How it all began
In 1975 Jack H. Hetherington, a professor at a Michigan university made a pretty silly mistake and even though it was trivial, it did not allow him to publish his scientific work in the Physical Review Letters magazine. Hetherington wrote his entire sceintific work in in plural form, although the magazine editors clearly stated that writing in plural form is only acceptable when there is more than one author of the work.
Luckily, Hetheringhton turned out to be a very creative man, which allowed him to convince a mysterious scientist under the name of F.D.C. Willard to sign his work.
F.D. - Felis domesticus (domesticated cat)
C - Chester (the name of the cat)
Willard (the name of Chester's father)
Thanks to Willard, the publication was allowed and Two-, Three-, and Four-Atom Exchange Effects in bcc ³He, the scientific work about low temperature physics, was published in the 35th issue. After the publisher gave Hetherington a copy of the released article, he decided to wet his cat's paws with ink and signed the copy this way. He sent a dozen of copies signed with cat paws to his close friends.
The last publication of F.D.C. Willard
In 1980, an essay appeared under the title L'hélium 3 solide. Un antiferromagnétique nucléaire in a french magazine La Recherche. and of course Wilard was the sole author of the work. J.H. Hetherington was not certain if his research was correct, therefore he used the persona of his Felis Domesticus to release it. This was the last publication by F.D.C. Willard.
My favourite facts about F.D.C. Willard
- Apparently, before the mystery of Willard's identity has been solved, Marge, J.H. Hetherington’s wife openly said that she often shared her bed with both of the scientists.
- The organizers of 15th International Conference on Low Temperature Physics in 1978 planned to invite F.D.C. Willard to their even, especially that he never visited any science related conventions beforehand. Unfortunately, they dismissed the idea after they learned that Willard was in fact a cat.
If the correspondence below is true, it implies that F.D.C. Willard was offered a position as a professor in a Michigan university.
Personally, I absolutely love the story behind Willard and I am enthusiastic to share it with you.
sources:
m.in
xkeys.com/PIAboutUs/jacks/FDCWillard.php
wikipedia.org/wiki/F.D.C._Willard