Exhibit celebrates science’s frauds and fakes

History loves people who think “outside the box” and so do the Special Collections staff at Memorial Library. They have assembled an account of 13 historical figures who were idealistic and dedicated to what they were doing, even if they were, at times, misguided.

“Folly: Fraud and Fakery in the History of Science” looks at science’s discarded, where dupes and phonies stand with flawed geniuses and proponents of pseudo-science.

“Folly” may be seen through Jan. 15 at Special Collections, ninth floor, Memorial Library.

Consider René Prosper Blondlot, 1849-1930, a French physicist who achieved notoriety for his discovery of N-rays, which, he said, were emitted by all substances except green wood and certain treated metals.

Franz Anton Mesmer was a healer who waved magnetized poles over people and had his subjects sit in magnetized water. We still use his name to describe the power to spellbind and control.

George Psalmanazar was a European fraud who billed himself as a cannibal and abductee from Formosa. Upon his arrival in England in 1704, he fascinated spectators with accounts of Formosan culture. It wasn’t until his death that the public came to know the truth: he had invented an entire country and culture, right down to its language, religion and calendar.

“Folly” details Shakespeare forgers, believers in the flat-Earth system and those who held hollow-Earth theories, and spiritualists, who communicated with the dead.

Information: Kelley Osborne, 262-3243; kosborne@library.wisc.edu.