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The man who almost faked his way to a Nobel Prize

BobbyBroccoli · 4.2M views · 2020-08-06 · 42:30

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Overview

BobbyBroccoli's first of three parts on Jan Hendrik Schon, the Bell Labs postdoc whose fabricated organic semiconductor results nearly won a Nobel Prize. It covers his rise and the context around Bell Labs.

On Hacker News

HN repeatedly recommends the series as a gripping account of scientific fraud, and cites it whenever research misconduct comes up.

Recommended by 6 HN people across 5 months · HN mentions 2022–2023

Topics

Scientific method & science communicationDocumentaries & storytellingSemiconductors & chip manufacturing
Search by tags
jan hendrik schonbell labsresearch misconductnobel prizephysics

What people said

atrettel · 2023-11 · Strong recommendation

For those unfamiliar with the story of Jan Hendrik Schön, I suggest watching this excellent series of videos by BobbyBroccoli on YouTube [1-3]. The series does a good job breaking down the context and the situation that Schön was in, along with the incentives that encouraged Schön to commit fraud. [1] [VIDEO] [2] [LINK] [3] [LINK]

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asmor · 2023-07 · Strong recommendation

Schön got away with it for years. One of my favorite video essays is a long exploration of that case: [VIDEO]

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treesciencebot · 2023-07 · Strong recommendation

This reminds me an amazing piece of documentary[1] I've watched a couple months prior about a man who tried to "scam his way onto a Nobel prize". It really goes into showing how the majority of the system is based on trust and reputation and without well skepticism fraudsters can thrive. [1]: "The man who almost faked his way to a Nobel Prize" -- [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by BobbyBroccoli, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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