The fall of a scientist
Stratum101
scientist named Jan Hendrik Schön whose advances in
electronic materials science with applications in nanotechnology
were fantastic. Then in a report I remember reading in
early 2003, I read his research could not be validated,
and soon his papers were unmasked as frauds.
I just started _Plastic Fantastic: How the Biggest
Fraud in Physics Shook the Scientific World_, by
Eugeneie Samuel Reich which is about this story.
It is reviewed in the current issue of American Scientist.
The lit-news aggregator (my term, not theirs), Arts & Letters
Daily picked the article up in today's issue. You
can get to the review from there, or go directly to
the source at
http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/physics-and-pixie-dust)
Reich published her book in May. There are no
spoilers. This is an explanation of how Schön
got away with it, rather than new revelations.
Apparently, peer review helped him perpertuate his
misdeeds for awhile rather than preventing them. He
would be asked challenging questions which he used
as hints to what he had to demonstrate. Further, once
he had published a few papers, his new pieces were
eagerly awaited.
In a sense, Jan Hendrik Schön is a genius, but
not that kind exactly.
Marko Amnell
"Stratum101" <j.co...@cross-comp.com> wrote in message
6e648187-d7d3-4270...@g23g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...
> Apparently, peer review helped him perpertuate his
> misdeeds for awhile rather than preventing them. He
> would be asked challenging questions which he used
> as hints to what he had to demonstrate. Further, once
> he had published a few papers, his new pieces were
> eagerly awaited.
>
> In a sense, Jan Hendrik Sch�n is a genius, but
> not that kind exactly.
I know the story, and I saw the piece linked to in
Arts & Letters Daily.
An interesting contrast is the story of Grigory
Perelman, an actual genius who proved the
Poincar� Conjecture, but never bothered to
publish his proof in any journal, peer reviewed
or not. He was satisfied with having communicated
his proof in three preprints posted to the arXiv
electronic preprint archive in 2002 and 2003.
He also, famously, turned down the Fields Medal.
But he may win the $1 million Millennium Prize:
"Perelman may also be due to receive a share
(or the totality) of a Millennium Prize. The rules
for this prize-which can be changed, as stated
by a member of the advisory board of the Clay
Mathematics Institute-require his proof to be
published in a peer-reviewed mathematics journal.
While Perelman has not pursued publication himself,
other mathematicians have published papers about
the proof. This may make Perelman eligible to
receive a share or the whole of a prize. Perelman
has stated that 'I'm not going to decide whether to
accept the prize until it is offered.'"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman
I just ordered a new book about him, _Perfect Rigor:
A Genius and the Mathematical Breakthrough of
the Century_ by Masha Gessen. The best technical
introduction to the proof is the book-length article
"Ricci Flow and the Poincar� Conjecture"
by John Morgan and Gang Tian, which you can get
from the arXiv http://arxiv.org/abs/math.DG/0607607
Just reading the first few pages of this article
gives some idea of Perelman's proof.
There is also a more popular book by Donal O'Shea
entitled _The Poincar� Conjecture_ which was
published in 2007 and carries the grandiose subtitle
"In Search of the Shape of the Universe." It's a
free ebook, which you can download as a torrent,
for example from http://tinyurl.com/yecea8h