Data Mining Used to Create New Materials

Roland Piquepaille writes "MIT researchers have successfully integrated data mining tools and modern methods of quantum mechanics. They've designed software which can help predict the crystal structures of materials. To simplify, they say they've used methods used by online sales sites to suggest books to customers. And it seems to work: they claim they can determine in days the properties of atomic structures that might have taken months before. Read more for additional references and pictures."

Comments

Use it for watching your representatives

[Colin Smith]

e.g.
http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/

Others are doing it too

[rxmd]

This approach has been popular for quite some time now. For example, there is a research group at CAESAR in Bonn, Germany, called Combinatorial Material Science that has been doing something similar for the last five years or so in the field of material science, especially regarding thin films.

Re:Poster sued by common sense for ignorance.

[Anonymous Coward]

WRONG. Algorithms are NOT patentable in the U.S. Any pure algorithms that accidentally get issued as patents (due to an Examiner's ineptitude, for example) would be swiftly invalidated in the event of any litigation.

What IS patentable in the U.S. are *applications* of algorithms for specific purposes -- such as in manufacturing, robotics, etc.

Somebody really needs to mod the the parent and the GP down -- it's a disservice to the /. community to continue to perpetuate this degree of ignorance about patent law.

Re:It already exists. Bring $15/sq. in.

[istartedi]

While it's a cool material, it's not "transparent aluminum". It's a compound with two other elements. Calling this transparent aluminum is like calling quartz transparent silicon. Many elements with opaque crystal structures form compounds that have transparent crystal structures. A true transparent aluminum would be like carbon, which can be opaque (graphite) or transparent (diamond) depending on the arrangement of atoms, with no other elements involved. Until someone finds a way to arrange aluminum at the molecular level so that it's transparent, there can be no real claim that this little bit of Star Trek has become real. It may not even be possible, or if it is possible the resulting structure might not have such desireable properties as the fictional panels, or the real compound you mentioned.