May 11, 2017 07:01 PM
https://www.wired.com/2017/05/chemists-o...ng-matter/
EXCERPT: For all their periodic tables, styrofoam ball-and-pencil models, and mouth-garbling vocabulary, chemists really don’t know jack about molecules. Part of the problem is they can’t really control what molecules do. Molecules spin, vibrate, and trade electrons, all of which affect the way they react with other molecules. Of course, scientists know enough about those scaled-up reactions to do things like make concrete, refine gasoline, and brew beer. But if you’re trying to use individual molecules as tools, or manipulate them so precisely that you can snap them together like Lego pieces, you need better control. Scientists aren’t all the way there yet, but recently scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology solved an early challenge: controlling a single molecule’s behavior....
EXCERPT: For all their periodic tables, styrofoam ball-and-pencil models, and mouth-garbling vocabulary, chemists really don’t know jack about molecules. Part of the problem is they can’t really control what molecules do. Molecules spin, vibrate, and trade electrons, all of which affect the way they react with other molecules. Of course, scientists know enough about those scaled-up reactions to do things like make concrete, refine gasoline, and brew beer. But if you’re trying to use individual molecules as tools, or manipulate them so precisely that you can snap them together like Lego pieces, you need better control. Scientists aren’t all the way there yet, but recently scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology solved an early challenge: controlling a single molecule’s behavior....