H. R. Currie and G. M. Currie, Open Access Journal
This one was brought to our attention by the Evil Mathologre. It is a tricky one, since it involves the work of a school student, and the student is in no way a target for our criticism. Out of such concerns, we haven’t made this post a WitCH; it should be considered in the same vein as this Maths Masters column.
As reported in Wagga’s Daily Advertiser a couple weeks ago, and as picked up by The Canberra Times, IB student Hugo Currie was given a “mathematics assignment” (presumably an Internal Assessment) on the golden ratio:
“… we had to investigate an element of the golden ratio in the built or natural environment so I decided to look at atomic structure …“.
Hugo considered the atomic mass number A (protons plus neutrons) of nuclides (isotopes), comparing A to the number N of neutrons and the number Z of protons. Of course, A = N + Z. Hugo then looked for “fibonacci nuclides”, nuclides for which the ratios A/N and N/Z are very good approximations to the golden ratio. He found a bunch, and suggested his results as a guide to hunting for new elements and nuclides. Hugo’s graphic above is a good illustrative summary of his investigation; the horizontal axis is N, the vertical axis is Z, and the black line indicates known stable nuclides.
OK, no big deal. From our perspective, having a class sent off to hunt for the golden ratio is asking for trouble, but it’s just an IA, and Hugo’s work seems interestingly exploratory-ish, in the manner the IB foolishly demands. But why did Hugo make the news, and what’s the problem?
In May, Hugo published a paper, co-authored with his father Professor Geoffrey Currie, in the peer-reviewed Open Science Journal. And, yes, of course that made the news. And yes, that’s the problem.
Unsurprisingly but unfortunately, we can see little if anything research-worthy in the Curries’ paper, and we noticed a number of “Uh-oh”s. A fine IA, sure, but not a research paper, and not news.
We’ll leave it at that. Readers are free to hunt for the uh-ohs.