Comments on: Quantum physicists learn about Heisenberg’s (publishing) uncertainty principle the hard way

By: Toby White

Toby White — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 14:25:26 +0000

I can’t see this as alternate mappings of a hyperdimensional ur-paper because it’s such a brane-less thing to do.

By: André van Delft (@AndreVanDelft)

André van Delft (@AndreVanDelft) — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 13:38:58 +0000

Maybe the paper was submitted to a parallel universum, but then it unfortunately bounced back to this one.

By: ferniglab

ferniglab — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:46:03 +0000

SG may well be onto something here – maybe all these instances of plagiarism reflect higher dimensional papers? Must be good for your CV too, at least until the rather pathetic 3-D world gets caught up in the logic of its low dimensions and calls it plagiarism.

By: Alice Dreger

Alice Dreger — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 22:31:38 +0000

See, my friends tell me I need to get a TV so I can watch “Downton Abbey.” But it’s posts like this one that make me answer, “But I would have less time for Retraction Watch!”

By: SG

SG — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 19:21:18 +0000

Or maybe they are different 3-dimensional manifestations of a single higher dimensional paper?

By: Toby White

Toby White — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 19:16:20 +0000

Don’t think of it as duplication. Think of it as a single paper in a superposition of two quantum journals.

By: chirality

chirality — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 18:45:26 +0000

My conjecture is that, through pejoration, the battered phrase “an administrative error” will acquire more negative connotations it so richly deserves.
What I find peculiar is that in the retraction notice Kramer and Sargent apologize to the other co-authors for not having informed them about the retraction. It implies that they deliberately kept the others in the dark for as long as possible, that is, they did not merely forget about it via some kind of administrative error. At the time of writing the notice, this could have been easily remedied (just cc: a terse email message) but they opted not to do so. Maybe some of the co-authors still do not know about the retraction.
And Paul Weiss should have bent over backwards in his effort to discuss the particular case with anybody who cares to listen. After all, this concerns his colleague.