Pity there are no images of the merge occuring..
Physicists captured individual atoms and observed them merge into a molecule
11–20 of 27 posts
Re: Physicists captured individual atoms and observed them merge into a molecule
#12Can someone please comment on the picture? What is bottom-righty part, which looks like some device?
Re: Physicists captured individual atoms and observed them merge into a molecule
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting. Is this how catalysts work? By bringing the atoms/molecules reacting together and providing a path for taking away the excess energy more easily?
We still don’t know exactly how catalysts work, because they operate at high temperature and pressure, so it is very hard to study.
That doesn't seem right. Cars have catalysts where the air flows through. Also 2 H2 + O2 -> 2 H2O (+ a characteristic bang :-)) at room temperature and pressure (initially) using a platinum catalyst is shown in school chemistry classes.
Just learned on Wikipedia (en/Platinum) that the 2007 Nobel price in Chemistry was awarded for explaining how that works. doi:10.1002/anie.200800480
Re: Physicists captured individual atoms and observed them merge into a molecule
#14For those wondering about why the article says "Two atoms alone can’t form a molecule, it takes at least three to do chemistry", here's another explanation from the reddit thread [0] > Each atom has some amount of energy associated with it. If you just bring two atoms together, the total energy is simply the sum of their individual energies. This state is typically referred to as an excited state. However, the stable…
Couldn’t they poot off a photon?
Yeah I was thinking that too. Given the observations they describe I can only assume that releasing a photon is too slow of a process compared to the speed in which the molecule breaks apart.
Re: Physicists captured individual atoms and observed them merge into a molecule
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting. Is this how catalysts work? By bringing the atoms/molecules reacting together and providing a path for taking away the excess energy more easily?
Catalysts work principally by lowering the activation energy of the reaction. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activation_energy They don't necessarily bring atoms or molecules together, per se, but some do.
Yes but activation energy is still a "system" level concept. It's not the actual atomic level mechanism that results in the reaction.
Re: Physicists captured individual atoms and observed them merge into a molecule
#16For those wondering about why the article says "Two atoms alone can’t form a molecule, it takes at least three to do chemistry", here's another explanation from the reddit thread [0] > Each atom has some amount of energy associated with it. If you just bring two atoms together, the total energy is simply the sum of their individual energies. This state is typically referred to as an excited state. However, the stable…
Can't you make two atoms form a molecule by smashing them together fast enough (where electrons might fly off)?
Re: Physicists captured individual atoms and observed them merge into a molecule
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
We still don’t know exactly how catalysts work, because they operate at high temperature and pressure, so it is very hard to study.
That doesn't seem right. Cars have catalysts where the air flows through. Also 2 H2 + O2 -> 2 H2O (+ a characteristic bang :-)) at room temperature and pressure (initially) using a platinum catalyst is shown in school chemistry classes. Just learned on Wikipedia (en/Platinum) that the 2007 Nobel price in Chemistry was awarded for explaining how that works. doi:10.1002/anie.200800480
Car's catalyst work at high temperatures, not at room temperature.
In fact, at room temperature they don't work at all, which is exactly the problem with catalysts, they don't work when you start your car.
They need to heat with the hot combustion gases to start working, and that takes a while.
This is one of the reasons that laboratory's measurements of particles and gases like nitrogen oxides do not apply to real emissions in cities, because most people in cities will use the cars, for example, diesels in Europe, for very short periods of time, then let the car cool down and use it again to go back less than 10 kilometers away.
Re: Physicists captured individual atoms and observed them merge into a molecule
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting. Is this how catalysts work? By bringing the atoms/molecules reacting together and providing a path for taking away the excess energy more easily?
We still don’t know exactly how catalysts work, because they operate at high temperature and pressure, so it is very hard to study.
This is completely wrong. Many catalysts work at room temperature and pressure and in many cases we understand very well how they work.
Re: Physicists captured individual atoms and observed them merge into a molecule
#19For those wondering about why the article says "Two atoms alone can’t form a molecule, it takes at least three to do chemistry", here's another explanation from the reddit thread [0] > Each atom has some amount of energy associated with it. If you just bring two atoms together, the total energy is simply the sum of their individual energies. This state is typically referred to as an excited state. However, the stable…
Couldn’t they poot off a photon?
Can they? Normally[1] emission of a photon would be a result of an electron moving from a high-energy shell to a low-energy shell. Going from two Cl to one Cl_2 is also a transition to a lower-energy state, but it's not immediately obvious that this would be able to generate a photon in the same way as an electron shell transition. You can do the molecule merge with atoms that already had their electrons in the lowest state... can't you?
[1] According to my grade-school chemistry. :/
Re: Physicists captured individual atoms and observed them merge into a molecule
#20Simplified version with graphic:
https://physics.aps.org/synopsis-for/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124...