Using uniquely sensitive experimental techniques, scientists have found that laws of quantum physics - believed primarily to influence at only sub-atomic levels – can actually impact on a molecular level.
Researchers at Cambridge’s Chemistry Department and Cavendish Laboratory say they have evidence that, in the case of pyrrole, quantum laws affecting the internal motions of the molecule change the “very nature of the energy landscape” – making this ‘quantum motion’ essential to understanding the distribution of the whole molecule.
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Image: Representation of a pyrrole molecule
Credit: Marco Sacchi
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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Movement of pyrrole molecules defy ‘classical’ physics
29 April 2013
New research shows that movement of the ring-like molecule pyrrole over a metal surface runs counter to the centuries-old laws of ‘classical’ physics that govern our everyday world.