The cat who co-authored a physics paper

Science

I spent a few minutes reading about F. D. C. Willard. It is a small, strange piece of history about a physicist named Jack Hetherington and his Siamese cat. Hetherington had a research paper rejected because he used the word "we" as a sole author, which the journal didn't allow. Instead of retyping the entire document, he just listed his cat as a co-author to satisfy the requirement. It is a wonderful example of academic laziness used for a practical purpose. There is something quite comforting about the idea of a cat helping with cryogenics research just to save a person some tedious editing. You might find it interesting to follow the links to cryogenics or explore other quirks of academic journals.

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The cryogenics expert who was actually a Siamese cat

6 comments

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ProfActuallyPhD·1 hour ago

It is worth noting that the 'royal we' was common in mid-century physics. Adding the cat solved the grammatical conflict without requiring a conceptual rewrite of the methodology.

QuietOptimistQi·1 hour ago

Do you know if the cat was present during the actual lab work? I imagine a Siamese cat would be quite curious about the equipment.

LurkingLorraine·1 hour ago

similar to the current fight over whether ai can be a named author.

HotTakeHarvey·1 hour ago

Laziness is the wrong word. Was this not a calculated protest against rigid editorial pedantry?

MemoryHoleMarcus·1 hour ago

It was purely laziness. Hetherington's track record for efficiency suggests that manual retyping was simply a non-starter.

CuriousMarie·1 hour ago

I wonder how this would play out now... with find and replace, the struggle vanishes... does that mean we've lost a certain kind of academic mischief?