tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9633767.post6821240594983038639..comments2024-03-18T06:11:04.848-07:00Comments on The Curious Wavefunction: Truth and beauty in chemistryWavefunctionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14993805391653267639noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9633767.post-71036528432449002002013-07-13T21:23:53.223-07:002013-07-13T21:23:53.223-07:00A breathtakingly beautiful essay, in itself.
I ...A breathtakingly beautiful essay, in itself. <br /><br />I share your wonder and awe in looking at denizens of the Protein Database. One is looking at exquisitely engineered molecular machines, and even more-back into 'Deep Time', at structures (and the DNA codes which represent them) which have been conserved for hundreds of millions of years. <br /><br />The Protein Database to me is the ultimate manifestation of pantheism-seeing God in nature.<br /><br />Thanks for this wonderful post.CrocodileChuckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10762442097044797842noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9633767.post-81756495586761151672011-12-17T06:18:16.335-08:002011-12-17T06:18:16.335-08:00Looking at proteins in the protein data bank can i...Looking at proteins in the protein data bank can indeed be beautiful, until, oh-well, you are following the trace of a polypeptide in an alpha helix or loop and it suddenly stops-the side walk ends; no electron density-ah, but it starts again in 20 angstroms or so. Why, pray, tell? Answer: disorder! Everyone knows that many proteins are intrinsically disordered, and it seems that a proteome's disorder increases with the complexity of the organism. And as far as mechanisms go, everyone knows that you never prove a mechanism perfectly; you only disprove a mechanism. Most of published science is junk; people paint pretty pictures. The Ptolmeic model of the universe and the spontaneous generation theory of the origin of life were so beautiful and simple! And wrong. And what about poop, for God's sake? Is that beautiful?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9633767.post-14298726030261437612011-12-14T12:52:15.930-08:002011-12-14T12:52:15.930-08:00I just want to share something - last week some po...I just want to share something - last week some post-docs and I came up with some beautiful electronic structure theory from the data we were working with, and it would have really impacted the field of thermoelectrics. Unfortunately, upon closer inspection, our theory was wrong ... the more refined data did not support our hypotheses.<br /><br />I was pretty disgusted by this statement:<br />"whenever he had to choose between truth and beauty in his works, he usually chose beauty."<br /><br />You ALWAYS choose truth. There is NO reason the world has to be beautiful. The world is, however, TRUE. As a scientist or mathematician, it is your duty to communicate what is true, not what is beautiful. It does not take some dramatic hubris to believe that Nature is more powerful than what your human brain considers beautiful.<br /><br />That being said, oftentimes, while a wrong, beautiful theory can be seductive - digging deeper often reveals more intricacies and subtleties of nature, true subtleties, that are far more beautiful than the 'wrong' things.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9633767.post-15255051568395242742011-12-09T07:28:30.240-08:002011-12-09T07:28:30.240-08:00MJ: I agree that enzyme mechanisms constitute one ...MJ: I agree that enzyme mechanisms constitute one of the few widely recognized aspects of beauty in chemistry. I do agree that the practical implementation of equations in physics might be messy. But for some reason physicists have always claimed notions of mathematical beauty as much as mathematicians themselves. The Dirac equation may be beautiful, but try applying it the simplest of laboratory situations.<br /><br />Anon: Amen, I felt the same way when I first encountered carbocation-based reaction cascades in steroid synthesis (pioneered by William Johnson).Wavefunctionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14993805391653267639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9633767.post-33129584013429912652011-12-08T14:41:55.285-08:002011-12-08T14:41:55.285-08:00For those who speak the language, organic synthesi...For those who speak the language, organic synthesis also has its moments of almost mathematical beauty, sparkling with economy, elegance, and yes, sometimes, even surprising universality. The first time I saw a Diels-Alder cascade reaction to form 4 six membered rings of determined stereospecificity from a single chain, I was awestruck.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9633767.post-67858280582747802212011-12-04T09:58:27.629-08:002011-12-04T09:58:27.629-08:00I have to be honest - I always get that faintly na...I have to be honest - I always get that faintly nauseous sensation in my gut when the issue of "beauty in science" is raised. It's quite subjective and - truth be told - it's something that evolves with time. What I found interesting and beautiful 10 years ago may not quite be the case nowadays, while what I thought was bland and unattractive has now taken on new life and perspective. <br /><br />I would also suspect that the messiness going from the very formal and succinct statements of theory to trying to solve actual physical problems is just as prevalent in physics as it is in chemistry. I mean, numerical relativity and computational condensed matter can chew up processing time without any difficulty, just as can any cutting-edge research simulation one might do in chemistry. <br /><br />Having said all of that, I actually tend to find enzyme & gene regulatory mechanisms to be quite beautiful, which I suppose might be a place where we have an example within the biological sciences but is written in the language of chemistry. For example, glutamine synthetase is responsive to multiple feedback inhibitors (and will only more-or-less fully shut down in the presence of all of them) or can be covalently modified. <br /><br />-MJMJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02796378432680640144noreply@blogger.com