Undergraduate Computational Chemistry Conference

crashlight writes: "The MERCURY Consortium (Molecular Education and Research Consortium in Undergraduate computational chemistRY) has organized the first national conference in undergraduate computational chemistry at Hamilton College. Speakers are giving talks on subjects such as molecular recognition, drug design, and optomizing Gaussian. There was also a session on using Beowulfs for research. Computational chemistry is a hot area right now since researchers are able to tackle previously unsolvable problems due to increases in high-performance computing power. The MERCURY group uses a 32 processor SGI and a large Beowulf cluster for research."

Comments

computational chemistry?

[tps12]

What place do computers have in chemistry? I mean, the TI-81 is pretty handy when you're trying to figure out how many moles of NaOH you need to add to 15% HCl to get a pH of 8.2, but in all honesty a P4 isn't going to be of much use there.

Real chemistry is about test tubes and stirring rods and funny smells. Leave simulation and computers in physics where they belong.

Re:computational chemistry?

[tps12]

Well, that's a great point, except that it is biology.

Re:Real chemistry about Testubes?

[tps12]

That's a fine point, except that those are physics and biology, respectively.