A platform for publishing science articles under the Chinese Academy of Sciences on Sunday removed a paper which denied the existence of electric charge, and blacklisted the author who claimed to be a scientist but was a "folk" one.
The platform, chinaxiv.org, blacklisted the author, who called himself "Fan Wei," on suspicion of impersonation, read the platform's statement.
The platform explained that it is dedicated to providing open communication for scientists, and is working under the principle of "publishing any findings on time and making them open for comments."
The statement came after an article, which went viral since Saturday said that Fan, who claimed to work with the School of Physics in Yunnan University in Southwest China, has found that the electric charge does not exist, and that his paper and findings have been reviewed and approved by a Nobel Laureate in Physics and the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge University.
Fan's paper signifies that Chinese scientists can rewrite global textbooks, marking a great victory for Chinese science, and a breakthrough in fundamental physics, said the article. The paper has been clicked for more than 8,000 times and downloaded 4,000 plus times from the platform before it was removed, media reported.
Folk scientists are researchers without systematic training who operate outside peer-reviewed academia.
