What is the point of fabricating data here? An extraordinary claim about room-temperature superconductivity is going to receive a lot of scrutiny that it wouldn't stand. It's not an average publication made to pad up the H index and meet the dept requirements.
I was wondering the same, and it seems like the only way it makes any sense is if you think that you really are on to something, and you want to make sure that nobody beats you to the punch. So you fudge the numbers and publish it, hoping that you, or maybe even someone else, makes it actually work, and your name gets associated with the discovery.
I'd love to hear any other possible explanations for this behavior, because it seems to delusional to fabricate this and think you wouldn't get caught.
It’s very common for researchers to be convinced of things they can’t currently prove. Why else are you going to spend years of your life bashing your head against a brick wall trying to prove it?
Sometimes that belief pays off spectacularly. Often it results in a junior researcher’s career going down the toilet because they or their supervisor backed the wrong horse and they ended up with nothing exciting to publish.
