So, an amusing chemistry anecdote that I will express entirely in Lehman's terms in order to communicate the humor involved to whomever may be reading this. 
DISCLAIMER: After talking to someone, I realized that it's entirely possible that most people may not find this as amusing as I do. So, reader beware.
So, if you've ever taken a chemistry course, you're probably aware that many chemical bonds can rotate around freely--think of attaching two things with a sort of axle, across which the two things will be able to rotate with respect to each other.
Well, apparently a somewhat well-known synthetic organic chemist, back in the mid 90's, had an idea in which he envisioned building a molecule which worked as a sort of molecular "ratchet", if you will. The idea being that it would have a part of the molecule preventing it from rotating in one direction, while allowing rotation in the other. He had one of his graduate students build the molecule and look for such behavior. It turned out not to work, but the professor published it anyway, proposing the idea and saying that while he couldn't get it to work (the student observed that rotation in either direction was equally probable), the concept is interesting nonetheless.
Enter peer review.
Later that year, a rebuttal was published in the same journal. It didn't take long for someone to read the original work and immediately report that it's a damn good thing it didn't work as intended. Think back to the example I gave above, of two things (say, wheels) attached by an axle. Now, imagine one of them spontaneously rotating in a specific direction indefinitely without having any external force (e.g., a push) applied to it.
Ever heard of a perpetual motion machine?
Basically the rebuttal noted, very emphatically, that the entire concept of the original work violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics. No need to know what that is if you don't already--just think "big important law, up there with gravity and Newton's laws of motion." Not something likely to be disproved on accident by a random synthetic chemist fooling around with funny looking molecules.
DISCLAIMER: After talking to someone, I realized that it's entirely possible that most people may not find this as amusing as I do. So, reader beware.
So, if you've ever taken a chemistry course, you're probably aware that many chemical bonds can rotate around freely--think of attaching two things with a sort of axle, across which the two things will be able to rotate with respect to each other.
Well, apparently a somewhat well-known synthetic organic chemist, back in the mid 90's, had an idea in which he envisioned building a molecule which worked as a sort of molecular "ratchet", if you will. The idea being that it would have a part of the molecule preventing it from rotating in one direction, while allowing rotation in the other. He had one of his graduate students build the molecule and look for such behavior. It turned out not to work, but the professor published it anyway, proposing the idea and saying that while he couldn't get it to work (the student observed that rotation in either direction was equally probable), the concept is interesting nonetheless.
Enter peer review.
Later that year, a rebuttal was published in the same journal. It didn't take long for someone to read the original work and immediately report that it's a damn good thing it didn't work as intended. Think back to the example I gave above, of two things (say, wheels) attached by an axle. Now, imagine one of them spontaneously rotating in a specific direction indefinitely without having any external force (e.g., a push) applied to it.
Ever heard of a perpetual motion machine?
Basically the rebuttal noted, very emphatically, that the entire concept of the original work violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics. No need to know what that is if you don't already--just think "big important law, up there with gravity and Newton's laws of motion." Not something likely to be disproved on accident by a random synthetic chemist fooling around with funny looking molecules.