10 scientific hoaxes that rocked the world
AP Photo/Dennis Cook
Every now and then, a scientific discovery comes along that is just so wild that you can't wrap your head around it at first.
Electricity, the theory of relativity ... the slinky. It's these wild, new advancements that push the boundaries of science and end up changing out lives.
But sometimes, a crazy-sounding discovery or invention is just that: crazy. And behind it is somebody willing to glue together bones or hire a man to turn a crank for fame or profit.
There's nothing like a good old-fashioned hoax to remind us to be a little skeptical of outrageous scientific claims.
Here are 10 of history's juiciest scientific scandals.
Johann Beringer's lying stones in 1725
Wikimedia Commons
The find: a collection of stones on the outskirts of a Bavarian town, brought to Johann Beringer, the chair of natural history at the University of Würzburg, by a few of his students. There were almost 2,000 stones, some carved with images of "lizards in their skin, birds with beaks and eyes, spiders with their webs, and frogs copulating,” the Guardian writes. Others had astronomical objects and Hebrew letters etched into them.
Beringer speculated that the stones were fossilized relics from the Great Flood, rejecting the idea that they were manmade. In fact, he was so sure that he wrote an entire book about it.
The fallout: Just as Beringer's book was published, the boys brought Beringer one last stone. The stone was etched with Beringer's name. It turns out the stones had been planted by two of Beringer's colleagues. They became known as lügensteine, or "lying stones."
Source: The Museum of Hoaxes, The Guardian
The perpetual motion machine of 1813
Wikimedia Commons
The find: a novel invention, the brainchild of a man named Charles Redheffer. It was a machine that remained in perpetual motion, never stopping — a perpetual motion machine.
The fallout: After noticing a slight wobble in the machine, a skeptical mechanical engineer named Robert Fulton challenged Redheffer, claiming that he could find the mechanism keeping the machine in motion.
And he did just that. It turns out that the machine's source of unstoppable energy was an old man in an attic, turning the crank while munching on a piece of bread.
Source: The Museum of Hoaxes, The Guardian
Life on the moon in 1835
NASA
The find: According to the New York Sun, it was a "new theory of cometary phenomena." Apparently, an astronomer named Sir John Herschel had not only discovered new planets orbiting other stars, he had "solved or corrected nearly every leading problem of mathematical astronomy."
The most exciting of these new astronomical discoveries: life on the moon.
The fallout: It turns out that not only had Herschel not actually found life on the moon or cracked the entire field of mathematical astronomy, he wasn't even aware of these alleged discoveries, much less that they had been linked to him.
Source: The Museum of Hoaxes
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