A Cat Co-Authored A Real Physics Paper In 1975

In 1975, Jack H. Hetherington, a physicist at Michigan State University, finished a serious paper about how helium-3 behaves under different temperature conditions and prepared to send it to the journal Physical Review Letters. Then a colleague pointed out a small problem, which was that the journal's guidelines did not allow the word we in a paper with only one author, and Hetherington had already typed the entire manuscript using it. Retyping every page sounded exhausting, and adding a human co-author would have meant sharing credit for his work, so he came up with a much more playful solution. He listed his Siamese cat, Chester, as a co-author under the name F.D.C. Willard, short for Felis Domesticus Chester Willard, and the paper was accepted.

The secret stayed safe until a visitor to the university asked to meet the mysterious Dr. Willard, and nobody could produce him, which is how the truth finally came out. Most of the scientific community laughed, although a few editors were less amused, and the story turned a technical physics paper into one of the most famous footnotes in academic publishing. Chester even went on to publish a second article under the Willard name in the French journal La Recherche, giving him a real publication record for a cat who spent his days napping at home. In 2014, the American Physical Society joined the fun on April Fools' Day with a playful announcement that papers written by cats would now be free for everyone to read, proving that even the most serious corners of science know how to enjoy a good story.

Source:https://techfixated.com/in-1975-a-cat-co-authored-a-peer-reviewed-physics-paper/