[wuschel]

> "He was 38. Shortly before his death, he had mailed a manuscript describing a new three-electrode semiconductor device to Physical Review. The paper was lost in the wartime Atlantic. Five years later, Shockley, ..."

I wish the article had a reference for that claim.

I remember from my childhood that my father told me that in the old soviet system, publications from were invented and dated back in order to demonstrate the superiority of their science. Both sides might have done it.

Now, a story from my father is not strong data point. But falsification of scientific theories, statistics and publications was a thing in the Soviet Union [1,2].

Then again, the guy might have really done it.

[1] https://communistcrimes.org/en/falsification-memory-history-... [2] https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/33071/how-often-...

[pseudohadamard]

Yup, that was definitely a thing, see my other comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48451474.

[johncole]

Fascinating, that’s really interesting.