3 ms·

Maybe I'm underestimating the field, but I suspect there is still a lot to learn about chemistry in extreme environments (ultra hot, dense, etc), which would be

by mcbits 10y ago

Maybe I'm underestimating the field, but I suspect there is still a lot to learn about chemistry in extreme environments (ultra hot, dense, etc), which would be most of the universe. Some experimentation is possible on Earth, but how much could we really learn about, say, liquid water if all we could produce were a few molecules in very restricted environments? I guess that's all kind of irrelevant until we're ready to try building transistors inside the Sun.

wtallis 10y ago
We already know enough about chemistry and physics to rule out the possibility of building transistors inside the sun, or any other useful permanent structure inside a star. At the opposite end of the spectrum, we're already commercially exploiting temperatures on par with deep space and extremely low pressures. Yes, there's a lot we don't know about the properties of things or conditions that are hard to keep around in large quantities in the lab. But we're not going to discover complex life or be able to engineer complex and cost-effective machines in conditions where there's so much energy that molecular bonds can't stay intact or where there's so little energy that nothing gets done at better than a glacial pace. There's surely interesting stuff left to be discovered in those fields, but we won't magically stumble across a plasma-based computing substrate that is better than what we can already do on Earth.
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  I'm not this confident on our knowledge of the high pressure environments inside stars. We can rule-out unexpected simple chemistry on other planets and in the outer space, but the inside of stars is too different an environment. Also, we surely can not rule-out anything from complex chemistry on any kind of environment. Macromolecules and non-repeating crystals are very badly understood.

3 ms·

Maybe I'm underestimating the field, but I suspect there is still a lot to learn about chemistry in extreme environments (ultra hot, dense, etc), which would be

by mcbits 10y ago

wtallis 10y ago
We already know enough about chemistry and physics to rule out the possibility of building transistors inside the sun, or any other useful permanent structure inside a star. At the opposite end of the spectrum, we're already commercially exploiting temperatures on par with deep space and extremely low pressures. Yes, there's a lot we don't know about the properties of things or conditions that are hard to keep around in large quantities in the lab. But we're not going to discover complex life or be able to engineer complex and cost-effective machines in conditions where there's so much energy that molecular bonds can't stay intact or where there's so little energy that nothing gets done at better than a glacial pace. There's surely interesting stuff left to be discovered in those fields, but we won't magically stumble across a plasma-based computing substrate that is better than what we can already do on Earth.
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  I'm not this confident on our knowledge of the high pressure environments inside stars. We can rule-out unexpected simple chemistry on other planets and in the outer space, but the inside of stars is too different an environment. Also, we surely can not rule-out anything from complex chemistry on any kind of environment. Macromolecules and non-repeating crystals are very badly understood.