Ok, but you are disregarding the 1000s of things the undergrad was aware of and the fact that he worked with other researchers who were aware of the existing re

Ok, but you are disregarding the 1000s of things the undergrad was aware of and the fact that he worked with other researchers who were aware of the existing results enough to understand the significance of the result. The real trick is simply to try to understand things directly and not rely on proof by authority all the time.