Chennai, January 2021: The Faculty Association of IIT Madras and the Office of the Alumni and Corporate Relations, IITM have come together to organise a faculty colloquium under the newly formed working group, Nobel Talks at Gajendra Circle. Due to the presence of multiple Covid 19 active cases in the institute campus and the consequent curfew introduced, the actual talks have had to be shifted to Google Meets instead. (Zoom refused to send quotations; was deemed too expensive.)
“We wanted to be noble like the Stoics. Yes. We sent in applications for a dais and a lectern and possibly a theatre to be set up at the Gajendra Circle but the administration did not acquiesce. However, this has not dampened our spirit. We shall continue with our pursuit for knowledge.” said AGK, the charismatic secretary of the faculty association, with an air of gusto.
Recently, the second talk in a series concerning the recent works which were awarded the Nobel Prize by IIT Madras faculty was held. The talk was about the contribution of Prof. John B. Goodenough to the design and development of Lithium ion Batteries, which won him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in the year 2019. His expertise in solid state physics and magnetism had led to a systematic investigation and development of cathode materials suitable for LIB applications.
Quick searches by the editorial team revealed that Prof. Goodenough had no affiliations with IIT Madras. Many, including us, were duped by the dubious titling into getting hyped up for such pioneering research being done in such close vicinity to us. Enthusiastic, and slightly proudly patriotic, students were disappointed nonetheless.
In essence: Pioneering work was done. A Nobel Prize was awarded. Meanwhile, IITM faculty are talking about it.
Dubious, and sometimes downright false, claims aren’t a new occurrence in the scientific world, which is essentially the world. While it is easier to see how money can be a persuasive motive, propping up charades like Theranos, which, at one point, was worth billions of dollars, there exists the call of fame, a motive just as strong. A 2009 systematic review and meta-analysis of survey data found that about 2% of scientists admitted to falsifying, fabricating, or modifying data at least once. [1]