Automated Deletion: How an Algorithm Made Historical Texts by Max Planck Disappear

The publisher Springer Nature has retroactively withdrawn two historical articles by the Physics Nobel Prize winner Max Planck from its collection. The texts, published in the early 1940s, were removed from the digital archive of the journal The Science of Nature and replaced with documents devoid of any substantive value.

As reported by the American science magazine Science, alleged copyright violations were the official reason for this extensive deletion from the digital memory of science. However, two science historians suspect, after an investigation, that a faulty algorithm from the publisher mistakenly classified the texts as unacceptable self-plagiarisms.

Historical Publication Practices as a Trigger

Science historians Yves Gingras and Mahdi Khelfaoui from the Canadian University of Quebec have analyzed the incident in detail. In a document published on the platform Arxiv, the two men explain that the publisher applies today's publication standards to a completely different era of scientific history.

One of the affected texts from 1942 is based on a lecture about exact science that Planck had previously delivered to an audience in Berlin. At that time, it was common and explicitly desired by the academic community to publish identical content in various publications to reach as wide an audience as possible across language barriers.

In the early 20th century, the editorial focus was on maximizing the dissemination of knowledge in a highly fragmented scientific community. The strict separation between lectures, collected essays, and scientific journal articles did not exist in the rigid form seen today.

Absurd Accusations Due to Faulty Automation

The second deleted article from 1940 bears the exact same title as a critique of the real external world in science published shortly before by philosopher Aloys Müller. Planck intentionally adopted this title for his substantive response to the critique, which, according to Ars Technica, inevitably leads to a false plagiarism suspicion when using a modern cataloging algorithm.

In the now-deleted text, Planck addressed the so-called Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, advocated by physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. The fact that such an important historical document regarding a central scientific debate was deleted by software highlights the gravity of the editorial process.

The scientific works of Max Planck are also in the public domain in most countries, as the famous physicist passed away in 1947. The allegation of ongoing copyright infringement by the author himself, raised by the software, appears completely unfounded from today's legal perspective and lacks any legal basis.

Lack of Control in the Publication System

The current editor-in-chief of The Science of Nature, Suzanne Scarlata from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, was completely surprised by the unnoticed deletions. In an interview with Science, the chemist described the entire process as "crazy" and expressed strong suspicion that the publisher's software made the decision without any human review by the editorial team.

The case vividly illustrates the massive problems that inevitably arise when large companies delegate extensive editorial decisions to error-prone algorithms. The automatic deletion not only distorts the documented historical record but also reveals serious structural weaknesses in quality control within international scientific publishing houses.

The two science historians noted that the faulty process in assigning digital identification numbers to historical texts likely began as early as 2005. According to the experts, the growing dominance of large commercial publishing groups, primarily focused on copyright protection and profit maximization, further exacerbates such negative effects.

Today's publication standards are also heavily dependent on the principle that the number of exclusive publications significantly influences the careers and funding allocations for researchers. Transferring this modern approach to historical documents massively distorts the publication behavior of that time and ignores the original purpose of open scientific communication.

Opacity and Financial Interests at Springer Nature

So far, Springer Nature has not publicly detailed the specific reasons for the withdrawal of the articles. A spokesperson for the company stated in response to inquiries from Science that such details are confidential and typically only shared with the affected authors.

The publisher's actions also have a notable financial component, as the empty documents created by the software were reportedly still offered for download for nearly $40. For the historians, the incident dramatically illustrates that blind automation of archiving processes without a functioning human corrective ultimately causes more harm than good.