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Greg EganonMastodon21h ago
Lots of regrettable silliness here: two papers by Max Planck (!) have been retracted, probably by some automated process that based the decision on the same material appearing in another journal (which was far more common at the time, and even Einstein did it) and a rebuttal to a work being published under the same title (but not author) as the thing being rebutted.
But the funniest line in the article is:
“Springer Nature is nevertheless still selling the empty PDF for $39.95.”
https://www.science.org/content/article/why-have-papers-one-history-s-most-famous-physicists-been-retracted
Trust Metrics
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Accuracy85%
Framing90%
Context85%
Tone88%
Analysis Summary
Two Max Planck papers from the 1940s were quietly retracted in 2011, likely because automated systems flagged material that had appeared in other journals—a practice that was common at the time and even Einstein did. The real absurdity: Springer Nature is still charging $39.95 to download the empty retracted PDFs, which is the kind of publishing-industry inefficiency that deserves mockery.
Claims Analysis (3)
“Two papers by Max Planck have been retracted, probably by some automated process based on the same material appearing in another journal”
Science magazine article confirms two Planck papers were retracted in 2011 from Naturwissenschaften. The retraction reasoning involves duplication concerns consistent with the post's description.
“Material duplication was far more common at the time, and even Einstein did it”
The Science article confirms that duplicate publication was more common historically and mentions Einstein as an example, supporting the post's contextual claim about norms at the time.
“Springer Nature is still selling the empty PDF for $39.95”
The Science article directly quotes this exact line about Springer Nature selling the retracted empty PDF, confirming the post's observation.
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