BBC’s Horizon episode talks about a young, prominent physicist, Jan Hendrik Schon, his amazing feats,

groundbreaking discoveries about organic transistors, which could be a vital part to nanotechnology,
and his fraudulent acts and lastly, his downfall. In the documentary, I learned that the economic growth
is directly proportional to the advancements in technology and that we badly need technological
advancement for our economy to grow. Also, it was explained that most of the physicist, as well as
electronics major, wants to deviate from the silicon-based electronics because of Moore’s Law which
somehow states that the number of transistors doubles every two years.

Which compels them to create a revolutionary technology which was dubbed “nanotechnology” or the
technology which we can create circuits or transistors in molecular or atomic level. It will greatly reduce
the cost of the production of electronics and at the same time, deviate from the expensive silicon-based
circuitry. The documentary also revolves on the risk of nanotechnology. Experts are worried because of
such advancement, will lead humanity into anarchy.

Finally, the documentary reveals that the groundbreaking discovery of Jan Hendrik Schon was all nothing
but a sham as physicist from different university discovered that the graphs that were used to justify his
observation was fraudulent and was used multiple times, disavowing its credibility. Finally, because of
his acts, the papers of Schon was removed from SCIENCE and NATURE journals and his PhD were
rescinded.

The Dark Secret of Jan Hendrik Schon made me realize that the world is excited and wants to see
something big such as nanotechnology in the future. Electronic industry will grow more bigger and
bolder each decade until it becomes vital to our life. Also, I realized that being a student that belong to
the scientific community, it’s my task and responsibility to ensure that I abide to the ethical guidelines
when creating a scientific paper because Science is knowledge so being fraudulent and proponent to
false knowledge will brand one as rouge and a disgrace to whole scientific community.