Professor Lisa Jardine recently found the account of a 17th Century English Naval officer who faked the data from a trial of an early chronometer aboard his ship. The chronometer’s developer, Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, was boggled by the accuracy claimed by the ship’s captain, and asked the experiment’s sponsor, the Royal Society, if the captain could be trusted. The Society asked Samuel Pepys to audit the captain’s log book.
Pepys confirmed the officer had faked the data in his logs. The accuracy claimed by the ship’s captain was greater than the tolerances Huygen expected of his early chronometer.
