Admittedly, I did spend my childhood playing with explosives. But I certainly never had as much success as 10-year-old Clara Lazen (not pictured), who accidentally created a new energy storing molecule, tetranitratoxycarbon, that could be used as an explosive.
Using one of those molecular modelling sets we all messed with in school, Clara forged a combination of nitrogen, oxygen and carbon atoms that stumped her fifth-grade teacher. So he put the call out to Robert Zoellner (pictured) at Humboldt State University to see if it was indeed a real molecule. His searches through an online chemical database returned no exact matches, which meant that Clara had in fact discovered a brand new molecule.
Tetranitratoxycarbon, as it’s called for short, uses the same combination of atoms as nitroglycerin, and also has a knack for storing energy. So if it were synthesised, it could be used to create a fairly hefty boom. As a result of her discovery, Clara, and her teacher Kenneth Boehr, are both listed as co-authors on a research paper published by Zoellner about the molecule. Also, I suspect she’s probably getting an A on that assignment. [Humboldt State University via The Mary Sue]
TSH
Friday, February 3, 2012 at 2:12 PMWow. I’d have expected that pretty much all possible combinations of those toys had been seen already.
Then again, imagining the molecule and actually synthesizing it are two very different things. Consider dioxygen difluoride (FOOF). Simple to model; kinda tough to synthesize without exploding.
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/02/23/things_i_wont_work_with_dioxygen_difluoride.php
StevoTheDevo
Friday, February 3, 2012 at 2:40 PMYeah the fact that it has explosive properties at all makes it difficult to produce and store.
The hardest thing to invent with explosives is something that explodes on command, not because you sneezed or hadn’t quite cleaned the container properly so there was a single speck of dust remaining.
D Wiz
Friday, February 3, 2012 at 4:59 PMYeah, totally – i believe it was a similar process to develop flubber…
Chris Dalton
Friday, February 3, 2012 at 3:26 PMMum: “What did you do today at school?”
Clara: “I invented a bomb!”
Mum: “Hmmmm, remind me to talk to your teacher.”
MD
Friday, February 3, 2012 at 3:41 PMBring it on now Make it work…..
Nice Hypothetical Project…. of course identifying the properties of a molecule is vastly different from buts messing around with balls and sticks making pretty patterns…. But synthesising the molecule is again a very different story…
Luck to the Kid, we need inquisitive people, but why are the authorities so down on kids blowing stuff up…. (Made my teenage years bearable)
Ed Powers
Friday, February 3, 2012 at 6:31 PMmonkeys and typewriters. hmm
Kendal
Friday, February 3, 2012 at 8:45 PMHe can recognise a new molecule, but not how much his ponytail-goatee-glasses combo makes him look like a paedophile. Hmmm…
Sean
Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 6:23 PMA bit of perspective please. The kid made a pretty symmetrical shape with balls and sticks.
Ash
Monday, February 6, 2012 at 12:03 PMRemember to not fart near it, or it could cause a violent chemical reaction.