An example of phrasing likely to encourage misconceptions:
"Once uranium, for example, was synthesised in the development of stars, at least six billion years after the the Big Bang, its molecular structure was set for all time."
Sandra D. Mitchell (2003) Biological Complexity and Integrative Pluralism, Cambridge University Press
Uranium is a metal, so it is not molecular, and so strictly does not have a molecular structure. Learners may however readily assume that all materials are molecular (for example, commonly conceptualising salts as molecular).
Read about the nature of alternative conceptions
Read about some examples of science misconceptions
Read about historical scientific conceptions
n.b.: Arguably, the structure of a sample of uranium (under particular conditions of temperature etc.) is set by the laws of nature that already existed prior to the first occurrence of any actual uranium appearing in the universe. That is, surely the structure was set for all time at the point of the big bang, not billions of years later?
