June 29, 2026
Quantum of Nonsense
Why did this journal retract two 1940s papers by Max Planck?
Max Planck got ‘retracted’ for paperwork, and readers are calling it absurd
TLDR: Two Max Planck papers from the 1940s were apparently pulled not because the science was bad, but because of a likely copyright or system mistake. Readers are mocking the situation as a ridiculous case of bureaucracy erasing scientific history and making a Nobel winner look wrongly disgraced.
Imagine being one of the most famous physicists in history, dying in 1947, and then somehow getting hit with a modern retraction scandal nearly 80 years later. That’s the energy here, and the community reaction is a mix of disbelief, mockery, and a lot of “you cannot be serious”. Two 1940s papers by Max Planck vanished from the journal now called The Science of Nature, replaced by blank pages and empty PDF files with a vague note about an “article violation.” Historians went digging, and the emerging explanation is that this looks less like fraud or bad science and more like a copyright mess or an automated publishing blunder.
And commenters were absolutely not letting that slide. One person pointed out this drama had already exploded on Hacker News, basically waving a flag that the internet had already convened the court of public opinion. Another dropped the icy German word “Zensurheberrecht”—a mashup suggesting copyright can turn into censorship—and that pretty much captured the mood: people are furious that old scientific work can disappear behind legal or bureaucratic nonsense. The hottest take? Nothing was wrong with Planck’s science, so slapping the digital equivalent of a blackout curtain over historic papers feels ridiculous. The joke running underneath it all is brutal: only modern publishing could make a dead Nobel winner look like he got “canceled” by an algorithm.
Key Points
- •Ars Technica reports that two 1940s papers by Max Planck were retracted or withdrawn from the journal now called *The Science of Nature*.
- •Unlike typical retractions at the journal, the Planck papers were removed entirely, leaving blank web pages and empty PDF files with a note citing an "article violation."
- •Historian Yves Gingras found Planck listed by Retraction Watch among Nobel Prize winners with retracted papers and began investigating with Mahdi Khelfaoui.
- •The historians described their findings in a preprint posted to arXiv.
- •Editor-in-chief Suzanne Scarlata said she was unaware of the retractions and suggested the papers may have been flagged by mistake, possibly by an algorithm.