3 ms·
I'm betting that it's a false positive on a chemically similar substance. Field detection systems for chemicals/drugs/explosives don't tend to prioritize havin
by dsfyu404ed 7y ago
I'm betting that it's a false positive on a chemically similar substance. Field detection systems for chemicals/drugs/explosives don't tend to prioritize having a low false positive rate because they'd rather be safe than sorry and most customers have enough qualified immunity it doesn't really matter if the security guards dogpile on some little old lady because the system thought her perfume was a bomb.
- jandrewrogers 7y agoThis is the best theory. The detectors usually key on specific functional groups characteristic of the molecule rather than the molecule itself. This overfits for a lot of inert chemistry in practice, though they try to pick functional groups that are selective (and cheap to detect).