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UChicago scientists see first evidence of 'quantum superchemistry' in the lab
- The28thDuck 3y agoAll of these long-term research projects in science seem to be popping at once. What a time to be alive.
- HDMI_Cable 3y agoI wonder if there's anything ending August 2023 that causes many groups to publish right around this time, maybe a lot of PhDs are trying to graduate and are pumping out papers, or maybe a bunch of grants are ending?
- dotnet00 3y agoProbably a lot of the latter and also a lot of conferences seem to be making their big 'proper' in-person return since after covid. It's turning out to be a pretty heavy paper-writing time. Many people I know have 2-3 papers to write and submit over this and next month. Edit: That said, this work seems to have likely been done sometime last year and was only just published in Nature in July. The PhD student coauthors appear to have gotten their doctorates last year. So maybe all these seemingly big developments are just seeming to be clustered because it's just that Nature, being such a high impact journal, has published recently.
- MajimasEyepatch 3y agoNature publishes weekly.
- apienx 3y agoFYI, the paper is published in Nature Physics, Impact Factor: 19. Nature proper had an Impact Factor of 64.
- BasedAnon 3y agoI'm holding on to my papers
- leetrout 3y agoAs a complete layperson to these sciences it sounded like a GPU for chemistry... massively parallel operations
- nine_k 3y agoOr maybe more like a laser: putting a lot of molecules into the same quantum state, and then making them act all at once.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- 0xDEFACED 3y ago> Another consequence is that the final molecules share the same molecular state. Chin explained that the same molecules in different states can have different physical and chemical properties—but there are times when you want to create a batch of molecules in a specific state. In traditional chemistry, you’re rolling the dice. “But with this technique, you can steer the molecules into an identical state,” he said. Is this “state” referring to left/right handedness of chiral molecules, or is this some other property? Or both?
- viscanti 3y agoThe 'state' they're talking about here isn't about the left/right-handedness (chirality) of the molecules. It's more about the quantum properties of the system. Think energy levels, spins instead.
- jbrr 3y agoMy first impulse on seeing the word “quantum” was to assume this was some weirdo wellness guru. But no, a legitimate use of quantum! Outstanding!
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoWhy would weirdo wellness guru stuff appear on HN? ...well, except for posts about mindfulness or Soylent or whatever.
- twic 3y agoOr psychedelics. Or intermittent fasting. Or ...
- hcks 3y ago“Quantum” always lean on the side of bullshity (yes especially quantum computing)
- rprospero 3y agoAs a physicist, I know that "quantum", "magnets", and "crystals" are all common heuristics for identifying pseudo-science. On the other hand, my thesis involved all three and I've had frustrating experiences with "skeptics" trying to debunk my work. It doesn't help that there's an alternate explanation for our apparatus that is simple, obvious, and wrong (it subtly violates conservation of angular momentum).
- keyle 3y agoThat's one crazy picture. Perfectly sums up the mad scientist portray. Can we have a normal discovery that's not super-something? superconductor, superchemisty... Because if everything is super in 2023, what will we have left in 2040?
- staunton 3y agoMaybe Hyper. Hyperloop, hyperplane... Maybe Mega? That way it's more clear what's next.
- adhesive_wombat 3y agoThe real question is ultra before or after hyper?
- nine_k 3y agoUltra and hyper mean basically the same (over, beyond), but since Greek culture flourished before Roman culture, I'd say that hyper should come before ultra. (And do you think that coming up with all this kilo / mega / giga / tera / peta / exa set of prefixes, and deciding their order, was easy?)
- tremon 3y agoUltra and hyper mean basically the same So does super, which is the direct Latin cognate of hyper. So ultra > super > hyper? I would suggest the opposite, as in modern usage, the Greek words "feel" larger than the Latin ones, perhaps because they look less familiar.
- stonemetal12 3y agoBetween superman and supersonic planes, super feels common and slightly old fashioned. To me "super" feels the least superior of the three.
- twic 3y ago
- RecycledEle 3y agoI expect this can make better explosives. I can imagine a novel where a guy gets blown up with quantum explosives and becomes a god. Hilarity ensues.