THE THEATER OF THE BLIND - STARRING A PROMETHEAN PRANKSTER, A PHONY PHENOMENON, A PRISM, A POCKET, AND A PIECE OF WOOD

One of the most notorious cases of full-blown scientific error is the 'non-existent' form of radiation known as 'N-rays, discovered in the spring of 1903 by the French physicist Blondlot. After a short but full and interesting life, N-rays were killed off (so the story goes) in the autumn of 1904 by the American physicist Wood, who, after visiting Blondlot's laboratory in Nancy, published in Nature a damning report of what he found (or didn't find). In this paper, I look at the way in which these events have been represented in subsequent commentaries (including a later one of Wood's), concentrating particularly on 'the tale of the removal of the prism. I also examine the source of the effectiveness of Wood's 'rhetoric of undiscovery' which I claim lies in his construction and operation of a 'theatre of the blind, in which only we who were not there can see the nothing that is there. Throughout the text, Wood's credibility as a reporter is questioned in the interest of providing a symmetrically sceptical account of Wood's scientific claims and status, as a counter to the standard story.