There are fakes even in science.
From time to time appears information about a particular scientific discovery, which seems so incredible that just don’t fit in the head. Electricity, relativity and so on — all these new ideas that expand the horizons of science and change people’s lives. But sometimes an incredible discovery or invention is really not worth believing. Behind him is someone who glues the bones to create the skeleton of the animal never existed, or employ a special person that he performed the stunt, which brought fame and money. There is nothing better than a good old hoax, to remind us that we must carefully and been more skeptical attitude to the newly minted scientific sensationalism.
Fossils of Beringia, 1725
In the vicinity of the Bavarian town, the students found some stones with fossils that brought Johann Beringer, Professor of medicine at the University of würzburg. There were almost two thousand stones, some of which were carved to entire scenes: “lizards in the skin, birds with beaks and eyes, spiders with webs, and frogs copulating,” wrote the Guardian. On the other was astronomical objects and letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Boehringer said that these stones are the result of divine Providence and relics of the era of the Great flood, refusing to believe that these artifacts were made by people. He was so sure that he even wrote a whole book about it. When the book of Beringer was published, the students brought him the last stone. It was the name of Beringer. It turned out that the stones with the “fossils” forged colleagues of Professor. The stones became known as Lügensteine, or “lying stones”.
A perpetual motion machine, 1813
A man named Charles Redheffer invented a machine that did not stop, — eternal engine. Noticing a strange vibration in the car, a skeptical mechanical engineer Robert Fulton challenged Redheffer, stating that he can find a mechanism which provides movement of the machine. And he did it. It turned out that the source of the incessant movement of the machine was an older man who twisted the lever in the basement, chewing a piece of bread.
Life on the moon, 1835
According to the newspaper New York Sun, it was a “new theory cometary phenomena”. Astronomer sir John Herschel not only discovered new planets orbiting other stars, but allegedly allowed or adjusted almost every important problem of mathematical astronomy. The most surprising of his astronomical discoveries was life on the moon. It turned out that Herschel is not simply found life on the moon and has not solved all the problems of mathematical astronomy, but was just not aware of this, although he attributed these scientific advances.
The giant from Cardiff, 1869
A group of workers were digging a pit in the back yard of one of the courtyards of Cardiff, new York, and stumbled upon a petrified human body is three metres tall. An atheist named George hull created this giant, to play a priest, a supporter of fundamentalism, which believed that the Earth was once populated by giants, as written in the Bible. When someone named Phineas Barnum began to exhibit a copy of this giant, hull tried to sue him, but to no avail, as he was unable to provide evidence that his giant was real.
Piltdown man, 1912
In a gravel pit in Piltdown England, found fragments of skull and jaw similar to human. There were a few stone tools and animal remains. All this was found by Charles Dawson, a professional lawyer and Amateur archeologist. The researchers decided that the skull belongs to a creature that lived about 500 thousand years ago and is a missing intermediate link of evolution between APE and man. In 1953, scientists re-examined found the remains. They found that the top of the skull is only 50 thousand years old, and jaws, which, as now considered, was from orangutan, was only a few decades. They found that the remains were specifically sprayed with a chemical solution to make them look ancient. It seems that Dawson had falsified findings, but when it came to light, he died a long time ago.
An autopsy of an alien, 1947
In 1995, Briton ray Santilli announced that a military statement on pensions handed him my notes of the autopsy of an alien, whose spaceship crashed under rosellon in new Mexico in 1947. These statements immediately drew the attention of the scientific community that treated them with suspicion, but Santilli did not admit the hoax until 2006. In the documentary Santilli said that staged and recorded all of the autopsy, but insisted that the original recording existed. According to him, he took a reproduction because the original was in poor condition.
Tribe Tadashi, 1971
Philippine Minister Manuel Elizalde stated that the discovered a small stone age tribe that lives in complete isolation on the island of Mindanao. The tribe allegedly spoke in a strange language, was engaged in gathering and hunting, used stone tools, lived in caves in the jungle, wearing leaves instead of clothes and decide issues of soft persuasion, not war. The President then declared the island a nature reserve, banning anthropologists to visit it to explore the tribe. In 1986, the President left the post, and two journalists infiltrated the island, where they learned that the tribe Tadashi lived in houses, wore ordinary clothes and only during the time at the insistence of Elizalde portrayed the primitive way of life.
Open stone age Shinichi Fujimura, 1981
Japanese archaeologist Shinichi Fujimura was famous in 1981 when he discovered stone tools that are 40 thousand years. It turned out to be the most ancient archaeological finds in Japan. Later, he found stone tools age-600 thousand years, which could be the most ancient evidence of human existence on Earth, as well as several holes in the ground, which, in his opinion, could be used as primitive shelters. In 2000, these discoveries brought him world fame. In the same year, a Japanese newspaper published photos Fujimura digging up pits at the site and spreading artifacts. He quickly confessed, stating that he was obsessed with an overwhelming desire and seduced by the devil.
Undiscovered elements of the periodic table, 1998
Scientists of the National laboratory behalf of the Lawrence Berkeley have synthesized two new, unknown radioactive element — ununoctium (118th element) and Livermore (116th element), bombardirov lead krypton. According to the Minister of energy of the USA, it was “an incredible discovery that paves the way for further discoveries in the field of the structure of the atomic nucleus”. In 2000, different groups of scientists tried to reproduce the results of experiments, and they failed. Then the laboratory has issued a retraction. Physicist Victor Ninova, was accused of rigging data to falsify evidence that the items were created. In the same year of Livermore actually was synthesized for the first time, but after a few years out and ununoctium (Muscovy).
The remains of Archaeoraptor, 1999
In 1999 was found the fossils of the feathered dinosaur Archaeoraptor, who was named missing evolutionary link between modern birds and meat-eating dinosaurs. It later turned out that the skeleton of archeoraptor was a “hodgepodge” of the bones of several different animals. The head and upper torso belonged to a primitive species of birds, the tail is a small winged dinosaur, and to whom belonged the legs and feet is still unknown.
