Definition
Plain language
A physicist whose celebrated results on molecular electronics turned out to be invented.
As stated in the literature
Jan Hendrik Schön; large-scale data fabrication in organic semiconductor and molecular transistor papers, leading to mass retraction.
Also called: Schon, Schön-style
Why it matters: It shows how far fabricated work can travel — through top journals and enthusiastic follow-on research — before anyone checks the raw numbers.
For example, results reported across many separate experiments turned out to share identical noise patterns, revealing the underlying data had been made up.
Heard on the show
“ar-JEER-iss and Schön — organizational learning researchers, fifty years ago — coined the distinction between "espoused theory" and "theory-in-use.”Episode 020 — The Compliance Gap: Why AI Says Yes and Does No