Slashdot Mirror
Atomic Disguise Makes Helium Look Like Hydrogen
An anonymous reader writes "In a feat of modern-day alchemy, atom tinkerers have fooled hydrogen atoms into accepting a helium atom as one of their own, reports New Scientist. Donald Fleming of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and colleagues managed to disguise a helium atom as a hydrogen atom by replacing one of its orbiting electrons with a muon, which is far heavier than an electron. The camouflaged atom behaves chemically like hydrogen, but has four times the mass of normal hydrogen, allowing predictions for how atomic mass affects reaction rates to be put to the test."
Can we make a bomb out of it?
As I recall, the poor muon has an average lifetime of something like 2 microseconds. We might see some interesting theoretical chemistry come out of this (the reaction-rate question) but it looks like we'll end up a little light on practical applications of muons in chemical compounds.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Excellent research... now, has anybody figured out how to disguise C21H30O2 in the form
()-(6aR,10aR)-6,6,9-trimethyl-3-pentyl-6a,7,8,10a-tetrahydro-6H-benzo[c]chromen-1-ol
This is super cool, but less for the kinetic isotope effect (KIE) studies and more for the muon-electron substitution. We've compared isotope masses with reaction rates using deuterium and tritium before, so using "H-4" and "H-5" is nice for extended validation, but not unexpected. The muonium is pretty bad-ass, though.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
IT'S A TRAP!
There was an article already about helium depletion coming soon. Hopefully this is a proof of concept for other elements and not a new way to make hydrogen.
Can we make these now? What would they be called?
does it make your voice go higher or lower when inhaled?
So what's interesting is that they were able to do this at all -- either they found a way to extend muon life (unlikely, or that would be the main news here), or they worked insanely fast to get their results before the decay.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
I remember that much past interest over muons and hydrogen has been around muon-catalyzed fusion. As you say, the muons are quite short-lived, which prevents them from catalyzing enough H-H fusions to get to breakeven. And then there was the alpha-sticking problem, whereby helium nuclei products then grab the muons, thus stealing them away from the process.
Check out ultra-dense deuterium, though. It's some kind of exotic form of matter, and there have recently been some tantalizing glimpses of it in nano-sized clumps.
That's right up there with the air in China being "crazy bad".
I miss the olden days when scientists would speak appropriately about their topics. These days it's too much filmreel, not enough plain real. Too much Hollywood and MTV and too little importance behind their work.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Muons decay with a half life of about 2 microseconds. It's really amazing they can measure any chemical reaction rates at this time scale. Creating these atoms with muons replacing the electrons has been done for years.
Rick Santorum was right. Gay marriage leads to a slippery slope... man on man, man on dog, helium on hydrogen...
We've truly lost the culture wars.
This discovery might really be ground-breaking if it can reduce the volatility of hydrogen and make it more suitable for use in traditional, internal combustion engines in cars and small trucks. I don't believe electric cars are really the answer to a cleaner environment because batteries have a finite life span and use caustic chemicals. However, I believe some scientists expressed concern over helium depletion. Here is a link about a http://www.physorg.com/news201853523.html">theory of helium depletion. Again, it is a theory so take it with a grain of sand.
Government: uhm....Yea..but is it green? Prof: This is science, applications come after Government: Can't use it in election. Grant Denied Next Man: This is high gloss lipstick Government: Does it help me in Election Next Man: It will Make PM look 10 years younger with better lips than Angelina Jolie Prime Minister: Grant for $10,000,0000 approved. Have it ready in 6 months Ugh!!! could've done better :( I am comedically challenged...
I am at loss with words...
News flash: time can't actually fly, love doesn't actually bite, and the wind rarely cries "Mary".
Metaphors and anthropomorphization are useful tools for teaching and understanding. Nobody actually thinks that hydrogen is intelligent: the only people who are bothered by this are folks with Asperger's and people with zero sense of humor or creativity. Which are you?
I come in last night about half past ten,
That hydrogen wouldn't let me in.
So muon on over. Rock it on over.
Move over little atom, a mean, old atom's muon in.
Program Intellivision!
They should have paid more attention to the tell-tale stubble.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
It seems that after infiltrating the molecular structure, the rogue atom saps the sentries before heading to the Intel Room to steal the briefcase.
Humans really hate personification. We definitely don't do it constantly to pretty much any plant, animal or object.
Fleming's team shot muons produced at the TRIUMF accelerator in Vancouver into a cloud of helium, molecular hydrogen and ammonia. The helium atoms captured the muons, then pulled hydrogen atoms away from the molecular hydrogen and bonded with them.
This was all done at TRIUMF, the world's largest cyclotron and by far the best particle accelerator in Canada. Plus, Donald Truhlar (a giant in the field) supported the experimental rate constants with quantum mechanical predictions - very neat stuff indeed!
Hey mate, spare a sig?
Rule #1: the joke has to be funny, at least funnier than the explanation, which is not the case here.
Helium + Hydrogen = He H awe
The summary says they start with a helium atom (which has 2 protons and 2 neutrons), and they make it look like a hydrogen atom (with only one proton and no neutrons) my making it *heavier*? This makes no sense whatsoever
I read it too quickly. I'm the one who had it backwards. I thought, because of the muon's negative charge, it would continue to behave like Helium chemically, but would be heavier (presumably like Hydrogen, which is lighter, which is why I thought it was backwards).
Cross-dressing atoms? You sicko liberals should be ashamed of yourselves!
Table-ized A.I.
FTA, the point here was the mass ratio. The ratio in this case was 36.4, as opposed to 3 with regular H isotopes. It also turned out that these predictions did not hold at lower temperatures, implying there's something that becomes significant when the atoms are larger and cooler that is not accounted for as of yet.
Can you combine two of these muon hyrdogens with an oxygen atom to create extra heavy water?
From what I understand, the number of protons determined an atoms physical properties. So why does a muon, with it's extra weight change this?
Helium is much larger than Hydrogen. Would the bond angles be the same? Would the physical shape of the Helium atom allow it to attach to carbon chains and hexane/benzene structures to make pseudo-hydrocarbons?
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
Humans really hate personification. We definitely don't do it constantly to pretty much any plant, animal or object.
Programmed for Love
The art of good writing
I don't think in the second article that Adam Haslett brought much to the party. He seems to forget that one must first weed the flower bed before cultivating bonsai plants.
Many people have this view of human language akin to believing that your statement grammar is your entire language, which might border on the truth in Forth, Lisp, or APL. Hideously far from the truth if the language contains strong types, OOP, templates, exceptions, closures, or introspection.
OOP verges on personification. Bank accounts ingest and regurgitate, etc.
What was the topic again? Oh yes, muonium kicks ass.
HeH, HeH, HeH.
"Crazy bad" is an understatement. Like trying to suck a backhoe into your lungs is more like it.
Would it be four times thicker than normal H?
And would a car drive 4 times longer on a tank full?
If so it would also be a great rocket booster.
Too bad that the muon is so short lived.
One should try to add some Ginseng root to the collider
While the "orbital" model may be useful for simple chemistry and some other work, electrons do not "orbit" the nucleus. This has been known for some 70-odd years. Time to get with the program.
In related news, GE UK today announces the discovery that muonium Cooper pairs confined within a transparent aluminum lattice lengthens tau while decreasing atomic radius, potentially leading to a viable fusion energy source.
"It's possible we could fabricate power transmission lines directly from Transparent Muominium(TM) (TM), and disconnect the generating stations completely," declared a GE scientist, thumbing his nose at a rival division. "We've already begun a series of avian studies on TM power line safety. Of tests so far, the Nike proposal is presently the front runner. The bird brain is pre-adapted to this flagging icon, with effectiveness just slightly below live kittens."
GE aims to scale their prototype muominium fusion lattice to commercial production by the year 2020. Membership renewals with The International Federation of Kite Owners sagged 5% on the news.
Good job by our friends to the North, I say -- Props, guys. Denigrating their equipment is ignorant, do you think it takes a better or worse scientist to get to meaningful results on the new shiny stuff, or the older stuff, anyway. Did someone with fancier stuff find this first elsewhere? Then who's got the good scientists, again?
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
By the way... I think the commentator in the attached perspective (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6016/411.full) gets the born-oppenheimer approximation wrong... he states that :
"The BO approximation makes possible the practical application of quantum mechanics to all of molecular science. As the arrangement of the nuclei changes, the BO approximation postulates that the electrons will remain in a particular quantum state. "
When the BO approximation is the opposite : The atoms DONT move while the electrons DO (relatively speaking) because of their vast difference in mass. That is... the electrons are little bullets whizzing around at top speed, whereas the atoms are massive aircraft carriers in terms of mass (note: this is not meant to be even a remotely accurate analogy, but it's the general idea). You'd think that SCIENCE, of all journals, would get the Born-Oppenheimer approximation right !
Note: That in the second step of a typical quantum mech. calculation (e.g. a geometry optimization), you then use the average field generated in the first part to move the atoms (if they need to move in the particular calculation). Then you iterate to self-consistency.
And for my next trick, making lead into gold.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
..... like hydrogen? Ok I'll go read the article.
Also, the muon's half-life is less than 2 microseconds, so any experiments have to be done very, very quickly.
The creators of Stargate SG-1 have the best scientists - of course.
Wow. For the first time I'm actually a little bit freaked out by a science story. They're disassembling an atom and making it behave like a different kind of atom? That's spooky. Here's why this spooks me: This strongly reminds me of the fictional substance "ice-nine" in Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, which was just a slightly "modified" form of water that was solid at room temperature. It had the unfortunate attribute that it would change any normal water into ice-nine on contact, thus causing a worldwide cataclysm when released into the wild. Until this moment I was unable to really picture how one could "modify" a simple molecule like H2O and wind up with something that was still H2O and thus still be able to call it "water". This technique would make that possible.
I hope and pray (to the mythical God that I don't even believe in) that these people messing with the basic structure of atoms know what they're doing. I've never put any stock in silly ideas like the LHC creating black holes or any of that other nonsense people come up with, but this particular story gives me the willies. Helium is one step away from hydrogen. What if they did something similar to a hydrogen atom and it turned out to be able to create new copies of itself just by somehow interacting with normal hydrogen molecules? To those who would immediately say "pish tosh" without thinking about the implications, I'd have to respond by asking how do we know such a thing can't happen when we go around mucking with the very nature of an atom's structure? It's one thing to go around breaking down molecules into their component atoms, or atoms into their component sub-atomic particles, but I think it may be a whole different ball game to go around creating hybrid atoms (and thus hybrid elements) with possibly unknown or unknowable interactions with other atoms/elements.
Or maybe I'm being silly and the scientists know exactly what they're doing. Riiiiiight...
I'll be even more spooked if I find out this sort of thing can't happen in nature. If they're managing to artificially create something that has never been able to exist in the entire history of the universe, it may be time to pull a Peter Griffin, i.e., "WHOA, WHOA, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whooaaa... Are you sure your math is right and you're not gonna destroy the universe?"
Scientists: "Yes."
Peter: "OK. Nevermind."
Scientists: "Whoops!"
Universe: "BOOOOM!!!"
wouldn't it be nice if this would be more powerful than standard liquid hydrogen + liquid oxygen for rocket fuel? It probably isnt but one can dream.
Wow. For the first time I'm actually a little bit freaked out by a science story. They're disassembling an atom and making it behave like a different kind of atom? That's spooky. Here's why this spooks me: This strongly reminds me of the fictional substance "ice-nine" in Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, which was just a slightly "modified" form of water that was solid at room temperature. It had the unfortunate attribute that it would change any normal water into ice-nine on contact, thus causing a worldwide cataclysm when released into the wild. Until this moment I was unable to really picture how one could "modify" a simple molecule like H2O and wind up with something that was still H2O and thus still be able to call it "water". This technique would make that possible.
I hope and pray (to the mythical God that I don't even believe in) that these people messing with the basic structure of atoms know what they're doing. I've never put any stock in silly ideas like the LHC creating black holes or any of that other nonsense people come up with, but this particular story gives me the willies. Helium is one step away from hydrogen. What if they did something similar to a hydrogen atom and it turned out to be able to create new copies of itself just by somehow interacting with normal hydrogen molecules? To those who would immediately say "pish tosh" without thinking about the implications, I'd have to respond by asking how do we know such a thing can't happen when we go around mucking with the very nature of an atom's structure? It's one thing to go around breaking down molecules into their component atoms, or atoms into their component sub-atomic particles, but I think it may be a whole different ball game to go around creating hybrid atoms (and thus hybrid elements) with possibly unknown or unknowable interactions with other atoms/elements.
Or maybe I'm being silly and the scientists know exactly what they're doing. Riiiiiight...
I'll be even more spooked if I find out this sort of thing can't happen in nature. If they're managing to artificially create something that has never been able to exist in the entire history of the universe, it may be time to pull a Peter Griffin, i.e., "WHOA, WHOA, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whooaaa... Are you sure your math is right and you're not gonna destroy the universe?"
Scientists: "Yes."
Peter: "OK. Nevermind."
Scientists: "Whoops!"
Universe: "BOOOOM!!!"
P.S. The new Slashdot is broken. Good job guys. I tried to post this comment once already and it never showed up, but it's listed in the sidebar of my comment page and it wouldn't let me repost the same comment. Even though the link doesn't exist.
The BO approximation does not assume that the nuclei are completely stationary. What you're talking about with that is what's called a clamped-nuclei Hamiltonian.
You stated the rationale behind the BO-approximation without understanding it. Because of the difference in mass, the nuclei are practically stationary relative the electron's frame of motion. That does not mean they are stationary.
What it means is that the potential the electrons 'see' from the nuclei varies very slowly. If a potential on a particle changes sufficiently slowly, then the particle remains in the same state - that's the adiabatic theorem.
"Adiabatic" because no energy is thus being transferred to the particle. In the BO approximation, no kinetic energy is being transferred between the nuclei and electrons. That is what the BO-approximation is.
By assuming that, the nuclear-electronic kinetic-energy coupling terms disappear from the Molecular Hamiltonian, which allows you to separate it into an electronic and nuclear Hamiltonian.
Then, you might additionally assume clamped-nuclei. But not necessarily. Quantum molecular-dynamics simulations are usually done with the BO-approximation in place.
You'd think someone would have the common-sense to check up their own knowledge before assuming that a distinguished professor
who's been doing quantum chemistry since the early 60's doesn't know the stuff you teach on an introductory course of the subject.
The problem is that they not only changed the mass, they substituted a muon for an electron. That would probably change the reactivity of anything.
I.e. would this become water? I fear producing enough to actually test this theory might be difficult and expensive, but maybe someone knows the theoretical side (not just guessing, I can do that, myself).
Other then tricking one atom to accept another in their group....what good or bad can come from this....i still do not see the importance...
Your post made my brain sad.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Now if Hydrogen could mask as Helium then THAT would be a bigger deal as the up and coming shortage of Helium would be averted, and the world could be breath easier.
Two microseconds can be a long time in the world of chemical reactions.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
Speaking as a Canadian--why is there the Canadian flag as the icon for this story?