"Researchers devise a means to control chemical reactions in individual atoms"
http://phys.org/news/2012-07-chemical-reactions-individual-atoms.html They're getting closer to doing the experiment I suggested over a year ago. "In their experiments, the team used a magnetic field to isolate two different types of atoms, a ytterbium ion and a neutral rubidium, in a very cold environment to slow things down. But prior to pushing them together with a laser, they first excited the ytterbium ion by shooting it with laser light to inject it, so to speak with kinetic energy. That energy they noted, could result in movement due to heat ejection or in the production of photons. Next, they ran two different types of experiments. In the first, they turned off the lights and watched as the two atoms eventually came near one another, to see if the interaction between the two would result in the release of photons, i.e. light. *It did not, instead, it resulted in both atoms moving around in the trap at higher speeds.* In the second experiment they used a laser to push the energized ion towards the neutral atom and found that in some, but not all cases, an electron was exchanged, causing the ytterbium atom to become neutral and the rubidium to become ionized; a clear example of a controlled chemical reaction between just two atoms. The researchers noted that *the spin state of the atoms made a difference in the outcome of the reaction, meaning that the atomic nucleus of the atom had an impact, which goes counter to conventional thinking.*" "*The spin state of the nucleus, and even the individual electrons, should therefore offer a bias in the chemical behavior by producing an attractive or repulsive force which stacks constructively or destructively with the electric charge. This would suggest that you might be able to produce interesting properties in some chemical reactions by applying a magnetic field during the process.*" Makes sense in my model. Preprint here: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1206.4507.pdf And from their preprint: "We control the distribution of the kinetic energy release in the charge exchange reaction by employing the hyperfine state of the neutral atoms;" New science is in the anomalies. -Mark
