
An experiment suggested by a PhD student may rewrite chemistry textbooks - glitcher
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-phd-student-rewrite-chemistry-textbooks.html
======
aazaa
> Intuition suggests that metals are dense, and while that bears true for some
> (think gold or lead), it fails to hold up for others. For example,
> lithium—commonly used in batteries—floats on water. Some metals are hard,
> such as titanium, yet others yield easily to pressure, including indium and
> aluminum. How about melting temperature? Platinum melts at more than 1,700
> degrees Celsius (3,200 F), but mercury is a liquid well below zero.

What makes a metal a metal has been known for many decades. It's the tendency
to donate electrons. The article makes it sound like this is some kind of
mystery that textbooks don't yet explain. Not so by a long shot.

> In these solutions, electrons from the alkali metal initially become trapped
> in the gaps between ammonia molecules. This creates what scientists call
> 'solvated electrons,' which are highly reactive but stabilized in the
> ammonia. These solutions have a characteristic blue color. But given enough
> solvated electrons, the whole liquid turns bronze and, in essence, becomes a
> metal while remaining liquid.

This is a Birch Reduction, which was first reported in 1944 based on earlier
research:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birch_reduction#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birch_reduction#History)

From the article:

> The results showed that, at low concentrations, solvated electrons were more
> easily dislodged from the solution by the interaction with the X-rays,
> giving a simple energy pattern. At higher concentrations, though, the energy
> pattern suddenly developed a sharp band edge, indicating the solution was
> behaving as a metal would.

Maybe there's something interesting here, but you sure can't tell from the
article.

There's no link to primary research anywhere that I can see. There's really no
excuse for this.

Edit: found the paper at the bottom:

[https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6495/1086](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6495/1086)

Behind a paywall...

~~~
rubidium
This is classic hn dismissalism. The news article isn’t great, but it did a
better job than you give it credit for in stating the significance. It linked
the paper and talked about birch reactions.

I don’t read Science (the journal) regularly, but news articles like this
function as flags for “there may be an new paper worth reading” so I go get it
from everyone’s favorite repository of scientific papers. That’s the value.

If you want to critique the state of scientific news writing that’s fine but
realize you’re just whining. The fact that it’s about science news isn’t that
much different than political news.

~~~
tomp
If you put a title "may rewrite chemistry books" on top of an article about "a
new paper worth reading", you're doing it wrong. Classical click-bait at best,
fake news at worst.

~~~
lallysingh
If it causes one line of chem textbooks to change, it's fit the claim. Not a
very high standard, just sexy sounding.

~~~
snakeboy
"rewrite" obviously implies a much larger change, in my opinion.

After passing a constitutional amendment, would it not be misleading to
declare "The US rewrites the constitution" ?

If a 2nd edition of a novel includes a new preface, it would be misleading to
advertise the book as "re-written".

You see it as "sexy sounding", I see it as intentionally misleading about the
significance of the result.

------
O_H_E
> The academics McMullen contacted at other U.S. research universities told
> him they had funding for their own research, but not for his. But Bradforth
> had a different response.

> "He said, 'I don't have funding for your idea but if you come over here we
> can write a funding proposal together,'" said McMullen, who at the time was
> finishing up his undergraduate studies...

> Bradforth not only helped McMullen secure funding, prioritizing it for
> National Science Foundation support over continuing other projects, but he
> also cobbled together an international team of scientists and arranged his
> sabbatical to oversee and participate in the main experiments. He also
> became McMullen's Ph.D. adviser.

Man you gotta love such an awesome prof

~~~
rapjr9
> The academics McMullen contacted at other U.S. research universities told
> him they had funding for their own research, but not for his.

This seems like it could be a massive problem with research. It means that
grad students don't get to develop their own ideas, they have to work on their
advisors research. Admittedly there are a lot of people who have trouble
coming up with their own ideas, but this basically seems like a suppression of
independent thinking.

~~~
setr
It seems to me that an advisor is in a better position to determine
"potentially interesting results" than a grad student is; science in the
extreme should be ideally purely content-based (the proposal alone), but
reality is that its not.

I imagine you're mostly funding humans (who have provided a rough, or even
detailed plan; which will likely be subject to modification or analysis as the
project evolves), in which case experience is a strong heuristic.

And presumably, if you can't convince any possible advisors that your research
is "potentially interesting", it seems unlikely you'd convince the funding
department, or even should be able to convince them (who presumably have
limited knowledge of the precise area of focus -- I imagine they rely on the
deeper specialist input).

Of course, if you _can_ convince an advisor that its potentially interesting,
there should ideally be nothing stopping further development (eg no one should
be claiming that it originated from a _student_ , so it can't possibly be
valid -- it's been validated by the advisor, so that's the heuristic to now
beat)

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beervirus
Some more detail from Derek Lowe at In The Pipeline:

[https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/06/24/am...](https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/06/24/ammonia-
electrons-and-metals)

------
PudgePacket
Reminds me of Dr. Banting and the isolation/discovery of insulin, ultimately
leading to a nobel prize.

> Banting was no expert in the field of carbohydrate metabolism, so when he
> requested laboratory space and facilities from Professor John James Rickard
> Macleod, Head of Physiology at the University of Toronto, the esteemed
> physiologist was at first reluctant.

> However, Banting’s persistence and the possibility of more reliable results
> persuaded MacLeod to donate laboratory space. While tying up the pancreas to
> make it break down was not a new investigative tool, the idea of isolating
> islets due to their slower degeneration was of keen interest to Macleod.

[https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323774#development](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323774#development)

------
lalalandland
Philip E. Mason also known as Thunderf00t on youtube is one of the authors.
Here is a video explaining the experiment:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXpLAB5219A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXpLAB5219A)

------
fouc
Seems like it's related to a breakthrough for X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy
that was originally thought to not be possible for liquids because it depends
on having a vacuum, and the liquid would just evaporate. The solution was to
use a microjet to spray a thin line of liquid, within the vacuum and cross
that with the x-ray beam.

------
peter_d_sherman
>"Seeking to further understand the intrinsic properties of metals, Bradforth,
McMullen and their colleagues used a trick first noted by chemist Sir Humphry
Davy in 1809. In essence, they made a metal from scratch.

The scientists cooled ammonia—normally a gas at room temperature—to minus 33 C
to liquify it and then added, in separate experiments, the alkali metals
lithium, sodium and potassium.

In these solutions, electrons from the alkali metal initially become trapped
in the gaps between ammonia molecules. This creates what scientists call
'solvated electrons,' which are highly reactive but stabilized in the ammonia.
These solutions have a characteristic blue color. But given enough solvated
electrons, the whole liquid turns bronze and, in essence, becomes a metal
while remaining liquid."

