Max Planck Slapped With Two Paper Retractions By Suspected Rogue Algorithm (science.org)
(Saturday June 27, 2026 @05:48PM (EditorDavid)
from the walking-the-Planck dept.)
- Reference: 0184144512
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/06/27/2042204/max-planck-slapped-with-two-paper-retractions-by-suspected-rogue-algorithm
- Source link: https://www.science.org/content/article/why-have-papers-one-history-s-most-famous-physicists-been-retracted
Max Planck won 1918's Nobel Prize for physics. Yet two of his papers were retracted — a move now being criticized by Yves Gingras, a historian of physics at the University of Quebec and Mahdi Khelfaoui, a fellow historian of science at UQ Trois-Rivières. [1] Science reports :
> The papers, both quietly retracted in 2011, originally appeared in the early 1940s in Naturwissenschaften , a German journal now owned by publishing giant Springer Nature. After some sleuthing, Khelfaoui determined one of the Planck pieces, a philosophical [2]essay from 1942 titled "Sinn und Grenzen der exakten Wissenschaft" ("Meaning and Limits of Exact Science"), about how to achieve certainty in scientific knowledge, had also appeared in two other journals and been reprinted twice in books. Repackaging the same work multiple times is considered "self-plagiarism" and frowned upon today — the practice produces copyright conflicts and inflates scholars' publication records. The Naturwissenschaften site gives "copyright violation" as the reason for the retraction.
>
> Yet publishing identical material in multiple journals was widespread before the internet. "Science was more fragmented" then, Khelfaoui says. "You wanted different audiences ... to have access to your work." The practice was especially common for luminaries like Planck. Albert Einstein did the same (but escaped retractions). Springer Nature's "anachronistic" application of modern standards to a 1942 paper "distort[s] the historical record," Gingras and Khelfaoui argue [3]in a preprint posted last month on arXiv. Any concerns about copyright violations are largely moot anyway: Because Planck died in 1947, his works are in the public domain in most countries.
>
> Gingras was especially incensed that Springer Nature deviated from the normal practice of merely slapping the word RETRACTED across the digital version of the paper while still allowing scholars to read the text. Instead, the publisher posted a blank white page with the cryptic phrase, "This article has been withdrawn due to article violation." Springer Nature is nevertheless still selling the empty PDF for $39.95. Suzanne Scarlata, a chemist and biochemist at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute and editor-in-chief of The Science of Nature, as Naturwissenschaften is now known, had not heard about the retractions before being contacted for this story... Scarlata suspects Springer Nature's internal policing software removed the paper and posted the retraction notice unilaterally, without human supervision: "I think it just happened with their algorithm," she says. "It's a mistake they should probably rectify."
A second Planck paper was apparently removed because its response to a 1940 paper had used an identical title.
Thanks to our long-time Slashdot reader [4]He Who Has No Name for sharing the article.
[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/why-have-papers-one-history-s-most-famous-physicists-been-retracted
[2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01475382
[3] http://arxiv.org/abs/2605.17534
[4] https://www.slashdot.org/~He+Who+Has+No+Name
> The papers, both quietly retracted in 2011, originally appeared in the early 1940s in Naturwissenschaften , a German journal now owned by publishing giant Springer Nature. After some sleuthing, Khelfaoui determined one of the Planck pieces, a philosophical [2]essay from 1942 titled "Sinn und Grenzen der exakten Wissenschaft" ("Meaning and Limits of Exact Science"), about how to achieve certainty in scientific knowledge, had also appeared in two other journals and been reprinted twice in books. Repackaging the same work multiple times is considered "self-plagiarism" and frowned upon today — the practice produces copyright conflicts and inflates scholars' publication records. The Naturwissenschaften site gives "copyright violation" as the reason for the retraction.
>
> Yet publishing identical material in multiple journals was widespread before the internet. "Science was more fragmented" then, Khelfaoui says. "You wanted different audiences ... to have access to your work." The practice was especially common for luminaries like Planck. Albert Einstein did the same (but escaped retractions). Springer Nature's "anachronistic" application of modern standards to a 1942 paper "distort[s] the historical record," Gingras and Khelfaoui argue [3]in a preprint posted last month on arXiv. Any concerns about copyright violations are largely moot anyway: Because Planck died in 1947, his works are in the public domain in most countries.
>
> Gingras was especially incensed that Springer Nature deviated from the normal practice of merely slapping the word RETRACTED across the digital version of the paper while still allowing scholars to read the text. Instead, the publisher posted a blank white page with the cryptic phrase, "This article has been withdrawn due to article violation." Springer Nature is nevertheless still selling the empty PDF for $39.95. Suzanne Scarlata, a chemist and biochemist at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute and editor-in-chief of The Science of Nature, as Naturwissenschaften is now known, had not heard about the retractions before being contacted for this story... Scarlata suspects Springer Nature's internal policing software removed the paper and posted the retraction notice unilaterally, without human supervision: "I think it just happened with their algorithm," she says. "It's a mistake they should probably rectify."
A second Planck paper was apparently removed because its response to a 1940 paper had used an identical title.
Thanks to our long-time Slashdot reader [4]He Who Has No Name for sharing the article.
[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/why-have-papers-one-history-s-most-famous-physicists-been-retracted
[2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01475382
[3] http://arxiv.org/abs/2605.17534
[4] https://www.slashdot.org/~He+Who+Has+No+Name
Springer (Score:2)
by Elektroschock ( 659467 )
This is completely stupid. There can't be a copyright violation obviously.
or as Max Planck wrote "Aus nichts läßt sich nichts folgern." - No conclusion can be drawn from nothing.
Thanksfully the Max Planck society supported the Berlin Declaration on Open Access.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Declaration_on_Open_Access_to_Knowledge_in_the_Sciences_and_Humanities
This is the problem with automation from AI. (Score:2)
by Fly Swatter ( 30498 )
Today it erased an old reference paper, tomorrow it may be YOU!
We're sorry, the computer says you don't exist. You can't pay for that food.
Promoting knowledge. (Score:3)
"Springer Nature is nevertheless still selling the empty PDF for $39.95."
And will no doubt sue anyone infringing their copyright of it.
Re: (Score:2)
I got my copy! This will be a collector's edition in 25 years.
Re: (Score:2)
Who needs a copy? I have the NFT.
Re: (Score:2)
Pirate *all* of it. No sympathy for these academic mafias.
Re: (Score:2)
I wish I had mod points for this... Insightful, Informative, Funny... 100% accurate (esp. the further claims of copyright infringement for anyone selling an empty PDF for a paper with the same title).