Saturday, October 19, 2013

3 get Nobel for taking chemistry to cyberspace

  • The ability to carryout computerized chemical experiments in real-time won an Israeli, Austrian and a Briton the 2013 Nobel prize for chemistry.
  • The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (RSAS) said Arieh Warshel (University of Southern California) Michael Levitt (Stanford School of Medicine) and Martin Karplus (Harvard University) got the prize “for the development of multi-scale models for complex chemical systems”.
  • The computerized experiments have yielded a deeper understanding of how chemical processes play out.
  • In the 1970s, the three scientists had laid foundation for powerful programs used to understand and predict chemical processes.
  • They can be used to study all kinds of chemistry; from the molecules of life to industrial chemical processes. Scientists can optimize solar cells, catalysts in motor vehicles or even drugs.
  • Experts say the trio’s work is ground-breaking as they managed to make Newton’s classical physics work side by side with the fundamentally different quantum physics. Previously, chemists had to use either.

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