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Posted on 08/28/2009 7:48:11 AM PDT by sig226
The detailed chemical structure of a single molecule has been imaged for the first time, say researchers. The physical shape of single carbon nanotubes has been outlined before, using similar techniques - but the new method even shows up chemical bonds.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Molecules are impossible to cool.
Hey! I know that's not true. Last winter, when it froze down here, there was at least two molecools right down there under my back yard down by the pond....
not exactly. I remember them being round. But close enough.
You’ve spotted the ubiquitous democrat subatomic particle .... the Moron.
I like it. I should add Frank, Read, Pelosi, Franken and Gibbs
Chained Moron particles.
BBC used a different title, so I didn’t find it in a search. It would have helped if I knew there was a string theory ping list. Oh well. I thought I won the Nobel Prize for FReeping . . .
Whoops, thanks GeronL.
No harm done, yours is better. :’)
That’s what my computer cable plug looks like without my glasses.
You were taught wrong then. They have always as far as I have known been hexagons. Sometimes to show aromaticity you would draw a circle in the hexagon but that isn’t often done anymore.
The significance is that this is easily the most clear picture ever of something on the order of an atom in size. This imaging technology will be necessary for the nanotechnologists to examine their creations for flaws and to see if they work as designed. In addition, this type of advance in imaging technology has often led to a similar advance in assembling ability.
Definitely, the mere fact of demonstrating the ability to image a molecule and see its shape is exciting, but its limited to molecules cooled to near absolute zero. That destroys much useful information. The cooling can nearly eliminate the rotation and translation energy necessary for the technique, but there will still be vibrational modes present.
In the future, instruments like the Energy Recovery LINAC will be built. They may actually have the ability to take images with a “shutter speed” and “resolution” sufficient to see molecules and intermediates as they are taking part in a chemical reaction at normal temperatures. That will be truly earth shaking in the world of chemistry.
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