List of Experimental Errors and Frauds in Physics - Famous Experimental Errors

Famous Experimental Errors

• N-rays (1903)

A reported faint visual effect that experimenters could still "see" even when the supposed causative element in their apparatus had been secretly disconnected.

• Kaufmann (1906) – claimed experimental disproof of special relativity

Published in Annalen der Physik and said to be the first journal paper to cite Einstein's 1905 electrodynamics paper. Kaufmann's paper 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.

• Adams (1924) – premature verification of the gravitational redshift effect.

A number of earlier experimenters claimed to have found the presence or lack of gravitational redshift, but Adams' result was supposed to have settled the issue ("definitively established", RWL "Relativity" ). It is no longer considered credible, one of the more charitable interpretations being that his data may have been contaminated by stray light from Sirius A . The first "reliable" confirmations of the effect appeared in the 1960s.

• First reproducible artificial diamond (1955)

Originally reported in Nature in 1955 and later. It later transpired that diamond synthesis should not have been possible with the apparatus. Subsequent analysis indicated that the first gemstone, which secured further funding, was natural rather than synthetic. Subsequent artificial diamonds are assumed to be genuine.

• Oops-Leon Particle (1976)

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.

• Infinite Dilution of Antibodies (1988)

Jacques Benveniste was a French immunologist who in 1988 published a paper in the prestigious scientific journal Nature describing the action of very high dilutions of anti-IgE antibody on the degranulation of human basophils, findings which seemed to support the concept of homeopathy. Biologists were puzzled by Benveniste's results, as only molecules of water, and no molecules of the original antibody, remained in these high dilutions. Benveniste concluded that the configuration of molecules in water was biologically active. Subsequent investigations have not supported Benveniste's findings, which are now cited as an example of pathological science.

• Cold fusion (1989)

Since the announcement of Pons and Fleischmann in 1989, cold fusion has been considered to be an example of a pathological science. 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. 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.