Victor Ninov
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Victor Ninov (Bulgarian: Виктор Нинов) is a former researcher in the nuclear chemistry group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) who was alleged to have fabricated the evidence used to claim the creation of ununoctium and ununhexium.
Ninov was trained at the GSI in Germany. His hiring by the LBNL from GSI had been considered a coup: he had been involved in the discovery of elements 110 (now named darmstadtium), 111 (now named roentgenium) and 112 and was considered one of the leading experts at using the complex types of software needed to detect the decay chain of unstable transuranium elements.
When the results proved to be unrepeatable by the Berkeley group and other laboratories around the world, an internal investigation was convened. The result of the investigation was that Dr. Ninov's work had been "fraudulent" and an unusually high-profile scandal followed. An internal committee at the lab concluded that Ninov was the only person in the large project to translate the raw computer results into human-readable results and had used this opportunity to inject false data. Re-analysis of the raw data did not indicate the events which Ninov's analysis originally reported. Ninov was fired in 2001 after claiming that the unique design of his apparatus was responsible for the faulty evidence leading to the alleged new elements. Dr. Ninov continues to deny vigorously any wrong-doing and maintains his innocence of any intent to commit fraud. He has also alleged that it was part of an international attempt to frame him and that he was scapegoated because the lab did not want to admit to their own errors.
Ninov's work at GSI was also called into question by his colleagues because subsequent re-analysis of the GSI data found that it had been altered.
Reports on the Ninov affair were released around the same time that the final report on the Schön affair, another major incident of fraud in physics. As a result, the American Physical Society adopted more stringent ethical guidelines, especially those regulating the conduct of coauthors.
Ninov now works at the University of the Pacific, where his wife was a professor while he worked at the lab.
[edit] References
- Rex, Dalton (2002). "The stars who fell to Earth". Nature 420: 728. DOI:10.1038/420728a.
[edit] External links
- Sanacacio.net – Article on the Ninov controversy
- Ninov's UoP Home Page
