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$10 Bet Brings Researchers Closer to Industrial Scale Graphene Production

Posted by Soulskill on from the all-about-the-hamiltons dept.

AaronW writes: After trying and failing to convince Nina Kovtyukhona to test her technique of separating layers of graphite and boron nitride to instead try graphene, Thomas E. Mallouk made a bet with Nina that her technique method would work. If it worked, Nina would owe him $10. If it didn't, he would owe her $100. The result was published in Nature yesterday (abstract). Thomas is $10 richer, and we are a step closer to industrial scale graphene production.

4 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Incomprehensible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Are you fucking stupid? We assume a certain level of intelligence for people that visit this website. Apparently you belong on Reddit.

  2. Re:what ? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So a, presumably, leading scientist balked at doing some research work for, presumably, sound technical and professional reasons, but all it took was the prospect of winning $100 to persuade her otherwise.

    Except that she lost $10. If she was purely financially motivated, she would have faked a negative result, and collected the $100.

  3. Re:what ? by kwbauer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    " the consensus of literature on the subject was that her technique couldn't possibly work."
    In other words, the science was settled, discussion was over and then we found out it wasn't.

  4. Re: what ? by Fwipp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Impostor syndrome - the feeling that everyone else is more qualified than you - is especially common in women in STEM fields. Makes you prone to thinking that your own ideas and innovations can't be right if they contradict established wisdom