
50 years later, is it time to retract a retraction by a Nobel prize winner? - greenyoda
http://retractionwatch.com/2015/09/25/five-decades-later-is-it-time-to-retract-a-nobelists-retraction/
======
hga
Reminds me of my favorite story from my favorite chemistry professor (who has
a number of them, or at least bon mots:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_S._Kemp#Quotes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_S._Kemp#Quotes)).

He related how a chemical company, using the pot method (smaller quantities
done one reaction at a time in a vessel, vs. mass quantities where each
reaction is "a factory"), had the yields of one of their products go to hell
all of a sudden. They searched, and probed, and just could not find the cause,
until they video monitored it 24x7. Upon which they found that a night
watchman was relieving himself into the vat.

The yield problem started when he semi-retired and worked fewer nights, the
good yields happened when he did his thing ^_^. Like this Nobel prize winner
who had to retract/repudiate a result from 1960 when he didn't realize nickle
contamination was a key to the reaction, this company didn't realize
everything in their process.

