The Science Thread

[ulthar]

This actually reflects a fairly popular view within chemistry that quantum is mostly make believe as it relies almost entirely on math instead of experimentation.)

And where would this popular view be held?  Quantum mechanics is widely considered one of the most successful mathematical theories EVER developed precisely because of the HUGE range of agreements with experimental data.

It "relies" on math because it *IS* math...it's a mathematical description of the physics of small stuff....and accurately predicts so many kinds of observables that it really is quite mind boggling.

As for your p orbital electrons ...I'm not sure what what you are saying is an unanswered science question ... the wave function for a single electron in a p orbital has zero probability at the nucleus, so it does not seemingly pass through it.  It's NEVER there.  What's the problem?   

(Oh, and nice to have another chemist on the board...)

[Rev. Powell]

Now we've opened the p-orbital can of worms.. and Flick was worried about homosexuality and global warming being controversial! 

Please behave yourselves gentlemen!

[AndyC]

I might asterisk "There is evolutionary advantage in keeping a variety of genes/traits 'available' - some of those genes could end up being useful in adapting to future situations," though.  While it's doubtlessly true, natural selection can't think ahead like that---it simply weeds out traits that are immediately undesirable, despite the fact that those traits could be useful in other contexts.  (Of course many traits, famously the sickle cell trait, have both advantages and disadvantages).

Of course; natural selection does not 'think'.  The advantage in retention of 'extra' genes or traits would be more along the line of being a condition that is not selected against.  Those organisms with a capacity for or tolerance of a wider variety of genes might tend to have a greater life span as an organism: they would not be as likely to die off (become extinct) as easily or as soon.

It could also be that the gene responsible for a trait with no apparent survival value is also associated with some other trait that is valuable.

I don't recall any study showing that homosexuality runs in families. Hypothetically speaking, if it does have a purely physical cause, I think homosexuality is a more or less random phenomenon, or at least not hereditary.

Whether the cause is physical or environmental, I don't think abnormal (for lack of a better word) sexual desires really function all that differently. They're healthy, strong sexual urges that, due to whatever factors, just get pointed in a different direction or in a highly specific direction. Which would be why natural selection wouldn't weed out the tendency - it doesn't differ enough from sexuality that is desirable from a reproductive point of view.

[Flick James]

a mathematical description of the physics of small stuff

Now that's a layman's description.

[WildHoosier09]

@Ulthar - Nice to bump into another chemist too. I can tell by your post that you too have suffered through the agony of actually learning quantum mechanics.   

This post has a zero probability of existing here -->      <---but starts again here? Really, how did that happen? It must be a quantum tunnel!

Your question is valid and here is where you hit a huge split in chemistry. By "popular view" in chemistry I'm narrowing this down to the organic chemists, biochemists, and others who don't get to dealing with things quite as small. I myself am a polymer chemist which is like an organic chemist but even lazier with math as we do alot of averaging but then at the end of the work we have a nice physically existing object (a polymer). I got to admit one of my issues with quantum is I can see the entire subject being completely redone in a decade or so when we get actual experimental data on some of these things.

[Ash]

My head hurts...   

[ulthar]

you too have suffered through the agony of actually learning quantum mechanics.   

Not only suffered through it...but taught it.  My Ph.D. is in P.Chem.   

[WildHoosier09]

you too have suffered through the agony of actually learning quantum mechanics.   

Not only suffered through it...but taught it.  My Ph.D. is in P.Chem.   

ahhh. now I see you are the dispenser of pain  Just kidding, it is good to run into a fellow nerd 
So saw something in the news that made me think of you. Allegedly some leaked documents from CERN indicate that they may have found the particle attributable to "mass" in matter. (http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2011/04/26/Higgs-particle-speculation-said-premature/UPI-26231303869004/)
I figured I would ask the smartest p-chemist I know about this. So Ulthar, what's your thoughts on this? You think they have something here?