Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Einstein's relativity rules chemical bonds in heavy elements, new research shows

brown.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 207 posts

Re: Einstein's relativity rules chemical bonds in heavy elements, new research shows

#141

Post by ProllyInfamous »

de6u99er wrote: post #104

It's beautiful to see Einstein's work still being validated.

His brilliance transcends science, e.g:

https://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s6681.pdf>

He was a very proud Jew, who questioned whether he would have been had he not been born into such life. I disagree immensely with him on his pure-fatalism POV, but obviously everybody reading this knows his last name more than anyelse's [& definitely not mine].

----

I have a degree in medicinal chemistry, back from the ancient mid-00s (pre Youtube) and just cannot imagine how incredible science education is/could_be with all the modern visual aids [†]. That models for every single element are just a click away and highly interactive, within any online web_browser (and without additional softwares).

Old is new again. Thanks Einstein. I cannot even begin to imagine just how far ahead his own brain was processing this complexity.

[†] Back then I was still doing organic chemistry rotations entirely within my own spatial cortex, because the only visuals were 2D prints in the library. Somehow earned 'A's {thanks brain}.

Re: Einstein's relativity rules chemical bonds in heavy elements, new research shows

#142

Post by red75prime »

worldthruword wrote: post #94
red75prime wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> things could be true and false at the same time at other scale. Being true and false at the same time is a contradiction. But yeah, there is such a thing as mathematical intuitionism that rejects the law of excluded middle (which is not "being true and false at the same time"). It's just one philosophical stance among others though.

Isn't superposition a contradiction for classical physics? Being partly here and there.

Classical physics doesn't have particles that are simultaneously here and not here. It's a discrepancy between theory and experiment. And there's no point of accepting contradictory statements that are both true to deal with that. You can't fix a wrong description of reality by using some fancy logic that allows (apparent) contradictions.

Re: Einstein's relativity rules chemical bonds in heavy elements, new research shows

#143

Post by red75prime »

zkmon wrote: post #80
red75prime wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> things could be true and false at the same time at other scale. Being true and false at the same time is a contradiction. But yeah, there is such a thing as mathematical intuitionism that rejects the law of excluded middle (which is not "being true and false at the same time"). It's just one philosophical stance among others though.

It is a contradiction only because you chose to call it so, or you built a framework that interprets something as a contradiction. Logic and mathematics are built on shaky grounds on larger scale. Similar to how Earth's tectonic plates are floating on liquid magma, while appearing to be fully solid and fixed at the surface.

Attempts to formalize dialectics do exist, but it mostly stays at a word-weaving level.

Re: Einstein's relativity rules chemical bonds in heavy elements, new research shows

#144

Post by amelius »

gcanyon wrote: post #123

> The increased nuclear mass causes orbiting electrons to speed up to a significant fraction of the speed of light, where the rules of Einstein’s theory of relativity are important. Fun fact: this is why mercury is liquid at room temperature. Its inner electrons move at close to 60% the speed of light, pulling in its outer electrons more tightly, making it harder for it to bond and be solid. (I am not a physicist, do…

Meanwhile there are quarks inside every regular atom moving at speeds like 0.99995c ...

Re: Einstein's relativity rules chemical bonds in heavy elements, new research shows

#145

Post by colechristensen »

colechristensen wrote: post #39
nanolith wrote: post #14

Wait... wasn't it already understood that relativity influences electron orbits of heavy elements? I clearly remember being taught some of this in physics, in the mid-noughties. For instance, we know that gold gets its color from relativistic effects. https://physics.aps.org/articles/v10/s3

The Dirac equation which is the equation for describing the wavelike behavior of electrons. It predicted the existence of antimatter and particle spin. You start with the Schrödinger equation, add relativity to get the Klein-Gordon equation which is a mess because it's second order in time involving negative probabilities, if you in ways "take the square root" of it you get the Dirac equation. Relativity has been par…

To add to this, this "square root" operation done to derive the Dirac equation is where spinors i.e. electron spin i.e. the Pauli exclusion principle i.e. the reason atoms exist at all comes from. Likewise antimatter. The "second order in time" of the Klein-Gordon equation comes from adding relativity and the "fix" reducing that to first order time is the source of antimatter and spin.

So yes very much so relativistic effects are a foundational part of QM.

Re: Einstein's relativity rules chemical bonds in heavy elements, new research shows

#146

Post by ordersofmag »

tremon wrote: post #140
pestatije wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mathematics cannot derive physics thats just at the current state of the art...doesnt mean a complete maths cannot...its arguably debatable why physics follow some maths and why the specific constrains

I don't think that's true. Mathematics can model every conceivable universe; you cannot derive the values of c or G in our universe from a purely mathematical model. Even if there were a proof that the current values for cosmological constants are the only possible values, that proof would necessarily have to rely on lemmas from physics.

It could be that once we truly understand math in a complete way it would lead inexorably to the definition of one and only one possible universe with only one possible set of rules and c and G would simply fall out naturally. I'd agree it seems unlikely given our current understanding of math and physics (and their relationship to each other). But given both are incomplete it remains a possibility. The one theme that seems to hold true as we dig deeper and deeper into how the world works is that the fundamental rules seem to get more and more unified.

Re: Einstein's relativity rules chemical bonds in heavy elements, new research shows

#147

Post by tastyfreeze »

RetroTechie wrote: post #121

"Bismuth could be an alternative to toxic lead in next-generation solar cells." Is lead still used in common, mass-produced solar panels currently on the market? Wikipedia: "Lead-based semiconductors such as lead telluride and lead selenide are used in photovoltaic cells and infrared detectors." Wiki page for lead telluride mentions thermo-electric materials, page for lead selenide mentions IR imaging & detectors. Ne…

Bismuth can also be used as a collector metal for smelting precious metals instead of lead. It even cupells the same way as lead.

Re: Einstein's relativity rules chemical bonds in heavy elements, new research shows

#148

Post by smj-edison »

WillAdams wrote: post #116
smj-edison wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I'm only a freshman, so there's still a ton I don't know :) Right now the lab is having me get comfortable using software like Gaussian and ORCA by simulating a bifurcating reaction. This is a reaction that, depending on the catalyst's momentum, will change what site it bonds to (it makes either a 6-membered or 7-membered ring). I'm finding the intermediate states (where the molecule is most stable) and t…

Good luck! I assume you are familiar with: https://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/ I hope and pray that your research helps to make the world a better place and that the rest of us can use your knowledge to help to make the world a place which merits your research.

Thank you for the kind words! I've been wanting to do this research precisely because of firsthand experience with how hard chronic illness can be, and I'm hoping to attack it with a systems approach.

I haven't seen that website before, but it sounds pretty accurate from what I've heard. It's insane how high of a mountain needs to be climbed just to catch up to the state-of-the-art, and how much work is needed to push through to figure out something truly new.

Here's to making the world a better place!

Re: Einstein's relativity rules chemical bonds in heavy elements, new research shows

#149

Post by ordersofmag »

OgsyedIE wrote: post #87
rnikander wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All this computing power. Can we even simulate a water molecule yet from scratch with QM?

To complete accuracy, we cannot yet manage one proton.

If you want to get pedantic we can't simulate anything with complete accuracy in the absence of a theory that encompasses all the known forces. Which we don't have. (Damn you gravity. Can't you just get along with the others)

To a useful level of accuracy we can certainly simulate water. And we can do the same for a single proton for some definitions of useful (but not other definitions).

Re: Einstein's relativity rules chemical bonds in heavy elements, new research shows

#150

Post by [deleted] »

ordersofmag wrote: post #146
tremon wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's true. Mathematics can model every conceivable universe; you cannot derive the values of c or G in our universe from a purely mathematical model. Even if there were a proof that the current values for cosmological constants are the only possible values, that proof would necessarily have to rely on lemmas from physics.

It could be that once we truly understand math in a complete way it would lead inexorably to the definition of one and only one possible universe with only one possible set of rules and c and G would simply fall out naturally. I'd agree it seems unlikely given our current understanding of math and physics (and their relationship to each other). But given both are incomplete it remains a possibility. The one theme tha…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN