There are a circle of “ holy grail ” in science , but a superconductor that works at way temperature is one of the most seek after . So a paper lay claim to have found one aroused some interest – before becoming the center of a off-the-wall story of falsified data and impersonation .
At the final stage of July , two scientists from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore exact in a paper on the pre - mark serverarXivthat they had developed a superconductor that mould at ambient temperature . They pronounce they had made silver particles embedded in atomic number 79 become superconductive at -37.15 ° C ( -34.87 ° F ) , doubly as high as theprevious track record .
“ Our observance pave the way for the fabrication of devices of these NS [ synthesized nanostructures ] capable of room temperature operation , ” they compose .
If true , this would be one of the most of import scientific discovery of , well , ever . Superconductors can transfer electricity without resistance , mean we could essentially revolutionize how computers and much all electronics work .
But confine the bubbly . Because last week , MIT physicist Dr Brian Skinner observe in a screw thread on Twitter some rather rum things about the paper . Namely , it appeared that some of the data had been falsified .
Dr Skinner then write hisown commenton arXiv responding to the claims , in which he said the strange feature article of repeating interference had “ no case in point in the superconducting lit , and no obvious theoretical account . ”
And that ’s where we stood on August 10 . But then things start getting really weird .
Dr Skinner got a reply from the authors , who take they had n’t notice the odd repeating pattern in the noise , but refused to back down from their title .
Then Professor Pratap Raychaudhuri , a prof and superconductivity expert at the Tata Institute in Mumbai , write an article trying to find a intellectual account for the interference patterns . But he subsequently get an e-mail from someone claiming to be Professor T. V. Ramakrishnan , a famous physicist in India .
That email turned out to be fake , sent from an unknown somebody , asking him to check criticizing the author of the paper . The email had been sent from an encrypted story under the name “ Wiles Licher ” . A Facebook account by this name later taste to add Dr Skinner on the social sensitive internet site .
Oh , and the Wiles Licher Facebook page also place a rather cryptic and sullen message : “ Julius Caesar . The caesar that did not stop . ”
That ’s where we ’re at now . Dr Skinner says he still has n’t seen the full information from the original paper , so he still ca n’t be sure if what they ’re claiming is by all odds false or not , although it looks mighty suspicious . For now , it ’s an exceedingly flakey tarradiddle about the quest for a holy Sangraal .
