4 ms·

On the surface they might not seem useful, but these discoveries develop sub-atomic models, which help predict atomic, and in turn molecular, models, which help

On the surface they might not seem useful, but these discoveries develop sub-atomic models, which help predict atomic, and in turn molecular, models, which helps materials research. There are countless materials we haven't discovered/invented yet. We don't know how far we can push it.

morbia 4y ago
I'm not aware of any predictive power the standard model has over nuclear physics and atomic physics directly. In principle, yes the standard model should be able to predict things at those energy scales, in practice no one has a clue how. To use a more relatable analogy, it's a bit like using quantum mechanics to build a skyscraper. In principle it should be possible, it practice it is incalculable. Newtonian physics does the job fine in that scenario.
- peteradio 4y ago
  If you wanted to build a skyscraper taking into account quantum mechanics then maybe you are hoping to induce a scaled quantum mechanic effect? Perhaps in the ultra-modern evolution of buildings the structure of the building itself will have a communication aspect associated with its natural largess and to accomplish this quantum mechanics is used to derive the appropriate building structure. Just because it sounds far-fetched or hard doesn't mean it won't be humdrum engineering decades or a century in the future. It all starts somewhere.
- snovv_crash 4y ago
  You use the quantum mechanics to design the graphene conformation that yield the best loads, and then infuse the concrete in your skyscraper with the graphene. Everything needs abstraction layers otherwise of course the complexity becomes mindboggling.
  - dangerlibrary 4y ago
    As I understand it, this is not really how most practical materials research is done today. Bridging the "scale gap" between nano-scale research, micro-scale research, etc. up to something the size of a foundation for a skyscraper is very hard (read: almost impossible) right now. Those nano-scale research areas are pretty siloed and only in extreme cases like transistor manufacturing is there any meaningful overlap with production use cases. In general, materials researchers for something like concrete are going to be better off exploring the (very large!) high dimensional space of possible formulations of existing concrete ingredients and pushing out the pareto frontier for the best possible concrete that way. Also, one probably shouldn't be using bleeding-edge concrete tech for a skyscraper foundation - in a safety critical application like that you just build it 1.2x bigger than you need and it'll still be much cheaper and safer than a process like what you just described. Materials research is super interesting, though, even if it's not building up from quantum-particle scale research. And atomic / molecular features of inputs can yield interesting material candidates. Source: I work (as a software dev, not a materials researcher) at Citrine Informatics, selling software to assist companies who are trying to do practical materials things like make better concrete.
  - marcosdumay 4y ago
    Your metaphor simply doesn't reflect the reality. Material sciences, condensed matter physics, chemistry and etc work up from the abstraction layer of "atoms". It's a quite well defined and relevant layer. So, until that work brings some different configuration¹ for atoms, they will have no impact at all. 1 - It doesn't need to be as new elements, but even for the resonance between the nucleus and electrosphere they didn't create anything new, and only things affecting the electrosphere matter. (Even then, they didn't create anything new on a nucleus either.)
dylan604 4y ago
> We don't know how far we can push it. Like all things in science has any stopped to think if we should push it?
- bettysdiagnose 4y ago
  Yes, certainly, this isn't Jurassic Park.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    You reply in jest, but I'm not asking to be funny with a movie reference. We see it day in and day out where science has developed something without slowing down to do research into the affects other than the one they are scoped in on while making what they are making. I'm specifically thinking of the new chemical sciences that have brought out some formulas that are great at a specific thing, but are absolutely tragic to nature in so many more ways. The science shows these chemicals to be tragically toxic, yet that info gets shoved in a drawer so inventors can make money. Great, we made something, but we should be able to say thanks but no thanks. Let's put that in the column of good idea, good science tech to achieve, but best left alone. Take that learning and try to achieve the samething in a different manner so that it doesn't kill everything else.
    - empi 4y ago
      There's a clear difference between discovery/development and practical application. The latter is not a problem of science. Shelving discoveries based on the perceived effect they (could) have (who would even evaluate that?) is a slippery slope if I ever seen one.
      - dylan604 4y ago
        >Shelving discoveries based on the perceived effect they (could) have (who would even evaluate that?) is a slippery slope if I ever seen one. This is precisely what should happen though. We made ICE powered cars that used leaded gasoline because reasons, but the results of that were horrible for everything except the ICE. We shelved that tech because it was just bad. We've shelved the widespread use of lead in paint. We've shelved the widespread use of asbestos in lots of things. There's nothing wrong with realizing the juice isn't worth the squeeze. We know that it is something that happens. Sometimes we make something that comes with a heavy cost. Obviously we don't have a way to know that until it exists. Then again, we should be able to start recognizing that particular chemical chains results in bad things so we should be super careful with the new thing because it is looks like something we've seen before. We can do this with virus and what not. Why not with chemistry?
moonchrome 4y ago
> On the surface they might not seem useful, but these discoveries develop sub-atomic models, which help predict atomic, and in turn molecular, models If those models had predictive power that translates to atomic scale you wouldn't need a multibillion collider to prove them.
- paskozdilar 4y ago
  If those models didn't have predictive power that translates to atomic scale, nobody would give them billions for a collider to prove them.
- gus_massa 4y ago
  I 99.99% agree. One of the few molecular level effects that depends on the virtual particles that are important in the standard model is the Lamb shift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamb_shift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamb_shift In this case the virtual particle is a virtual photon, not a virtual weird particle, so it's just scratching the standard model. I'm not sure if the g-2 Anomalous magnetic dipole moment of electrons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomalous_magnetic_dipole_moment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomalous_magnetic_dipole_mome... can be measured with a cheap equipment.

morbia 4y ago

I'm not aware of any predictive power the standard model has over nuclear physics and atomic physics directly. In principle, yes the standard model should be able to predict things at those energy scales, in practice no one has a clue how. To use a more relatable analogy, it's a bit like using quantum mechanics to build a skyscraper. In principle it should be possible, it practice it is incalculable. Newtonian physics does the job fine in that scenario.

peteradio 4y ago
If you wanted to build a skyscraper taking into account quantum mechanics then maybe you are hoping to induce a scaled quantum mechanic effect? Perhaps in the ultra-modern evolution of buildings the structure of the building itself will have a communication aspect associated with its natural largess and to accomplish this quantum mechanics is used to derive the appropriate building structure. Just because it sounds far-fetched or hard doesn't mean it won't be humdrum engineering decades or a century in the future. It all starts somewhere.
snovv_crash 4y ago
You use the quantum mechanics to design the graphene conformation that yield the best loads, and then infuse the concrete in your skyscraper with the graphene. Everything needs abstraction layers otherwise of course the complexity becomes mindboggling.
- dangerlibrary 4y ago
  As I understand it, this is not really how most practical materials research is done today. Bridging the "scale gap" between nano-scale research, micro-scale research, etc. up to something the size of a foundation for a skyscraper is very hard (read: almost impossible) right now. Those nano-scale research areas are pretty siloed and only in extreme cases like transistor manufacturing is there any meaningful overlap with production use cases. In general, materials researchers for something like concrete are going to be better off exploring the (very large!) high dimensional space of possible formulations of existing concrete ingredients and pushing out the pareto frontier for the best possible concrete that way. Also, one probably shouldn't be using bleeding-edge concrete tech for a skyscraper foundation - in a safety critical application like that you just build it 1.2x bigger than you need and it'll still be much cheaper and safer than a process like what you just described. Materials research is super interesting, though, even if it's not building up from quantum-particle scale research. And atomic / molecular features of inputs can yield interesting material candidates. Source: I work (as a software dev, not a materials researcher) at Citrine Informatics, selling software to assist companies who are trying to do practical materials things like make better concrete.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  Your metaphor simply doesn't reflect the reality. Material sciences, condensed matter physics, chemistry and etc work up from the abstraction layer of "atoms". It's a quite well defined and relevant layer. So, until that work brings some different configuration¹ for atoms, they will have no impact at all. 1 - It doesn't need to be as new elements, but even for the resonance between the nucleus and electrosphere they didn't create anything new, and only things affecting the electrosphere matter. (Even then, they didn't create anything new on a nucleus either.)

dylan604 4y ago

> We don't know how far we can push it. Like all things in science has any stopped to think if we should push it?

bettysdiagnose 4y ago
Yes, certainly, this isn't Jurassic Park.
- dylan604 4y ago
  You reply in jest, but I'm not asking to be funny with a movie reference. We see it day in and day out where science has developed something without slowing down to do research into the affects other than the one they are scoped in on while making what they are making. I'm specifically thinking of the new chemical sciences that have brought out some formulas that are great at a specific thing, but are absolutely tragic to nature in so many more ways. The science shows these chemicals to be tragically toxic, yet that info gets shoved in a drawer so inventors can make money. Great, we made something, but we should be able to say thanks but no thanks. Let's put that in the column of good idea, good science tech to achieve, but best left alone. Take that learning and try to achieve the samething in a different manner so that it doesn't kill everything else.
  - empi 4y ago
    There's a clear difference between discovery/development and practical application. The latter is not a problem of science. Shelving discoveries based on the perceived effect they (could) have (who would even evaluate that?) is a slippery slope if I ever seen one.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      >Shelving discoveries based on the perceived effect they (could) have (who would even evaluate that?) is a slippery slope if I ever seen one. This is precisely what should happen though. We made ICE powered cars that used leaded gasoline because reasons, but the results of that were horrible for everything except the ICE. We shelved that tech because it was just bad. We've shelved the widespread use of lead in paint. We've shelved the widespread use of asbestos in lots of things. There's nothing wrong with realizing the juice isn't worth the squeeze. We know that it is something that happens. Sometimes we make something that comes with a heavy cost. Obviously we don't have a way to know that until it exists. Then again, we should be able to start recognizing that particular chemical chains results in bad things so we should be super careful with the new thing because it is looks like something we've seen before. We can do this with virus and what not. Why not with chemistry?

moonchrome 4y ago

> On the surface they might not seem useful, but these discoveries develop sub-atomic models, which help predict atomic, and in turn molecular, models If those models had predictive power that translates to atomic scale you wouldn't need a multibillion collider to prove them.

paskozdilar 4y ago
If those models didn't have predictive power that translates to atomic scale, nobody would give them billions for a collider to prove them.
gus_massa 4y ago
I 99.99% agree. One of the few molecular level effects that depends on the virtual particles that are important in the standard model is the Lamb shift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamb_shift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamb_shift In this case the virtual particle is a virtual photon, not a virtual weird particle, so it's just scratching the standard model. I'm not sure if the g-2 Anomalous magnetic dipole moment of electrons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomalous_magnetic_dipole_moment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomalous_magnetic_dipole_mome... can be measured with a cheap equipment.