Donald scientifique

Comic Book Urban Legend #87

As established in a previous Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed, Carl Barks was a real master of coming up with realistic sounding scientific facts, even when he was completely fabricating them. In fact, he paid such close attention that, as detailed in the earlier installment, a process he detailed in an issue of Donald Duck apparently led to an inventor being denied a patent, because his process was so similar to Barks’.

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(extrait d'un article scientifique)
“Despite the recent extensive interest in methylene chemistry,” read the article’s last paragraph, “much additional study is required…. Among experiments which have not, to our knowledge, been carried out as yet is one of a most intriguing nature suggested in the literature of no less than 19 years ago (91).” Footnote 91, in turn, directed readers to issue 44 of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories. It seems Donald’s reference to CH2 in panel 2.1 was years ahead of its time: the existence of this elusive chemical intermediate had not been proven in 1944.