Victor Ninov is a former high energy physicist at Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory (LBNL) who specialized in synthesizing heavy elements. Ninov has participated in the discovery of element 110 darmstadtium, element 111 roentgenium and element 112 copernicium. Ninov is famous for designing a computer software that detects the decay chain of chemical elements with an atomic number greater than 92. Ninov was the only one in the group capable of using the computer software and then he would translate them into result that can easily be read by humans thus making it easier to fabricate the outcome.
In 1999, a group of physicists at LBNL thought they had discovered the biggest element yet by smashing two heavy metals together: lead nuclei and krypton nuclei. Normally elements are made by smashing one heavy element and one light element together so this was an new and exciting method to synthesize elements. Ninov claimed to have discovered element 116 livermorium and element 118 oganesson however other scientists who attempted to replicate this experiment were unsuccessful. Failure to replicate the experiment led the Berkley team to …show more content…
According to the “Six Domains of Research Ethics: A Heuristic Framework for the Responsible Conduct of Research” by Kenneth D. Pimple, the classification of the unethical behavior by Victor Ninov is that he violated scientific integrity when he fabricated the data results. Scientific integrity is important because it promotes the truth, moral values and prohibits unethical behaviors like data manipulation, falsification, and fabrication which will lead to accurate data. In order to prevent this unethical behavior from happening there should have been other scientists that were able to run the data analysis software however at the time Victor Ninov was the only one capable of reading the computer software results. Other investigators should have also independently analyzed the data before publishing and checked over Ninov’s
In 1999, a group of physicists at LBNL thought they had discovered the biggest element yet by smashing two heavy metals together: lead nuclei and krypton nuclei. Normally elements are made by smashing one heavy element and one light element together so this was an new and exciting method to synthesize elements. Ninov claimed to have discovered element 116 livermorium and element 118 oganesson however other scientists who attempted to replicate this experiment were unsuccessful. Failure to replicate the experiment led the Berkley team to …show more content…
According to the “Six Domains of Research Ethics: A Heuristic Framework for the Responsible Conduct of Research” by Kenneth D. Pimple, the classification of the unethical behavior by Victor Ninov is that he violated scientific integrity when he fabricated the data results. Scientific integrity is important because it promotes the truth, moral values and prohibits unethical behaviors like data manipulation, falsification, and fabrication which will lead to accurate data. In order to prevent this unethical behavior from happening there should have been other scientists that were able to run the data analysis software however at the time Victor Ninov was the only one capable of reading the computer software results. Other investigators should have also independently analyzed the data before publishing and checked over Ninov’s