(Image: Palgrave Macmillan)
JAN HENDRIK SCHÖN went from hero to zero in just one year. In 2001, the young German physicist was star researcher at the Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, where he worked in the new and upcoming field of organic electronics. That year, he published 44 papers – a staggering amount by anyone’s standards. By September 2002, Schön’s career lay in tatters. Unable to reproduce his work and dissatisfied with his vague explanations, a small band of physicists discovered that he had fabricated his results.
In Plastic Fantastic, Eugenie Samuel Reich investigates how Schön…
