10-Year-Old Accidentally Discovers New Explosive Molecule

[cookyy2k]

Honestly this is just stupid. Those spouting the apple from tree and mouldy food items as genious accidental discoveries are missing the point entirely. People before the apple fell had things land on or arround them, people before that mouldy lump of bread no doubt had food stuffs go off. The genious isn't in the accident, it's in the realisation that the accident may mean something.

Now we can fairly certainly say someone, somewhere has done this before but never thought anything of it. That being said is likening the kid messing with the moddle to the apple falling and the teacher thinking it could be something to Newton formulating gravity. So since we don't credit an apple with the discovery of gravity, we shouldn't credit a kid for dicking round with a ball and stick model, the discovery is the teacher's. He presented it as a potential new molecule and thus the analysis was made.

 

[AnotherAvatar]

The world is terribly cute some times.

Also I'm so glad so many people slapped down the first, rather negative, commenter, so that I don't even have to bother.

 

[Mcupobob]

This isn't the first time I've heard of this happing before. I'm starting to question how hard it really is to be a chemist right now. If a ten year old can just put crap together randomly and end up making a new compound why even bother with college?

I kid I kid. Well good for her! I'm going to roll some colored dice and see what new discovery I can make!

 

[lacktheknack]

Congratulations, Escapist users. You can't even let a ten-year-old make scientists look like dunderheads without having to bleat and ***** about how she did it by accident.

If you accidentally cured cancer, do you deserve to be yelled at by the writhing ball of hate that is the internet simply because the word "accidentally" was involved?

 

[cookyy2k]

Congratulations, Escapist users. You can't even let a ten-year-old make scientists look like dunderheads without having to bleat and ***** about how she did it by accident.

If you accidentally cured cancer, do you deserve to be yelled at by the writhing ball of hate that is the internet simply because the word "accidentally" was involved?

So remind me how she made scientists look dumb? By playing with a construction toy and having someone else recognise it could be something? I'd bet you everything I own it is a model that has been made before many a time but they haven't been fortunate enough to have someone there to spot it's potential. In your analogy if I accidentally came up with a cure for cancer and I recognised that it could be a cure it'd be the recognition that would be praise worthy not the accident, if I accidentally created a cure and someone else spotted it was a cure it'd be their discovery.

 

[Aethren]

Or would you class Gravity, Saccharin, Penicillin, or Crisps as not very exciting?

I'm pretty sure you meant to say Chips there.

 

[Jadak]

If you accidentally cured cancer, do you deserve to be yelled at by the writhing ball of hate that is the internet simply because the word "accidentally" was involved?

Do you deserve to be praised a genius when you do something randomly that happens to yield results?

The ranting is hardly about hating on the girl, it's about hating on the people who are holding her up as some sort of prodigy, which simply has no indication of actually being the case. Forget the girl, the haters don't care about her either way, it's misplaced meaningless praise that draws scorn.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Random innovation exists, as difficultimpossible as it is for some in this topic to grasp. I can't understand the outrage and hatred for it though; even information garnered from random innovation has practical uses.

I'm rather happy she was able to randomly create that; it shows that there is (occasionally) something more to science, rather than the usual slog of mindless determinalism and boiling everything down to numbers.

Sometimes, the solution isn't in mere procedure, but something else entirely.

 

[cookyy2k]

If you accidentally cured cancer, do you deserve to be yelled at by the writhing ball of hate that is the internet simply because the word "accidentally" was involved?

Do you deserve to be praised a genius when you do something randomly that happens to yield results?

The ranting is hardly about hating on the girl, it's about hating on the people who are holding her up as some sort of prodigy, which simply has no indication of actually being the case. Forget the girl, the haters don't care about her either way, it's misplaced meaningless praise that draws scorn.

Presisely this, people on this thread are trying to credit an apple with gravity. The accident (apple falling, kid playing with model) isn't the important bit. The important bit is in seeing the potential (Newton formulaiting gravity, teacher thinking it is a possibility and submitting it). Many people had things fall on them as no doubt many people have played with chemical models and made undiscovered feasable mlecules without realising it, if the teacher hadn't looked at it and thought "well maybe" then the nice model she built would have remained that way, a pretty little model.

 

[lacktheknack]

Congratulations, Escapist users. You can't even let a ten-year-old make scientists look like dunderheads without having to bleat and ***** about how she did it by accident.

If you accidentally cured cancer, do you deserve to be yelled at by the writhing ball of hate that is the internet simply because the word "accidentally" was involved?

So remind me how she made scientists look dumb? By playing with a construction toy and having someone else recognise it could be something? I'd bet you everything I own it is a model that has been made before many a time but they haven't been fortunate enough to have someone there to spot it's potential. In your analogy if I accidentally came up with a cure for cancer and I recognised that it could be a cure it'd be the recognition that would be praise worthy not the accident, if I accidentally created a cure and someone else spotted it was a cure it'd be their discovery.

It made the scientists look dumb mostly through the simplicity of the molecule.

Tetranitratoxycarbon is simply a carbon molecule with four nitrogen-oxygen nodes attached. This is something that scientists should have found a loooooooooooooooooooong time ago. The fact that they HAVEN'T makes them look like dunderheads now that a kid did it.

In my comparison, this is like a lab having a houseplant that cured cancer. The fact that someone brought their attention to the possibility should net Clara some credit.

 

[quantumsoul]

So did the child just put together a model for the craic or did she intentionally put it together with full knowledge of what she is doing.

If it's the former then I really don't care. If it's the latter then "Good for you".

EDIT I was right

"But that?s what happened when Clara Lazen, 10, randomly arranged a unique combination of oxygen, nitrogen and carbon atoms."

http://now.humboldt.edu/news/not-your-average-fifth-grade-assignment/

Randomly

It was pure chance and she isn't going to be the one researching its uses so well done little girl, you discovered something by accident and will have no involvement in making it useful.

Being random doesn't mean she discovered it any less. Some credit is still due as long as it's mentioned she did it by chance. It's not like they're giving her a Nobel Prize. While she wasn't intentionally trying to discover something new, she was still experimenting with the models to make some kind of molecule and still showed it to the teacher. It's just an interesting coincidence that could have big results(depending how useful this chemical is), and it's nice that it made the kids more interested in science.

 

[lacktheknack]

If you accidentally cured cancer, do you deserve to be yelled at by the writhing ball of hate that is the internet simply because the word "accidentally" was involved?

Do you deserve to be praised a genius when you do something randomly that happens to yield results?

The ranting is hardly about hating on the girl, it's about hating on the people who are holding her up as some sort of prodigy, which simply has no indication of actually being the case. Forget the girl, the haters don't care about her either way, it's misplaced meaningless praise that draws scorn.

Presisely this, people on this thread are trying to credit an apple with gravity. The accident (apple falling, kid playing with model) isn't the important bit. The important bit is in seeing the potential (Newton formulaiting gravity, teacher thinking it is a possibility and submitting it). Many people had things fall on them as no doubt many people have played with chemical models and made undiscovered feasable mlecules without realising it, if the teacher hadn't looked at it and thought "well maybe" then the nice model she built would have remained that way, a pretty little model.

But notice how everyone remembers said apple just as much as the scientist who elaborated.

 

[lacktheknack]

If you accidentally cured cancer, do you deserve to be yelled at by the writhing ball of hate that is the internet simply because the word "accidentally" was involved?

Do you deserve to be praised a genius when you do something randomly that happens to yield results?

The ranting is hardly about hating on the girl, it's about hating on the people who are holding her up as some sort of prodigy, which simply has no indication of actually being the case. Forget the girl, the haters don't care about her either way, it's misplaced meaningless praise that draws scorn.

I'm not seeing people declaring her a genius, just people decrying fictional people calling her a genius.

 

[cookyy2k]

Congratulations, Escapist users. You can't even let a ten-year-old make scientists look like dunderheads without having to bleat and ***** about how she did it by accident.

If you accidentally cured cancer, do you deserve to be yelled at by the writhing ball of hate that is the internet simply because the word "accidentally" was involved?

So remind me how she made scientists look dumb? By playing with a construction toy and having someone else recognise it could be something? I'd bet you everything I own it is a model that has been made before many a time but they haven't been fortunate enough to have someone there to spot it's potential. In your analogy if I accidentally came up with a cure for cancer and I recognised that it could be a cure it'd be the recognition that would be praise worthy not the accident, if I accidentally created a cure and someone else spotted it was a cure it'd be their discovery.

It made the scientists look dumb mostly through the simplicity of the molecule.

Tetranitratoxycarbon is simply a carbon molecule with four nitrogen-oxygen nodes attached. This is something that scientists should have found a loooooooooooooooooooong time ago. The fact that they HAVEN'T makes them look like dunderheads now that a kid did it.

In my comparison, this is like a lab having a houseplant that cured cancer. The fact that someone brought their attention to the possibility should net Clara some credit.

Stangely enough though, labs don't go around trying to create individual molecules just for the sake of discovery. That's not how science works. You don't put in a research proposal to a funder and say "I want to find a new molecule", you generally go looking for a molecule to fulfil a certain requirement or analyse a yet undetermined naturally occuring molecule. The cancer cure analogy fails here as people are actively banging away looking for that. The discovery of a stable way to stick new atoms together to create one molecule is too small fry for any lab to actually fund research, that is why it has not previously been discovered.

EDIT:

But notice how everyone remembers said apple just as much as the scientist who elaborated.

Yeah, also the fact that story is totally made up has a lot to say about how people "remember" scientific advances.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

but then again, we have some of the most pessimistic "oscar the grouch" types on here...*sigh* the first actual positive piece of good news we've had in a while and it turns into a "wow this kid is shit, i was so much better at that age"

If you actually looked at some science websites you would see some great discoveries and advances happening but NO, a child accidentally finding a potentially useless molecule and...

PRAISE JESUS, THE WORLD IS SAVED!

I never said I was better just that why should we care about this when we could praise people like this:

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-uga-discovery-fracture-putty-broken.html

People in that article are using science to try and improve our lives, it may take some time to become used on people but it's much more impressive and useful than a possible explosive that may not even be worth making. I bet people wouldn't care 1/4 as much about this as the story in this thread.

1) i look up science websites all the time for fun new things people are researching/building, and i greatly appreciate alot of them!

2) that wasn't pointed at you, but at very pessimistic escapists in general. however you are the negative nancy of the thread by far, as you have the biggest bone to pick with this girl for some odd reason...

3) should we not give her a quick pat on the back for doing something good? accident or not? it does nothing to you, why does it bug you THAT much?

4) the only reason why people seem to "care", is because we are giving 1 line of quick input saying "huh that's cool" and then quoting you saying how absurd it is that you have to put down the article even though it is meant to be a purely positive thing.

 

[lacktheknack]

Congratulations, Escapist users. You can't even let a ten-year-old make scientists look like dunderheads without having to bleat and ***** about how she did it by accident.

If you accidentally cured cancer, do you deserve to be yelled at by the writhing ball of hate that is the internet simply because the word "accidentally" was involved?

So remind me how she made scientists look dumb? By playing with a construction toy and having someone else recognise it could be something? I'd bet you everything I own it is a model that has been made before many a time but they haven't been fortunate enough to have someone there to spot it's potential. In your analogy if I accidentally came up with a cure for cancer and I recognised that it could be a cure it'd be the recognition that would be praise worthy not the accident, if I accidentally created a cure and someone else spotted it was a cure it'd be their discovery.

It made the scientists look dumb mostly through the simplicity of the molecule.

Tetranitratoxycarbon is simply a carbon molecule with four nitrogen-oxygen nodes attached. This is something that scientists should have found a loooooooooooooooooooong time ago. The fact that they HAVEN'T makes them look like dunderheads now that a kid did it.

In my comparison, this is like a lab having a houseplant that cured cancer. The fact that someone brought their attention to the possibility should net Clara some credit.

Stangely enough though, labs don't go around trying to create individual molecules just for the sake of discovery. That's not how science works. You don't put in a research proposal to a funder and say "I want to find a new molecule", you generally go looking for a molecule to fulfil a certain requirement or analyse a yet undetermined naturally occuring molecule. The cancer cure analogy fails here as people are actively banging away looking for that. The discovery of a stable way to stick new atoms together to create one molecule is too small fry for any lab to actually fund research, that is why it has not previously been discovered.

You underestimate how easy it would be to find this molecule without looking.

http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/articles/Screen%20shot%202012-02-03%20at%2012.19.22%20PM.png

I drew something almost EXACTLY like that on an organic chemistry test for "Draw a molocule that uses carbon and oxygen", except I copped out and used hydrogen instead of nitrogen. It is stunning to me that, knowing that the carbon-three oxygen-nitrogen combo exists that we wouldn't have thought to attach them to carbon. A scientist wasting time with a molecule graphics program should have come up with this.

And fine, the houseplant cures boanthropy. You'd still be credited with contributing to the cure for boanthropy, even though no one is really looking for it.

 

[spartan231490]

My O-Chem prof's wife made a buckey ball about 6 months before it was discovered in a lab. Those little chem sets are pretty fucking awesome.

I still think the girl deserves little credit for it. She's no genius and shouldn't be celebrated as one. If anything the person who noticed this random selection of molecules and the person who actually studied them should be given credit simply because they were clever enough to notice it. The cure for cancer could be goats cheese for all we know, would you call the cheesemaker a genius for making the cheese that cures cancer or the scientist that studied the cheese and found out that it cures cancer?

Just gonna say, you're half-wrong. It's pure luck that the molecule is useful, but it's virtually impossible to stumble onto a feasible molecule by luck. She had to have some idea what she was doing, more than any kid her age should have. Is she the next Einstein? Probably not, but she's definitely smarter than your average bear, and deserves mad props.

 

[lacktheknack]

EDIT:

But notice how everyone remembers said apple just as much as the scientist who elaborated.

Yeah, also the fact that story is totally made up has a lot to say about how people "remember" scientific advances.

It's made up? Daw.

Still, not sure how that's relevant, because Clara most definitely made that model.

 

[dyre]

That's kinda cool, I guess. I wonder if there's any practical application of this randomly generated molecule that only exists when artificially created in a lab?

It was pure chance and she isn't going to be the one researching its uses so well done little girl, you discovered something by accident and will have no involvement in making it useful.

Yeah, not that impressive, but it's just a news story probably aimed generating views, and might even create more interest in Popular Science (which is a cool magazine anyway) and science in general, so no harm done, right?

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

I hope they name it after her! That'd be pretty cool.

So.... what was that about Bottling Energy, sorry?