IP: NATURE: Is a bell tolling for Bell Labs?

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: David Akin <dakin () ctv ca>
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 22:29:29 -0400
To: "'dave () farber net'" <dave () farber net>
Subject: FWD: NATURE: Is a bell tolling for Bell Labs?

Hi Dave --

Thought many IPers would be interested in this article, from the latest
edition of Nature

David Akin
CTV News
The Globe and Mail


Is a bell tolling for Bell Labs?

PAUL GRANT 

Dark clouds quickly began to gather over the exceptional finding
of superconductivity at 117 K reported last year by Hendrik
Schön and collaborators at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill,
New Jersey. Shortly after publication of the paper, I was asked
by a reporter aware of my reputation as a sceptical observer of
reports of 'unidentified superconducting objects' whether I felt
uncomfortable that no one had reproduced any of the Bell Labs's
field-effect transistor (FET) superconductivity results. My
answer was: "Normally, I would be. But this is Bell Labs, and
although these guys were my scientific adversaries for many
years, I have the highest respect for their competence, credibility
and, indeed, collegiality, and will accept their claims until proven
otherwise."

Yet it has turned out that several attempts to reproduce not only
these results, but also others on more general organic FET
configurations, have been unsuccessful, culminating in
allegations of duplication of data in several papers . . .

[Full story at:
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v417/n6891/f
ull/417789a_fs.html]


------ End of Forwarded Message

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