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Was the experiment actually performed?

Posted by strauss on 26 May 2009 at 20:59 GMT

This article seems to be fatally flawed because the apparatus described looks to be impossible. You can't put a 1ml sample or even half a ml into either of the tiny cuvettes. The inner cuvette with it's 1.5mm thick walls won't fit inside the larger 2.3mm cuvette!. Even if you got one cuvette inside the other what fixes it in place or keeps it from tilting over or floating when the covered box is being handled? I don't see how it's possible the the 1ml sample did not evaporate evaporate when it was placed at 27 degrees for 48 hours.

The entire thesis of the experiment is to prevent molecular communication but the top of the cuvettes is left open nullifying the results. why were the tops not covered? Even when the author addresses this molecular diffusion issue the logic is wrong. The outer cuvettes are _not_ closer to each other than to it's own inner cuvette because most of the surface area of the liquid is on the sides of the square annular region not adjacent to the neighboring cuvette.

Why did they measure the transmission of a piece of glass and not the actual cuvette itself. Indeed why is an entire figure used to show something so mundane as the absorption of glass anyhow?

It's impossible the experiment was performed as described. If it was performed at all it was not properly controlled.

No competing interests declared.

RE: Was the experiment actually performed?

keesey replied to strauss on 02 Sep 2009 at 03:17 GMT

Note the date of this paper....

No competing interests declared.