We are mainly Carbon compounds. Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen: We memorize that in Mexico as CHON. Concepción, can be a man's name, for short Chon. If a woman, then Chona.
If water is magical, Carbon also is. Both of them have peculiar chemistry and physics, and are at the core of life.
I write here some thoughts on Carbon:
Benzene is in the shape of an hexagon. The electrons move from carbon atom, to carbon atom, in an eternal dance. Benzene posed a conundrum to Kekulé, who discovered the current chemical formula and explanation.
The solution came to him in a dream. The Carbons Resonantly Share one Electron!
In the picture from Wikipedia above, lines between carbons 1 and 2, sometimes are two as on the left, and sometimes there is only one, as on the right drawing.
This is only the beginning of the magic.
Carbon sits on a Palladium catalytic ``table'', where its electrons are affected in such a way that it bonds to another carbon atom, thus lowering the energy that would have been necessary for such binding without the catalyst. The three chemists rewarded today, studied different aspects of this Palladium Catalyzed Coupling.
These chemists discovered one way to cheat nature, now long chains can be obtained without high energy, nor complex biochemical reactions in living matter. All that is needed is human ingenuity and a good model of how these tiny balls of matter and energy move and combine.
Yesterday I learned, that layers of graphene, are so loosely coupled in graphite, that of all things, Scotch tape! can dislodge them until one gets an atom thick magic cloak!
We are in our way towards the Technological Singularity.
Halogenoarene is a common name for things that do this.
These types of reactions are behind the work rewarded today.
Today is official, chemists can add Palladium to their tool kit:
``“They say that even 25 percent of all medicines that are synthesized today are made by one of these reactions, so it’s a huge impact on the pharmaceutical industry,” Lars Thelander, chairman of the chemistry prize committee. “Palladium has this magic property that it can bind two different carbons make them come very close together and then they react under very mild conditions.” ''
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