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Imaging the Molecular Orbitals of Pentacene
eparker05 writes "Researchers at University of Liverpool have used a scanning tunneling microscope to image the aromatic molecule pentacene (Abstract). Not unexpectedly, the resulting images showed an astonishingly close correlation to the theoretically predicted molecular orbitals. This incredible set of images reminds me of the group that imaged a single carbon atom in 2009."
This kind of stuff is a worry.
Pentacene is an organic hydrocarbon which oxidizes very rapidly. If they start to use this Frankenstein molecule for experiments and it ever escaped from the lab, it could infect the planet with its oxidizing traits of disease.
It's a proven fact that oxidizing chemicals in the body cause all sorts of ills: heart disease, cancers, subluxations, arterial blockages, etc. With a fast-acting oxidizer floating around in the air, people will breath in this garbage and start to basically rust to illness and death.
Unfortunately we can't remove a subluxation for study, we can only treat them with applied Chiropractic manipulation. However if one were to remove a subluxation and study it, you'd find a mass of oxidized blockages due to bad diet and inactivity wrapped around the sufferer's nerve fibers.
During my time in Chiropractic college, we saw countless examples of subluxation in cadavers. Most would have simply caused discomfort ("sore back", etc.) in the person, however some we saw were very likely the cause of the person's death. Huge knots of subluxated material wrapped around nerves, almost like cancers. Even in the cadavers we could 'break them' and make them go away. If only they had gotten to a chiro *before* they died, they could have likely been saved.
The big message: AVOID ALL OXIDIZING MATERIALS! If you cannot and must work around it, be SURE to visit a reputable Chiropractor and explain that you work around oxidizers. The Doctor will be able to focus his treatments accordingly.
Take care,
Bob
Chiropractic Saves Lives!
Did anyone else notice that the article with the images has an incorrect definition of imaginary numbers (i.e. says i=sqrt(1) instead of i=sqrt(-1) ).
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
These methods do not image orbitals themselves - it is generally regarded as impossible to do this. These instead image electron density, which is separate but related (square of the wavefunction)
How can something be unexpected yet astonishing at the same time. Is this like holding tea and no tea?
Atomic resolution of atoms and molecules with SPM have been around for a while. Pentacene was imaged back in 2009 and atomic resolution of surfaces goes back to the 90s . The only thing that is new about this article is a slightly different flavor of STM. Not what the authors are imaging with it.
Remember this 2009 article? http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/40250
That's a bit of an oxymoron, I think.
http://xkcd.com/865/
Does that mean there's some slight difference from the theoretical model or just an artifact of how the cloud was imaged?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
The same group of researchers published a paper in 2009 in the journal Science using a technique called atomic force microscopy (AFM) rather than the scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) approached used here. This technique allowed them to resolve the atomic structure of pentacene, showing the classic ring structure as one might see drawn on a chalk board in their chemistry class. Combined with their means of imaging molecular orbitals by STM, these researchers have developed some really nice tools for studying molecules. Here's the citation for the AFM paper:
Gross et al. (2009) The Chemical Structure of a Molecule Resolved by Atomic Force Microscopy. Science, 325: 1110. doi:10.1126/science.1176210
I remember having seen this very same picture a year ago or so posted here... It's still in my pictures folder because it really impressed me that time. Guess it shows that chemistry isn't alchemy after all. Link to the original article
Democracy: Crowdsourcing a country near you
Hey Subbie... If the results are "unsurprising" then why is the accuracy of the data when compared to the model "astonishing"?
Of course some differences between theory and practice can be expected. For example, some experimental noise is expected. And at these scales, some fuzziness is also weird if it wouldn't happen.
However the topology should be correct. Now in the top image on the right there is a "white" area at the top. Whereas on the left (the real data) the white area at the top has a dent in it. As if there is a black area on the top with two white areas on the corners.
In short: From this experiment I'd say: The theoretical model is seriously flawed.
The square root of -1?
Science : it works, bitches.
Baseball thrown in a vacuum shows astonishingly close correlation to the prediction of Newtonian physics.