Book Review: Plastic Fantastic

Plastic Fantastic: How the Biggest Fraud in Physics Shook the Scientific World by Eugenie Samuel Reich

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I think this is the nerdiest book I have ever read. Ever. Mostly because it deals with a LOT of physics and the explanation of experiments and materials used. Organic crystals, sputtering machines, pentacene crystals and particles changing from p-type to n-type (just to name a few). And this book is about 45-50% physics explanations. But it has to be, because it's about the fraud that can be carried out in the scientific world. Especially when people don't understand what one scientist is doing and take him at face value when he makes certain claims. When he claims to be doing impossible things, the author wants to make sure you know why it would be impossible to do what he was claiming to have done.

The main point is this: Science is self-regulating. However, people need to be more on top of things and if things seem to good to be true, they just might be. Don't be afraid to call foul! Or Fraud for that matter. And the author makes a good point: Science is self-regulating. If someone makes a claim and it is false, that claim will eventually be proved so due to the inability of others to duplicate it. HOWEVER, the author also points out that until that happens, millions of dollars and years of time and energy can be wasted to prove these theories that are lies. And how do you give someone back a year of their life? (The author talks about some scientists that were turned off this kind of physics study solely based on their frustration, and chagrin at not being able to duplicate the false claims of the fraudster)

I think the author wants authority and others in position of power to not push so hard for papers and results to be printed. He thinks that the fraudster felt as though this was expected of him. And so he would print a paper as "fact" and then he hoped that others would prove his theories with their work. If he wasn't so pushed to print and publish, he might not have done what he did. Or maybe he would've no matter what. The author seems to think that he is not so much an EVIL scientist as a lazy and unimaginative one. No thoughts of his own, no way to make his own experiments work. So who knows, maybe he would been a fraudulent scientist no matter what.

Due to the fact that most people that read this book won't be physics geniuses, I think the author did a great job making the ideas and experiments easy for the layman to understand. That's why it gets 4 stars. Also because it talks about Los Alamos Labs, and UIUC where a friend is studying for her physics PhD right now as I type. I hope she's not trying to prove any of this guy's false claims!

But seriously, this is a geeky book. ENJOY, MY GEEK FRIENDS!