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Irish teen invents magnetic liquid trap to remove microplastics in water (2019)

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Re: Irish teen invents magnetic liquid trap to remove microplastics in water (2019)

#51

Post by bluesign »

bb123 wrote: post #9

Does anyone else approach these "teen invents x" or "wiz kid middle schooler discovers y" articles with extreme skepticism? About half the time the invention turns out to be bogus or trivial, and in the other half it comes to light the parents were behind it.

It usually is. You can usually find some research or news about same tech used.

from 2013 article [1], though it seems not practical [2]:

"W2Plastics has shown the viability of magnetic density separation, where flakes of shredded plastic such as polyethylene or polypropylene are mixed into a magnetic fluid made by adding iron oxide to water."

I am not sure which one is better to show kids they discovered something existing, or praise them like this

[1] https://horizon-magazine.eu/article/magnetic-attraction-recy...

[2] https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/131208-sorting-plastic-w...

Re: Irish teen invents magnetic liquid trap to remove microplastics in water (2019)

#52

Post by OJFord »

noobermin wrote: post #25
bb123 wrote: post #9

Does anyone else approach these "teen invents x" or "wiz kid middle schooler discovers y" articles with extreme skepticism? About half the time the invention turns out to be bogus or trivial, and in the other half it comes to light the parents were behind it.

This sort of comment crops up every time an article like this comes on HN. No doubt often times parents bring their kids along for the ride but no one bats and eye when we talk about our youth and learning to program as a 14 year old or something, why be surprised an 18 year old has come up with such an idea based on basic chemistry?

Because when we were teens and younger programming, we were just covering well-known ground, learning to program and messing about. Some useful stuff maybe, but not furthering Computer Science with ground-breaking research. No different to playing an instrument as a child for example.

The doubt isn't over whether a teen can do 'basic chemistry', it's whether they've 'invented' something; whether they've done anything that someone who doesn't know them/their family/their school and isn't considering their application for something needs to care about. It's whether this is (or was a while before the media got it) news or exciting or a citation for an adult researcher working in the field.

Re: Irish teen invents magnetic liquid trap to remove microplastics in water (2019)

#53

Post by glckr »

runawaybottle wrote: post #32
bb123 wrote: post #9

Does anyone else approach these "teen invents x" or "wiz kid middle schooler discovers y" articles with extreme skepticism? About half the time the invention turns out to be bogus or trivial, and in the other half it comes to light the parents were behind it.

This might be a stretch, but it always reminds me of Craig Ferguson’s rant on ‘The deification of youth’: https://youtu.be/UKUZ42T9diU Edit: (*Scottish!): Ironically, he’s an old Irish man :p

Craig Ferguson is not Irish.

Re: Irish teen invents magnetic liquid trap to remove microplastics in water (2019)

#54

Post by ekianjo »

bb123 wrote: post #9

Does anyone else approach these "teen invents x" or "wiz kid middle schooler discovers y" articles with extreme skepticism? About half the time the invention turns out to be bogus or trivial, and in the other half it comes to light the parents were behind it.

Almost as reliable as "scientist discovers X" in mainstream media since they constantly misinterpret or exagerate the nature of discoveries.

Re: Irish teen invents magnetic liquid trap to remove microplastics in water (2019)

#55

Post by globular-toast »

bb123 wrote: post #9

Does anyone else approach these "teen invents x" or "wiz kid middle schooler discovers y" articles with extreme skepticism? About half the time the invention turns out to be bogus or trivial, and in the other half it comes to light the parents were behind it.

I approach everything with scepticism.

Re: Irish teen invents magnetic liquid trap to remove microplastics in water (2019)

#56

Post by dbspin »

runawaybottle wrote: post #32
bb123 wrote: post #9

Does anyone else approach these "teen invents x" or "wiz kid middle schooler discovers y" articles with extreme skepticism? About half the time the invention turns out to be bogus or trivial, and in the other half it comes to light the parents were behind it.

This might be a stretch, but it always reminds me of Craig Ferguson’s rant on ‘The deification of youth’: https://youtu.be/UKUZ42T9diU Edit: (*Scottish!): Ironically, he’s an old Irish man :p

Scottish.

Re: Irish teen invents magnetic liquid trap to remove microplastics in water (2019)

#57

Post by soneca »

toyg wrote: post #4

(2019) Or even (2018), since that's when the guy actually came up with it. It was widely reported several times. He's become a regular on the conference circuit since then, but as far as I can see his "great invention" has not actually been deployed in any significant capacity. I'd like it if anybody could shine some light on the outcomes.

Decided to Google it. He moved on to a new project which is a platform to help other young inventors [0]. He went meta.

To be fair, any misalignment between what he has done and how it was presented in the press I blame 100% the press.

He did something cool, in line of what’s the Google Science prize is all about (I.e. promoting science research among teenagers, not finding world-changing inventions). The press that went nuts pointing ”this teenager just solved ocean pollution for us!” due to the known incentives that ad-based press have.

[0] https://www.southernstar.ie/news/hollywood-celeb-is-funding-...

Re: Irish teen invents magnetic liquid trap to remove microplastics in water (2019)

#58

Post by NotPavlovsDog »

MertsA wrote: post #49
NotPavlovsDog wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. My partner is working on a sub-topic, removing microplastics from laundry discharge water, and it is a huge and still undefined challenge. There is no magic pill. Even core definitions such as "what are microplastics" are under review and development. And then there's nanoplastics. For those wanting an introduction to the topic, don't go with media, start reviewing papers. The top cited papers clearly outline ho…

>removing microplastics from laundry discharge water Much better way of addressing a lot of the microplastics problem IMHO. Regulate it out of common frivolous sources like e.g. "exfoliating microspheres" and then start requiring washing machine OEMs to put replaceable filters on the discharge.

Agree on both counts.

It's really inspiring to see what real engineering is. Makes me feel like a sell-out massaging Skinner boxes.

In the laundry problem they are dealing with both the extreme challenge of physical objects (connecting the right pump to the right controller, battling liquid pressure loss, unreliable reference washing machine performance and water quality ), abstract concepts ("what shall be identified as microplastics?" "is the reference wash cycle in any way relevant to how plastic clothing sheds when worn by humans?" "how shall the conflicting measurement methods from literature be addressed / unified?") and project constraints. To say nothing about filter clogging.

And it's a great feeling to know that your work is fundamentally relevant, i see that even when they hit their lows.

Really making me re-consider my career path.

Re: Irish teen invents magnetic liquid trap to remove microplastics in water (2019)

#59

Post by konjin »

konschubert wrote: post #33
konjin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but then again the majority of news is somewhere between lies and not even wrong. The point of news is eyeballs, not truth.

No, there exist reasonably good news sources.

Yes, a tiny minority.

The majority are so bad that they have reduced their consumers ability to read to the point where they can't understand the difference between few and none.

Re: Irish teen invents magnetic liquid trap to remove microplastics in water (2019)

#60

Post by noobermin »

bb123 wrote: post #48
noobermin wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sort of comment crops up every time an article like this comes on HN. No doubt often times parents bring their kids along for the ride but no one bats and eye when we talk about our youth and learning to program as a 14 year old or something, why be surprised an 18 year old has come up with such an idea based on basic chemistry?

Because the issues kids in these articles claim to solve are usually large unsolved problems, that have been studied by subject matter experts for years. It's possible someone could dream up a silver bullet, but I believe the trope of an untrained outsider approaching a problem and easily solving something that has stumped "the experts" is nowhere near as common as we'd like to believe. The reality is these solutions…

That's fine for the typical case, it's not like "teens with fresh ideas" solve all the problems, that's why this is news worthy because it is an exception. I'm not sure this story (the article in question seems like a blog of some sort so their writing might not be the best) is trying to pass off the idea that it's common at all.
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