A Muslim teenager built a simple clock out
of electronic components and took it to show his engineering teacher at
school — but he was arrested when another teacher thought it looked like
a bomb and alerted administrators.
Police in Irving, Texas, never suspected the device was an explosive
device and did not alert the bomb squad, but they still arrested
14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed because he could offer no “broader
explanation” for his clock besides describing it as a device that
measures time.
When another 14-year-old boy built a nuclear reactor at his parents’
home he was invited to meet with officials from the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Energy — who
offered their expert assistance, equipment and encouragement to apply for a research grant.
READ MORE: The mayor of Ahmed Mohamed’s town is a well-known conservative folk hero for fighting fake Muslim ‘threats’
Taylor Wilson, who is white, entered his nuclear fusion reactor five
years ago in a series of science fairs that eventually won him a trip to
Switzerland, where he toured the Large Hadron Collider — the world’s
largest particle accelerator.
Wilson, now 21 years old, later won $50,000 at a science fair for an
anti-terrorism device he invented that can detect nuclear materials in
cargo containers.
He
demonstrated that device to President Barack Obama at another science fair organized at the
White House.
The president also invited Mohamed to visit him at the White House
after the Muslim teen’s story sparked national outrage over an apparent
double standard.
A black Florida teen was
arrested and expelled
in April 2013 after her science fair experiment, which involved mixing
toilet bowl cleaner and aluminum foil in a plastic water bottle, created
a chemical reaction that resulted in a firecracker-like “pop” and some
smoke.
The reaction caused no injuries or damage, but the principal of
Bartown High School feared the device had violated school policies.
Police charged Kiera Wilmot, then 16, with possession and discharge
of a weapon on school grounds and with discharging a destructive device.
The honors student was
eventually cleared of charges
and went to the U.S. Space Academy after a NASA veteran heard about her
story and paid for scholarships for Wilmot and her twin sister.
Watch Taylor Wilson discuss his nuclear reactor in this TED Talk:
