Lucent Reexamines Breakthrough Research

s20451 writes "Bell Labs' claims to have manufactured transistors consisting of a single-molecule switch are being met with skepticism in the scientific community, following difficulties in reproducing the experiment. Now a panel has been formed to investigate research misconduct related to not only that claim, but others regarding organic transistors." We've run several stories about the extremely tiny transistors and the innovative ways of assembling them which Lucent has been working on. A reader's summary of a subscriber-only story on Science's website suggests that there is strong evidence that some of the data in the published papers was faked.

Hey, guys...?

[Schwamm]

A reader's summary of a subscriber-only story on Science's website suggests that there is strong evidence that some of the data in the published papers was faked.

Do we get to see the reader's summary? Not even a link?

Research and Development

[mojorisin67_71]

Traditional large companies had large
research funds and researchers had a lot of leeway in the work they performed.

As companies donw-size and cut costs, research
funding decreases and researchers have to do more
research aligned with the company. This
increases the pressure on researchers to generate
results faster.

The research community would have to have safe-guards to safeguard against suprious results.

no suprise

[greenrom]

This sort of thing really shouldn't be much of a suprise at a company like Lucent. Since the telecom winter started, they've slashed half of their workforce, and have been closing facilities right and left. You can bet that any research project that wasn't getting results got cut. This puts a lot of pressure on the researchers, and some will inevitably be willing to falsefy data in order to keep their jobs.

I'd be skeptical of any research done by Lucent in the last year, or at any other company with such serious financial problems.

Bell Labs is not just one guy.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

They have invented, among MANY other things... "the transistor, the laser and wireless technologies."

But remember that Bell Labs is an institution, not an individual. It is composed of MANY scientists. It is not impossible that the barrel has acquired a bad apple. The trick is to find the bad apples and pull them out before they spoil the barrel.

Of course it COULD be that the research in question wasn't faked, with the anomolies coming from a clerical error, a jackpot, or a previously-undiscovered bit of physics. That's why they're INVESTIGATING, rather than just recalling the papers and canning those connected with 'em.