tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010505890506526002.post5276761337497895521..comments2024-03-28T07:04:52.697-04:00Comments on Just Like Cooking: A Chiral ConundrumSee Arr Ohhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09464185815368499346noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010505890506526002.post-63788046720688020362012-01-11T22:23:05.044-05:002012-01-11T22:23:05.044-05:00I didn't see this post until just earlier toda...I didn't see this post until just earlier today, so I hope there are no objections to a belated comment. <br /><br />The major issue I always saw it (which is mentioned in the preprint, and has been previously noted in other papers on this topic) is that the energy difference scales as a function of the heaviest nuclear charge present (Z to the fifth power). I don't think the article emphasized the magnitude of the difference very clearly. In principle, it's going to be a lot easier to unambiguously measure this difference when you've got rhenium (Z = 75) at a chiral center versus one of the second-row elements (take your pick) that compose amino acids and carbohydrates. <br /><br />So, definitely - doing these measurements on alanine and glucose isomers would be directly more relevant to the entire "origin of biomolecular homochirality" goal. But the spectroscopic state-of-the-art seems to currently restrict us to these heavy-metal compounds as the best candidates to unambiguously detect such difference. Of course, the worst-case-scenario goal would be that we learn how to construct better spectrometers, further test our knowledge of physics and discover new things, and then build even better spectrometers with that knowledge so we can try to detect energy differences between L-alanine and D-alanine. Heh.MJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02796378432680640144noreply@blogger.com