Max Planck’s reputation has been restored. The publisher Springer Nature this week reversed the more than decade-old retraction of two papers by the legendary physicist and Nobel laureate, saying the initial action was based on human error. The journal that published the papers in the 1940s had quietly removed them in 2011, and the current editor of the journal, now known as The Science of Nature, recently speculated that the decision stemmed from Springer Nature’s internal policing software, which the company denies.

The restoration came after two historians of science spotted Planck’s name on a list of Nobel laureates who have had papers retracted. Shocked, as they explained to Science on June, 2026, the pair investigated and posted a preprint on what they had found. They learned that one of the Planck pieces, published in 1942 in the journal, then known as Naturwissenschaften, had also appeared in two other journals and been reprinted twice in books – a practice common in that era to increase readership but considered self-plagiarism today.

Source https://www.science.org/content/article/springer-nature-restores-max-planck-s-mysteriously-retracted-papers

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