Isomerism and decoherence

Fortín, Sebastián; Lombardi, Olímpia; González, Juan Camilo Martínez

doi:10.1007/s10698-016-9251-6

Cited by 21 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Finally, it's time to consider the idea, repeated in several cases, that the isolated molecule has no structure and that symmetry breaking is the result of the interaction between the molecule and its environment (see, traditionally, Woolley 1978; more recently, Fortin et al 2016Fortin et al , 2018. However, this claim needs to be taken with care, because its soundness depends on the particular kind of environment considered.…”

Section: Symmetry Breakingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As Franklin and Seifert correctly point out, it is easy to conceive Hund's paradox as a case of the quantum measurement problem: here the issue is to account for the transition from the superposition to one of the chiral states, L or R (see Fortin et al 2016Fortin et al , 2018. Therefore, once the quantum measurement problem is solved, Hund's paradox is solved too.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Is the problem of molecular structure just the quantum measurement problem?

Fortín

Lombardi

2021

Found Chem

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In a recent article entitled "The problem of molecular structure just is the measurement problem", Alexander Franklin and Vanessa Seifert argue that insofar as the quantum measurement problem is solved, the problems of molecular structure are resolved as well. The purpose of the present article is to show that such a claim is too optimistic. Although the solution of the quantum measurement problem is relevant to how the problem of molecular structure is faced, such a solution is not sufficient to account for the structure of molecules as understood in the field of chemistry.

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Section: Symmetry Breakingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Is the problem of molecular structure just the quantum measurement problem?

Fortín

Lombardi

2021

Found Chem

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“…Therefore, when the matter under scrutiny is very specific and technical, it is necessary to appeal to collaborative work. In fact, far from being "unidisciplinary research" (p. 6), our work (Fortin et al 2016) was the result of the collaboration between people coming from three different disciplinary origins: Fortin from physics, Lombardi from philosophy and Martínez González from chemistry. However, Seeman does not consider our article as an interdisciplinary work.…”

Section: What Is Interdisciplinarity?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Let us build better boats: an answer to Jeffrey Seeman’s “Moving beyond insularity in the history, philosophy, and sociology of chemistry”

2018

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In his recent Editorial Article, Seeman (2017) calls for the promotion of collaborative work among different disciplines, focusing on the case of the interaction between chemistry, the history of chemistry and the philosophy of chemistry. From a general viewpoint, it is difficult to disagree with this claim; moreover, the interest of scientists in the history and the philosophy of science is always welcome. However, the devil is in the details: there are several points that, we think, must be discussed more carefully with the aim of arriving at far-reaching conclusions. Who is interested in isomerism and decoherence?Seeman's article reproduces four equations included in our paper "Isomerism and decoherence" (2016) in order to criticize works that he considers too technical to be understood by average readers. However, they are equations that can be read after a first undergraduate course of theoretical quantum mechanics (perhaps with the only exception of Eq. (2), which was taken from Hund's proposal but is conceptually explained immediately below). We appeal to them precisely to introduce the fundamentals of decoherence, assuming that the readers of Foundations of Chemistry do not need to know the formalism. For instance, Eq. (1) is the Hamiltonian of a system of many particles, sum of kinetic and potential energies, with the same form as a classical Hamiltonian. Seeman feels uncomfortable because, being interested in stereochemistry, he cannot read those equations. Of course, this situation is not a scientific limitation, but rather supports the thesis of the ontological autonomy of chemistry proposed by one of us (Lombardi and Labarca 2005; Lombardi 2014): chemistry can develop its knowledge about its own ontology with no need of legitimation coming from physics. In particular, stereochemistry is a highly articulated and successful body of technical knowledge independently of the difficulties of accounting for the disposition

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“…(for a criticism of the solution based on decoherence, see Fortin, Lombardi and Martínez González 2016).…”

Section: C-the Concept Of Molecular Structurementioning

confidence: 99%