If you look on the arXiv and in Nature journals there is a continuing stream of people claiming to observe superconductivity in some new material. There is a long history of this and it is worth considering the wise observations of Robert Cava , back in 1997, contained in a tutorial lecture. It would have been useful indeed in the early days of the field [cuprate superconductors] to have set up a "commission" to set some minimum standard of data quality and reproducibility for reporting new superconductors. An almost countless number of "false alarms" have been reported in the past decade, some truly spectacular. Koichi Kitazawa from the University of Tokyo coined these reports "USOs", for Unidentified Superconducting Objects , in a clever cross-cultural double entendre likening them to UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects, which certainly are their equivalent in many ways) and to "lies" in the Japanese translation of USO. These have caused g
To be fair I understand that it was "friends" who were quoted as blaming the tenure thing, and in any case that would be the tip of the iceberg and (I would bet) a relatively minor contributing factor.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, a terrible tragedy in one of the last places I would have expected it. A good reminder that no one is immune from mental illness. Thanks Ross.
I understand that she killed her brother with a shotgun in 1996. The explanation was an accident while he was teaching her to shoot, but interestingly, there were three shots fired.
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