Re:Science Fairs Aren't So Fair
by semi-extrinsic on Sunday March 15, 2015 @06:57PM
(#9208573)
I would say you are wrong. You could reproduce someone else's research. But doing something novel requires that you understand a lot about which pitfalls make the simulation results unphysical, which I'd say takes at least 6 months to learn for a grad student working full time on a new topic.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Sure, it easily takes 6 months to learn the nuances of molecular dynamics. But high school students have tons of free time. Even with cross-country, track practice, and marching band, in high school I still had at least 4 hours of free time a day, 8-12 hours on the weekends, and all four summers in high school included three months of completely empty days. Heck, I had more time back then for research than I do now.