Molecupedia:Notability (molecules)

The following is a proposed Molecupedia guideline. It has not been adopted, and the discussion below has not reached consensus.

In a nutshell: A molecule that has passed through a pore on the company's live molecular stream is presumed notable enough for an article of its own.

This page proposes a guideline on when an individual molecule should have its own article. Molecupedia has articles on kinds of molecule, from DNA to alpha-hemolysin, and none on any single molecule. The instruments it describes count molecules and particles one at a time, so the question of which ones deserve an article was always going to come up.

Proposed criteria

A molecule is presumed notable if all of the following are true:

It passed through a pore on the live molecular stream while the stream was being broadcast.
Its passage was recorded as an event, a dip or a rise in the current with a measurable depth and duration. In the terms of Translocation (nanopore), the instrument recorded its transit.
The recording is kept in the public Streams archive, where anyone can check it.

Rationale

Wikipedia's general notability guideline asks for "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". The proposers argue that a current trace meets all three conditions. An event is significant by definition, being a change in the current that stands out from the noise. The trace comes from a commercial patch-clamp amplifier sampling 200,000 times a second, which makes it reliable, and the molecule had no part in writing it, which makes it independent.

They also point to the encyclopedia's tagline, "The Encyclopedia of Very Small Things", and to the company's description of its own work as counting what passes "the way Coulter did seventy years ago".

Objections

Detection

The pore on the stream is the 200-micron laser-drilled pore, 200 micrometers across. A sphere passing through a hole that size changes its resistance roughly in proportion to the cube of its diameter: a cell 10 micrometers across by about one part in 8,000, a bacterium 1 micrometer across by about one part in 8 million, and a DNA molecule by much less. A single molecule passes through it unseen. Every molecule that meets the first criterion today fails the second.

Numbers

A model pore 5 nm wide in 1 M potassium chloride at 200 mV carries about 19 billion ions a second. Potassium and chloride ions are single atoms and would not qualify. The water molecules that cross with them would, in numbers no one has counted.^[a] Molecupedia has 363 articles.

Air

Eleven of the eighteen recordings in the archive are air tests. In air there is no electrolyte and no ionic current, so nothing in those recordings could block one.

Inheritance

A molecule does not become notable because its sample is. The stream's sample list includes Phoenix tap water, swimming-pool water and an iced coffee. The laboratory also keeps three condiments, of which the ketchup is "kept at 4C" and the mustard is "not yet placed in solution", so no molecule of mustard has yet had the opportunity.

Precedent

The first single molecules ever detected with light were pentacene molecules in a crystal of p-terphenyl, at 1.6 kelvin, in 1989.^[1] The first single strands of DNA and RNA detected by a nanopore crossed alpha-hemolysin in 1996.^[2] Neither the molecules nor the strands were named, and neither has an article. Coulter counters have counted blood cells one at a time since the 1950s, and no blood cell has an article either.

Survey

Support as written. A molecule that has been measured on a public stream and archived is better documented than most subjects of most encyclopedias. Translocation event (talk) 07:21, 25 October 2026 (UTC)
Oppose. Per the detection objection, the guideline currently admits no molecules at all, and if the company ever streams a nanopore it will admit far more molecules each second than Molecupedia has articles. PicoampPedant (talk) 07:26, 25 October 2026 (UTC)
Oppose. A molecule cannot be verified as an individual. Two water molecules are identical, and an event in a trace does not say which one it was. See Molecupedia:Verifiability. Ionophore (talk) 07:31, 25 October 2026 (UTC)
Support a narrower version: notable if the molecule was identified, by name, from its event alone. That would admit nothing yet either, but for a better reason. Aperture tube (talk) 07:38, 25 October 2026 (UTC)
Comment. No consensus. The proposal stays open, and in the meantime Molecupedia has no article about an individual molecule. DwellTimeDave (talk) 07:44, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Notes

^ One microliter of water, about 1 mg, contains about 3.3 × 10¹⁹ molecules (1 mg ÷ 18.02 g/mol × 6.022 × 10²³ per mole).

References

^ Moerner, W. E.; Kador, L. (1989). "Optical detection and spectroscopy of single molecules in a solid". Physical Review Letters 62 (21): 2535-2538. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.62.2535.
^ Kasianowicz, J. J.; Brandin, E.; Branton, D.; Deamer, D. W. (1996). "Characterization of individual polynucleotide molecules using a membrane channel". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 93 (24): 13770-13773. doi:10.1073/pnas.93.24.13770.

[1] One microliter of water, about 1 mg, contains about 3.3 × 10¹⁹ molecules (1 mg ÷ 18.02 g/mol × 6.022 × 10²³ per mole).

[moerner-2] Moerner, W. E.; Kador, L. (1989). "Optical detection and spectroscopy of single molecules in a solid". Physical Review Letters 62 (21): 2535-2538. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.62.2535.

[kasianowicz-3] Kasianowicz, J. J.; Brandin, E.; Branton, D.; Deamer, D. W. (1996). "Characterization of individual polynucleotide molecules using a membrane channel". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 93 (24): 13770-13773. doi:10.1073/pnas.93.24.13770.

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