. It is only when there's sufficient concentration to overwhelm those defenses when it becomes dangerous. It is good to take precautions if you have a reason to, for example if you are working in a nuclear power plant or using an x-ray machine in a continuous basis; but thinking that a single nuclear reactor is going to cause a significant amount of damage to either the US or the whole world is simply ludicrous.

              Or you could simply use some of that increased weight envelope of a nuclear-powered spaceship to put a proper steel casing around the radiactive materials of the engine, keeping them from spreading anywhere. Colombia was broken, not powdered, in the accident.

              And finally, you could simply locate the launch site farther from the densely populated areas. Si

    • What's worse is that Hoosiers [wikipedia.org] will own it!
  • Achieving bubble fusion drives you crazy. Unfortunately, it's awful hard to communicate what's necessary to replicate the experiment while crazy, so practically all successful bubble experiments get written off as fraud.

  • My roomate works in that lab (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mechsoph (716782) on Monday July 24 2006, @07:38PM (#15773296)
    He's said the the experiments are incredibly touchy, and there are some days when it just won't work. Given that, it's not surprising others have had trouble duplicating the results.
    • i.e., the results are subjective.
      • defining subjective [princeton.edu]: taking place within the mind and modified by individual bias

        You can't bias physics. Obviously the experiment is not completely understood or there wouldn't be such trouble with repeatability. They are producing a reaction. It's hard, not fake.
        • Yes, that's what subjective means.

            • Re:My roomate works in that lab (Score:5, Interesting)

              by kfg (145172) * on Monday July 24 2006, @08:38PM (#15773452)
              It's clear (supposedly) whether it worked or not . . .

              No. While it may be clear to people on the team that it "worked," it is not clear to anyone else that it "worked," ever, using the team's own data.

              In fact, the team's own data is not consistent with the results they claim to have taken place. This is not merely a case of unreproducability.

              Others attempts to duplicate the results with more sensitive equipment suggests that what is happening is "hopeful misinterpretation" of random events measured at the margin of error. Once one starts down this path and feels professionally commited it really isn't all that hard, for anybody, to go from "hopeful missinterpretation" into "panicked delusion," or, for some, dare I even say it, minor boughts of fraud.

              In other words, it seems they've built themselves a very expensive N-ray detector.

              i.e., the results are subjective. Only people who can see them can see them; and even they now express some puzzlement over what they believe they see, because they don't see what they think they're seeing.

              See?

              KFG

    • Re:My roomate works in that lab (Score:5, Informative)

      by tpjunkie (911544) on Monday July 24 2006, @08:21PM (#15773404) Journal
      Mod parent up. As odd as it sounds, the poster is pretty much correct. I've tried to do normal sonoluminescence in a lab, and mostly it just doesn't work. Everything needs to be precisely perfect to create the standing waves that cause the bubbles to "implode" and release light, so god only knows how much harder it is to actually cause fusion. Of course, when you do get it perfect and working, it's pretty damned cool. I wouldn't write this one off just yet.

  • Stock market (Score:4, Funny)

    by Beryllium Sphere(tm) (193358) on Monday July 24 2006, @07:53PM (#15773331) Homepage Journal
    If this creates an unjustified surge of investment, is that a bubble fusion bubble?

    If the startups merge and shed employees and energy, is that bubble fusion bubble fusion?

    Sorry.

  • Cold fusion failure of logic (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2006, @08:19PM (#15773400)
    Quote from second article:
    Karl Popper argues that a scientific idea can never be proven true, because no matter how many observations seem to agree with it, it may still be wrong. On the other hand, a single contrary experiment can prove a theory forever false. Therefore, science advances only by demonstrating that theories are false, so that they must be replaced by better ones. The proponents of Cold Fusion took exactly the opposite view: many experiments, including their own, failed to yield the expected results. These were irrelevant, they argued, incompetently done, or lacking some crucial (perhaps unknown) ingredient needed to make the thing work. Instead, all positive results, the appearance of excess heat, or a few neutrons, proved the phenomenon was real. This anti-Popperian flavor of Cold Fusion played no small role in its downfall, since seasoned experimentalists like Lewis and Barnes refused to believe what they couldn't reproduce in their own laboratories. To them, negative results still mattered.
    End quote.

    This seems a grand failure of basic logic. Getting negative results does not mean that something (in this case, cold fusion) can not actually happen.

    For instance, I make an announcement that I have tied a piece of string to an object, threw the object in the air, and it stayed up floating for over an hour. Seems impossible, but heaps of people try to replicate it. Some try tying string to a wooden table, and throwing it in the air. It comes down after a couple of seconds. Other try other objects with similar failures. However, someone tried attaching string to a sheet of paper, and it floated for over 20 seconds before coming down. A partial success perhaps? But most people look at the equations of gravity and acceleration, and say that nothing will stay up for more than a few seconds, depending on how high you throw it. The original announcement is written off as a joke.

    A few years later, it is well known that if you shape paper over a frame of rigid sticks in a diamond shape, add a tail, and have an air flow of at least so many metres per second, the object will fly so long as the wind keeps blowing. It is now called a kite. So do the initial negative results mean that the positive result is false, even though there was currently no known theory??

    I respect several people who work in my field of science and they are not idiots. I assume the same applies to other scientific fields. So when several top-class individuals (eg. McKubre, director at SRI) say after a period of time they have achieved worthy cold fusion experimental results, I assume they are not incompentent or idiotic, and have actually achived something worthwhile. Perhaps one could be wrong, but the if all of them are wrong, then we are talking mass hallucinations of a lot of previously highly respected and compentent (in their field) people.

    Or I could believe the other side, who seem to all have multi-trillion dollar interests in keeping cold fusion passive for as long as possible (energy companies and high energy physicists eg. CERN).

    • Unfortunately for many, science has been plagued by some spectacular frauds lately . The result is that skepticism runs high, especially when you follow an experiment and cannot reproduce the results and then the original scientist who claimed the results simply says you aren't doing it right and hides behind intellectual property rights to avoid revealing their "secret". I've been following this bubble fusion for a while now (I work in magnetic confinement fusion) and it seems to have all the warning sig

    • high energy physicists eg. CERN

      Excuse me sir, but I must protest. I am a high energy physicist currently working at Fermilab (CDF). High energy physics today has nothing to do with fusion, except in that it might occasionally occur as a side effect of our collisions. Ah wait, there is one other regard in which we would be concerned with fusion, and it is the same as for everyone else: cheap, clean power. The electric bill here is in excess of 1 million USD a month. If cheap fusion power were available

    • This seems a grand failure of basic logic. Getting negative results does not mean that something (in this case, cold fusion) can not actually happen.
       
      For instance, I make an announcement that I have tied a piece of string to an object, threw the object in the air, and it stayed up floating for over an hour. Seems impossible, but heaps of people try to replicate it. Some try tying string to a wooden table, and throwing it in the air. It comes down after a couple of seconds. Other try other objects with similar failures. However, someone tried attaching string to a sheet of paper, and it floated for over 20 seconds before coming down. A partial success perhaps? But most people look at the equations of gravity and acceleration, and say that nothing will stay up for more than a few seconds, depending on how high you throw it. The original announcement is written off as a joke.
       
      A few years later, it is well known that if you shape paper over a frame of rigid sticks in a diamond shape, add a tail, and have an air flow of at least so many metres per second, the object will fly so long as the wind keeps blowing. It is now called a kite. So do the initial negative results mean that the positive result is false, even though there was currently no known theory??
      [Sorry for the long quote - it's needed to retain context.]
       
      That people failed to replicate your initial 'experiment' stems from sloppy description of the initial 'experiment'. The actual failure of logic is yours - because you shift frames of reference in mid-tale. In this case the flight of the kite is a false positive in the context of 'something floating' - because a kite does not float. (In any scientific usage of the word 'float'.)
       
       
      I respect several people who work in my field of science and they are not idiots. I assume the same applies to other scientific fields. So when several top-class individuals (eg. McKubre, director at SRI) say after a period of time they have achieved worthy cold fusion experimental results, I assume they are not incompentent or idiotic, and have actually achived something worthwhile. Perhaps one could be wrong, but the if all of them are wrong, then we are talking mass hallucinations of a lot of previously highly respected and compentent (in their field) people.

      'Mass hallucination' (as you so charmingly put it) is hardly unknown in science. Nor are false positives.

    • two word (Score:3, Informative)

      by aepervius (535155)
      Experimental protocol.

      Fankly who modded that insightful ? It ain't even a good thougth experiment since the protocol would have inside "incredible when I add a piece of paper in such and such form now the piece of wood float in the air for a few second. And if in addition there is such and such wind condition it can stays in air for hours !" that is what experimental protocol are for : to enable other to reproduce under the same condition the experiment.

      There are good reason to not ignore negative res
        • The problem arises when (if) the phenomenon observed depends on some aspect of the methods and materials which is not documented, possibly because the experimenter himself is unaware of its importance. The purity of germanium in the semiconductor experiments I alluded to in an earlier post, for example.

          This is particularly true when an experimenter with much experience in one field reports observations in another field. The methods/materials section of a paper is going to leave out that which the author a

  • Not spectacular (Score:4, Informative)

    by The_Wilschon (782534) on Monday July 24 2006, @08:27PM (#15773421) Homepage
    Even if what Taleyarkan claims is true, it is nothing spectacular. Tokamak research (for one) is really much farther along the road to viable commercial fusion. All that Taleyarkan is claiming is that his lab has acheived fusion, a milestone passed in the 1930s (timeline [wikipedia.org]). It is crucial to acheive power output greater than the power input. Several fusion projects have acheived this. However, it is also crucial to acheive a self-sustaining reaction, something not yet done.

    From last semester's Intro to Nuclear and Particle Physics textbook, The Physics of Nuclei and Particles by Richard A. Dunlap, 2004:
    [Unthermalized breakeven] refers to the situation where the energy output of the reactor is equal to the energy input but the plasma conditions have been augmented by neutral beam injection. ... thermalized breakeven where the plama conditions themselves are sufficient for net energy production. ... ignition where the energy output is not only sufficient to yield a net energy gain but is also sufficient to maintain the plasma conditions. This is a self-sustained fusion reaction.
    According to a plot in the book, magnetic confinement projects (tokamaks, stellerators, etc) have just barely entered the thermalized breakeven region. It is not clear from another plot where inertial confinement projects stand, except to say that they are still quite far from the ignition region.

    Anyway, all that to say that even if the Purdue claims are correct, it isn't anything to get too excited about, merely yet another technique for producing extremely endothermic fusion.

  • What is it with this "Fusion"? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nmullerny (976243) on Monday July 24 2006, @08:44PM (#15773470)
    If you were to read the articles on Wikipedia and around the web in general regarding cold fusion, somoluminescence, and other "cold" fusion reactions you would come away with two very wrong impressions. First would be that these technologies are very close to fruition and second that they are the holy grail of energy production and the answer to all of our problems. You would think that the fusion reactions are not dangerous, do not pollute, and the fuels involved are of infinite supply.
    The reality is that the only reproducable, controlled, fusion reactions mankind has managed to generate in a reproducable manner consume much more power than they generate, and are many, many years before becoming a source of power.
    Regarding fusion by-products, the fact is that most fusion reactions produce deadly forms of radiation, weather "cold" or "hot", and the fuels required for a-neutronic reactions are not in infinite supply.

    Granted that the idea of "Mr. Fusion" powering our automobiles on flat beer with helium, water vapour, and heat as it's only waste is captivating. Having a near infinite supply of energy would solve many of our and the world's problems (and I'm sure cause many of it's own as well).

    We should not lose sight that there are real, proven sources of energy that are renewable, cleaner and longer term than fossil fuels, that also require our investment of research, money, time, and education. Although they are not a "Magic Bullet" like Cold or Bubble fusion, they are the reality we should be focused on.

    • Re:What is it with this "Fusion"? (Score:5, Informative)

      by The_Wilschon (782534) on Monday July 24 2006, @10:57PM (#15773840) Homepage
      The reality is that the only reproducable, controlled, fusion reactions mankind has managed to generate in a reproducable manner consume much more power than they generate, and are many, many years before becoming a source of power.
      Only half true. Magnetic confinement fusion has definitely passed breakeven. The amount by which the output power exceeds input power is still sufficiently low (ratio around 1.2), however, that it is not yet a source of power, and probably will not be for several years yet.

      Regarding fusion by-products, the fact is that most fusion reactions produce deadly forms of radiation, weather "cold" or "hot", and the fuels required for a-neutronic reactions are not in infinite supply.
      Which fusion byproducts were you thinking of? Helium? Not particularly deadly or radioactive. Shielding from the radiation produced during the fusion reaction itself is trivial, and as I said, you don't really get much in the way of dangerous byproducts. d+t fusion gives Helium-4 (perfectly safe), and d+d fusion either gives Helium-3 (again, safe), or tritium. The tritium is radioactive, true. Most of it will likely be consumed in d+t reactions, and whatever is left over (if any) is enormously less problematic that fission byproducts. The halflife is ~12 years, compared to halflives in the thousands or millions of years for fission byproducts. Aneutronic fusion is not necessary. Desirable, perhaps. The aneutronic reactions produce significantly less energy than d+t, but on the other hand, it is much easier to capture and use. But certainly not necessary. And the fuels for neutronic reactions are available in enormously abundant supply. FUD.

      You would think that the fusion reactions are not dangerous, do not pollute, and the fuels involved are of infinite supply.
      Yes. Yes you would think that. For a very good reason. It is very nearly true. The danger is nearly zero (in an accident, the machinery necessary to sustain the plasma would be destroyed very quickly, and the remaining plasma would not last long enough to do nearly any damage at all.), the pollution is nearly zero (see what I said about byproducts and radiation shielding above), and the fuel is nearly inexhaustible (The sun is likely to go nova (thus ending the possiblity of, say, solar power...) before we use up the fusion fuel available in our oceans).
    • I think I understand the point you're trying to make, but I think there's a serious flaw in your logic, and in the argument of many alternative-energy boosters.

      The problem is this: alternative sources of energy are hard. As in really tough problems. They require a lot of effort, and investment of time, energy, and materials to solve. Almost all alternative sources of energy are like this. Large-scale geothermal power extraction (from areas not located on geologically active zones) is hard. Tidal power: hard. High-efficiency solar power: very hard. Fusion is likewise hard.

      The other problem is that only a few of these sources could, by themselves, satisfy our demands for energy.

      Given that as a civilization we have a basically limited amount of resources at any given time to commit to researching new energy sources, it's understandable that we tend to focus our attentions on the few sources that seem like viable wholesale replacements for our steadily depleting fossil fuels.

      To put it bluntly, until it becomes clear that fusion simply won't work, it's going to receive most of the attention, because the possible payoff there is much higher than in any other avenue of research. Most alternative sources only make sense as aspects of a larger plan, consisting of a mix of sources. While this diversity is probably wise in the long run, it also represents a huge investment of time and effort into each source. And as the fossil fuels run out and energy becomes more expensive, the research becomes more difficult and our options more constrained. There is a risk, I think, of spreading ourselves too thin and not having a viable replacement for petroleum when its time is up.

      It is a mistake to view fusion (or any other single source) as a 'magic bullet.' However, it makes a certain amount of sense to want to secure a source of energy that can replace fossil fuels first, and then research other alternatives in order to diversify our societal energy portfolio afterwards. To do otherwise might risk us not finding a replacement for our energy needs before the fossil fuels run out, which would be a disaster of unthinkable proportions.

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