Schon Scandal Wikipedia Article Quiz

Schon’s work was in the field of:

• Plasmonics

• Semiconductors

• Gravitational Waves

• Superconductors

The basic function of a transistor is:

• To change the p.d. across a resistor

• To act as a switch or gate for current

• To control the temperature of a circuit

• To emit light above a certain p.d.

Moore’s Law states that:

• The extension of a spring is directly proportional to the force acting on it

• Every action has an equal and opposite reaction

• There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it

• The processing power of computers will double every 2 years

Other researchers looking at Schon’s data noticed that different data sets had identical noise. This made them suspicious because:

• There should not be noise in the data

• Noise is random, so cannot be duplicated in different experiments

• Noise should have been excluded due to having taken averages of the data

• Any good scientist knows that all experiments should be done in silence.

Other teams tried to produce aluminium oxide layers of similar quality to Schon’s, but they failed. This meant his experiment was:

• Not reproducible

• Not reliable

• Super awesome

• Anomalous

There were various problems with the data supporting Schon’s claims, according to the article. Select 2 correct examples.

• He did not keep lab notebooks of his raw data.

• He said he had lost some of the data in a house move.

• He had deleted electronic files containing the data due to a lack of hard drive space.

• Some of his students had put the wrong formulae into his excel spreadsheets.

The committee set up by Bell Labs to investigate Schon discovered that some of the graphs in his publications were:

• Drawn by hand instead of using the data.

• Directly proportional, contrary to the data.

• Based on mathematical functions instead of raw data.

• Pictures of trees rather than based on the data.

One of the outcomes of this scandal was a discussion amongst scientists about:

• Whether raw data should always be published alongside the analysis.

• Whether co-authors should share responsibility for misconduct in a paper.

• Whether Schon had simply made a series of honest mistakes and should not be punished.

• Whether the DFG (the German Research Foundation) had overstepped it’s jurisdiction in banning Schon from acting as a peer reviewer.

Schon had many papers published in many well respected journals. There are 2 key processes which help to ensure scientific accuracy. Select 2 right answers.

• Schon submits the paper to the journal and the Editor of the journal decides if it is interesting enough to warrant publication.

• Scientists from a similar field to Schon’s read his paper and review the data to check for errors, before publication.

• Journals put all submitted papers into a hat and the ones drawn out get published.

• The paper is published, meaning other scientists can review it, and if errors are found the paper can be formally retracted.

After publication of a paper, subsequent papers may ‘cite’ it. If other people’s work is used without citation, this is called:

• Cheating

• Infringement

• Plagiarism

• Stealing