List of experimental errors and frauds in physics

Last updated

Experimental science demands repeatability of results, but many experiments are not repeatable due to fraud or error. [1] [2] The list of papers whose results were later retracted or discredited, thus leading to invalid science, is growing. [3] Some errors are introduced when the experimenter's desire for a certain result unconsciously influences selection of data (a problem which is possible to avoid in some cases with double-blind protocols). [4] There have also been cases of deliberate scientific misconduct. [5]

Contents

Famous experimental errors

A reported faint visual effect that experimenters could still "see" even when the supposed causative element in their apparatus had been secretly disconnected. [6]
Published in Annalen der Physik and said to be the first journal paper to cite Einstein's 1905 electrodynamics paper. Walter Kaufmann stated that his results were not compatible with special relativity. According to Gerald Holton, it took a decade for the shortcomings of Kaufmann's test to be realised: during this time, critics of special relativity were able to claim that the theory was invalidated by the available experimental evidence. [7]
A number of earlier experimenters claimed to have found the presence or lack of gravitational redshift, but Walter Sydney Adams's result was supposed to have settled the issue. Unfortunately, the measurement and the prediction were both in error such that it initially appeared to be valid. [8] It is no longer considered credible and there has been much debate about whether the results were fraud or that his data may have been contaminated by stray light from Sirius A. [9] The first "reliable" confirmations of the effect appeared in the 1960s.
Originally reported in Nature in 1955 [10] and later. Diamond synthesis was later determined to be impossible with the apparatus. Subsequent analysis indicated that the first gemstone (used to secure further funding) was natural rather than synthetic. Artificial diamonds have since been produced. [11]
In 1970, Joseph Weber, an electrical engineer turned physicist and working with the University of Maryland, reported the detection of 311 excitations on his test equipment designed to measure gravitational waves. [12] He utilized an apparatus consisting of two one ton aluminum bars, each a separate detector, in some configurations being hung within a vacuum chamber, or having one bar displaced to Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago, about 1,000 kilometers away, all for further isolation. [13] He took extreme measures to isolate the equipment from seismic and other interferences, but Weber's criteria for data analysis turned out to be ill-defined and partly subjective. In 1974, the first indirect detection of gravitational waves was confirmed from observations of a binary pulsar, but by the end of the 1970s, Weber's work was considered spurious as it could not be replicated by others. Still, Weber is considered one of the fathers of gravitational wave detection and inspiration for other projects such as LIGO, which made the first direct observation of gravitational waves in 2015.
Data from Fermilab in 1976 appeared to indicate a new particle at about 6 GeV which decayed into electron-positron pairs. Subsequent data and analysis indicated that the apparent peak resulted from random noise. The name is a pun on upsilon, the proposed name for the new particle and Leon M. Lederman, the principal investigator. The illusory particle is unrelated to the Upsilon meson, discovered in 1977 by the same group. [14]
Since the announcement of Pons and Fleischmann in 1989, cold fusion has been considered to be an example of a pathological science. [15] Two panels convened by the US Department of Energy, one in 1989 and a second in 2004, did not recommend a dedicated federal program for cold fusion research. [16] In 2007, Nature reported that the American Chemical Society would host an invited symposium on cold fusion and low energy nuclear reactions at their national meeting for the first time in many years. [17] [18]
Members of the Heidelberg–Moscow collaboration claimed to have discovered neutrino-less double beta decay in 76
Ge
 in 2001.
In 2011, the OPERA experiment at CERN mistakenly measured neutrinos appearing to travel faster than the speed of light. The results were published in September, noting that further investigation into systematics would be necessary. [19] This investigation found an improperly connected fibre optic cable and a clock oscillator ticking too fast, which together had caused an underestimate of uncertainty in the initial measurement. [20]
On March 17, 2014, astrophysicists of the BICEP2 collaboration announced the detection of inflationary gravitational waves in the B-mode power spectrum, which if confirmed, would provide clear experimental evidence for the cosmological theory of inflation. However, on 19 June 2014, lowered confidence in confirming the cosmic inflation findings was reported. Eventually, the initial findings were revealed to be artifacts of interstellar dust.
In July 2023, a team at Korea University led by Lee Sukbae and Kim Ji-Hoon announced the discovery of LK-99, a supposed room-temperature superconductor based on lead apatite doped with copper. As evidence, they published conductivity measurements and a video showing partial levitation that the researchers claimed displayed the Meissner effect. Other research groups were not able to replicate the results and suggested that impurities in the material led to spurious effects mimicking phenomena associated with superconductivity. Copper(I) sulfide, a compound produced in the synthesis process, turned out to be a close match for the claimed properties of LK-99, and pure samples of LK-99 were insulators rather than any form of conductor. [21] [22]

Alleged scientific misconduct cases

Emil Rupp had been considered one of the best experimenters of his time until he was forced to admit that his notable track record was at least partly due to the fabrication of results. [23]
French immunologist Jacques Benveniste published a paper in Nature which seemed to support a mechanism by which homeopathy could operate. The journal editors accompanied the paper with an editorial urging readers to "suspend judgement" until the results could be replicated. Benveniste's results failed to have been replicated in subsequent double blind experiments.
A succession of high-profile peer-reviewed papers previously published by Jan Hendrik Schön were subsequently found to have used obviously fabricated data. [5]
Element 118 (oganesson) was announced, and then the announcement withdrawn by Berkeley after claims of irreproducibility. The researcher involved, Victor Ninov, denies doing anything wrong. [24]
In 2002, nuclear engineer Rusi Taleyarkhan and his collaborators claimed to have observed evidence of sonofusion or bubble fusion. An investigation in 2008 by Purdue University review board judged him guilty of research misconduct for "falsification of the research record". [25]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Physical cosmology</span> Branch of cosmology which studies mathematical models of the universe

Physical cosmology is a branch of cosmology concerned with the study of cosmological models. A cosmological model, or simply cosmology, provides a description of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of the universe and allows study of fundamental questions about its origin, structure, evolution, and ultimate fate. Cosmology as a science originated with the Copernican principle, which implies that celestial bodies obey identical physical laws to those on Earth, and Newtonian mechanics, which first allowed those physical laws to be understood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cold fusion</span> Hypothetical type of nuclear reaction

Cold fusion is a hypothesized type of nuclear reaction that would occur at, or near, room temperature. It would contrast starkly with the "hot" fusion that is known to take place naturally within stars and artificially in hydrogen bombs and prototype fusion reactors under immense pressure and at temperatures of millions of degrees, and be distinguished from muon-catalyzed fusion. There is currently no accepted theoretical model that would allow cold fusion to occur.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dark matter</span> Concept in cosmology

In astronomy, dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter that does not interact with light or other electromagnetic radiation. Dark matter is implied by gravitational effects which cannot be explained by general relativity unless more matter is present than can be observed. Such effects occur in the context of formation and evolution of galaxies, gravitational lensing, the observable universe's current structure, mass position in galactic collisions, the motion of galaxies within galaxy clusters, and cosmic microwave background anisotropies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neutrino</span> Elementary particle with extremely low mass

A neutrino is a fermion that interacts only via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass is so small (-ino) that it was long thought to be zero. The rest mass of the neutrino is much smaller than that of the other known elementary particles. The weak force has a very short range, the gravitational interaction is extremely weak due to the very small mass of the neutrino, and neutrinos do not participate in the electromagnetic interaction or the strong interaction. Thus, neutrinos typically pass through normal matter unimpeded and undetected.

Pathological science is an area of research where "people are tricked into false results ... by subjective effects, wishful thinking or threshold interactions." The term was first used by Irving Langmuir, Nobel Prize-winning chemist, during a 1953 colloquium at the Knolls Research Laboratory. Langmuir said a pathological science is an area of research that simply will not "go away"—long after it was given up on as "false" by the majority of scientists in the field. He called pathological science "the science of things that aren't so."

Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) are hypothetical particles that are one of the proposed candidates for dark matter.

Bubble fusion is the non-technical name for a nuclear fusion reaction hypothesized to occur inside extraordinarily large collapsing gas bubbles created in a liquid during acoustic cavitation. The more technical name is sonofusion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fermilab</span> High-energy particle physics laboratory in Illinois, US

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located in Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics.

A room-temperature superconductor is a hypothetical material capable of displaying superconductivity above 0 °C, operating temperatures which are commonly encountered in everyday settings. As of 2023, the material with the highest accepted superconducting temperature was highly pressurized lanthanum decahydride, whose transition temperature is approximately 250 K (−23 °C) at 200 GPa.

<i>Physics World</i> Journal

Physics World is the membership magazine of the Institute of Physics, one of the largest physical societies in the world. It is an international monthly magazine covering all areas of physics, pure and applied, and is aimed at physicists in research, industry, physics outreach, and education worldwide.

Tests of general relativity serve to establish observational evidence for the theory of general relativity. The first three tests, proposed by Albert Einstein in 1915, concerned the "anomalous" precession of the perihelion of Mercury, the bending of light in gravitational fields, and the gravitational redshift. The precession of Mercury was already known; experiments showing light bending in accordance with the predictions of general relativity were performed in 1919, with increasingly precise measurements made in subsequent tests; and scientists claimed to have measured the gravitational redshift in 1925, although measurements sensitive enough to actually confirm the theory were not made until 1954. A more accurate program starting in 1959 tested general relativity in the weak gravitational field limit, severely limiting possible deviations from the theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solar neutrino</span> Extremely light particle produced by the Sun

A solar neutrino is a neutrino originating from nuclear fusion in the Sun's core, and is the most common type of neutrino passing through any source observed on Earth at any particular moment. Neutrinos are elementary particles with extremely small rest mass and a neutral electric charge. They only interact with matter via weak interaction and gravity, making their detection very difficult. This has led to the now-resolved solar neutrino problem. Much is now known about solar neutrinos, but research in this field is ongoing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gravitational interaction of antimatter</span> Theory of gravity on antimatter

The gravitational interaction of antimatter with matter or antimatter has been observed by physicists. As was the consensus among physicists previously, it was experimentally confirmed that gravity attracts both matter and antimatter at the same rate within experimental error.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Majorana fermion</span> Fermion that is its own antiparticle

A Majorana fermion, also referred to as a Majorana particle, is a fermion that is its own antiparticle. They were hypothesised by Ettore Majorana in 1937. The term is sometimes used in opposition to a Dirac fermion, which describes fermions that are not their own antiparticles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homestake experiment</span> Underground experiment to count solar neutrinos

The Homestake experiment was an experiment headed by astrophysicists Raymond Davis, Jr. and John N. Bahcall in the late 1960s. Its purpose was to collect and count neutrinos emitted by nuclear fusion taking place in the Sun. Bahcall performed the theoretical calculations and Davis designed the experiment. After Bahcall calculated the rate at which the detector should capture neutrinos, Davis's experiment turned up only one third of this figure. The experiment was the first to successfully detect and count solar neutrinos, and the discrepancy in results created the solar neutrino problem. The experiment operated continuously from 1970 until 1994. The University of Pennsylvania took it over in 1984. The discrepancy between the predicted and measured rates of neutrino detection was later found to be due to neutrino "flavour" oscillations.

The Kamioka Observatory, Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, University of Tokyo is a neutrino and gravitational waves laboratory located underground in the Mozumi mine of the Kamioka Mining and Smelting Co. near the Kamioka section of the city of Hida in Gifu Prefecture, Japan. A set of groundbreaking neutrino experiments have taken place at the observatory over the past two decades. All of the experiments have been very large and have contributed substantially to the advancement of particle physics, in particular to the study of neutrino astronomy and neutrino oscillation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gravitational wave</span> Propagating spacetime ripple

Gravitational waves are transient displacements in a gravitational field—generated by the motion or acceleration of gravitating masses—that radiate outward from their source at the speed of light. They were first proposed by Oliver Heaviside in 1893 and then later by Henri Poincaré in 1905 as the gravitational equivalent of electromagnetic waves. In 1916, Albert Einstein demonstrated that gravitational waves result from his general theory of relativity as ripples in spacetime.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Borexino</span> Neutrino physics experiment in Italy

Borexino is a deep underground particle physics experiment to study low energy (sub-MeV) solar neutrinos. The detector is the world's most radio-pure liquid scintillator calorimeter and is protected by 3,800 meters of water-equivalent depth. The scintillator is pseudocumene and PPO which is held in place by a thin nylon sphere. It is placed within a stainless steel sphere which holds the photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) used as signal detectors and is shielded by a water tank to protect it against external radiation. Outward pointing PMT's look for any outward facing light flashes to tag incoming cosmic muons that manage to penetrate the overburden of the mountain above. Neutrino energy can be determined through the number of photoelectrons measured in the PMT's. While the position can be determined by extrapolating the difference in arrival times of photons at PMT's throughout the chamber.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2011 OPERA faster-than-light neutrino anomaly</span> 2011 experiment which mistakenly seemed to show faster-than-light travel

In 2011, the Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus (OPERA) experiment mistakenly observed neutrinos appearing to travel faster than light. Even before the source of the error was discovered, the result was considered anomalous because speeds higher than that of light in vacuum are generally thought to violate special relativity, a cornerstone of the modern understanding of physics for over a century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barry Barish</span> American physicist

Barry Clark Barish is an American experimental physicist and Nobel Laureate. He is a Linde Professor of Physics, emeritus at California Institute of Technology and a leading expert on gravitational waves.

References

  1. ↑ Norton, John D. (20 June 2015). "Replicability of Experiment" (PDF). Theoria. 30 (2): 229. doi: 10.1387/theoria.12691 . ISSN   2171-679X.
  2. ↑ "Problems with scientific research: How science goes wrong". The Economist. 21 October 2013. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  3. ↑ Rosten, Michael (28 May 2015). "Retracted Scientific Studies: A Growing List". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  4. ↑ Chapman, Kit; Lalloo, Manisha. "Science's problem with unconscious bias". chemistryworld.com. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  5. 1 2 Sarachik, Miriam (2009). "Plastic Fantastic: How the Biggest Fraud in Physics Shook the Scientific World". Physics Today. 62 (10): 57. Bibcode:2009PhT....62j..57R. doi: 10.1063/1.3248480 .
  6. ↑ Wood, R.W. (29 September 1904). "The N-Rays". Nature . 70 (1822): 530–531. Bibcode:1904Natur..70..530W. doi:10.1038/070530a0. S2CID   4063030. After spending three hours or more in witnessing various experiments, I am not only unable to report a single observation which appeared to indicate the existence of the rays, but left with a very firm conviction that the few experimenters who have obtained positive results, have been in some way deluded. A somewhat detailed report of the experiments which were shown to me, together with my own observations, may be of interest to the many physicists who have spent days and weeks in fruitless efforts to repeat the remarkable experiments which have been described in the scientific journals of the past year.
  7. ↑ Jeremy Bernstein, "Einstein" (1973) pp.81–85 — Kaufmann experiment
  8. ↑ Holberg, J. B. (2010). "Sirius B and the Measurement of the Gravitational Redshift". Journal for the History of Astronomy. 41 (1): 41–64. Bibcode:2010JHA....41...41H. doi:10.1177/002182861004100102. ISSN   0021-8286. S2CID   117998999.
  9. ↑ F. Wesemael, "A comment on Adams' measurement of the gravitational redshift of Sirius B", Royal Astronomical Society, Quarterly Journal (ISSN 0035-8738), 26, Sept. 1985, 273–278
  10. ↑ F. P. Bundy; H. T. Hall; H. M. Strong; R. H. Wentorf (1955). "Man-Made Diamonds". Nature . 176 (4471): 51–55. Bibcode:1955Natur.176...51B. doi:10.1038/176051a0. S2CID   4266566.
  11. ↑ Bovenkerk et al., "Errors in diamond synthesis", Nature 365 19 (1993) "Scientific Correspondence"
  12. ↑ Lindley, D. (Dec 22, 2005). "Focus: A Fleeting Detection of Gravitational Waves". Phys. Rev. Focus. 16 (19).
  13. ↑ Weber, J. (May 1972). "How I Discovered Gravitational Waves". Popular Science (100th Anniversary issue): 106.
  14. ↑ "!! EXTRA!! FERMILAB EXPERIMENT DISCOVERS NEW PARTICLE "UPSILON"". history.fnal.gov. Archived from the original on 11 November 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  15. ↑ Labinger JA, Weininger SJ (2005). "Controversy in chemistry: how do you prove a negative?—the cases of phlogiston and cold fusion". Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 44 (13): 1916–22. doi:10.1002/anie.200462084. PMID   15770617. So there matters stand: no cold fusion researcher has been able to dispel the stigma of "pathological science" by rigorously and reproducibly demonstrating effects sufficiently large to exclude the possibility of error (for example, by constructing a working power generator), nor does it seem possible to conclude unequivocally that all the apparently anomalous behavior can be attributed to error.
  16. ↑ U.S. Department of Energy (2004). "Report of the Review of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions" (PDF). Washington, DC: doe.gov. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-01-14. Retrieved 2008-07-19..
  17. ↑ "Cold fusion is back at the American Chemical Society" Nature News, 29 March 2007, doi : 10.1038/news070326-12
  18. ↑ Van Noorden, R. (2007). "Cold fusion back on the menu". Chemistry World (April 2007). Retrieved 2008-05-25..
  19. ↑ Adam, T. (2011). "Measurement of the neutrino velocity with the OPERA detector in the CNGS beam". arXiv: 1109.4897v1 [hep-ex].
  20. ↑ Strassler, M. (2012) "OPERA: What Went Wrong" profmattstrassler.com
  21. ↑ Garisto, Dan (16 August 2023). "LK-99 isn't a superconductor — how science sleuths solved the mystery: Replications pieced together the puzzle of why the material displayed superconducting-like behaviours". Nature. 620 (7975): 705–706. doi:10.1038/d41586-023-02585-7. PMID   37587284. S2CID   260955242. Archived from the original on 17 August 2023. Retrieved 17 August 2023.
  22. ↑ Padavic-Callaghan, Karmela. "LK-99: Mounting evidence suggests material is not a superconductor". New Scientist. Archived from the original on 9 August 2023. Retrieved 2023-08-10.
  23. ↑ Michael Brooks, on Emil Rupp, "Convenient untruths", New Scientist, No2630 (17 Nov 2007) pp. 58–59
    See also Jeroen van Dongen, "Emil Rupp, Albert Einstein and the Canal Ray Experiments on Wave-Particle Duality: Scientific Fraud and Theoretical Bias" https://arxiv.org/abs/0709.3099
  24. ↑ George Johnson (October 15, 2002). "At Lawrence Berkeley, Physicists Say a Colleague Took Them for a Ride" (reprint). The New York Times .
  25. ↑ Purdue physicist found guilty of misconduct, Los Angeles Times, July 19, 2008, Thomas H. Maugh II
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.