Talk:List of unsolved problems in chemistry

message: General comment: Wiki would benefit if each unsolved problem in chemistry is accompanied by its own article. Currently only 5 out of 10 problems listed have an article associated with it. V8rik 16:01, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: General comment

message: This article was the subject of an AfD discussion closed on 20 August 2006.  The result was Keep. Xoloz 18:01, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: AfD Result Notice

message: Unfortunately this article has again be nominated for deletion Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Unsolved problems in chemistry. Heliumballoon 17:19, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Afd Notice - second time around

message: * 1. Science magazine devoted a whole issue to 125 unsolved puzzles and questions. First 25  Next 100  Here are a few that are relevant to chemistry. What is the structure of water? Researchers continue to tussle over how many bonds each H2O molecule makes with its nearest neighbors. What is the nature of the glassy state? Molecules in a glass are arranged much like those in liquids but are more tightly packed. Where and why does liquid end and glass begin? Are there limits to rational chemical synthesis? The larger synthetic molecules get, the harder it is to control their shapes and make enough copies of them to be useful. Chemists will need new tools to keep their creations growing. Can we predict how proteins will fold? Out of a near infinitude of possible ways to fold, a protein picks one in just tens of microseconds. The same task takes 30 years of computer time.
* 2.  CHEMISTRY: Polymers Without Beginning or End Tom McLeish (20 September 2002) Science 297 (5589), 2005. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1076810] "Natural polymer molecules dominate biology, while artificial polymers are used as plastics or emulsifiers in countless modern products. Many characteristics of their crystalline, glassy, and fluid states can be traced back to the special properties generated by the ends of the molecules. But what would happen if there were no ends? What would be the properties of polymers composed entirely of closed loops?.......The new polymers may not immediately result in new, competitive products, but they stand every chance of clarifying some unsolved puzzles of polymer science. 
* 3.  Chemistry: Enhanced: Putting Molecules Behind Bars Steven C. Zimmerman (25 April 1997) Science 276 (5312), 543. [DOI: 10.1126/science.276.5312.543] One of the most fundamental unsolved problems in chemistry is predicting, based solely on its molecular structure, how a molecule will pack in the solid state....
* 4.  presented here  Unsolved Problems in Nanotechnology: Chemical Processing by Self-Assembly - Matthew Tirrell - Departments of Chemical Engineering and Materials, Materials Research Laboratory, California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara. The title of this paper says it all. It was presented at the department of Chemical Engineering at The Ohio State University - Centennial of the Department’s founding - April 24-25, 2003   Heliumballoon 17:19, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Here are some Useful links

message: Well how about either one of the following:
#That which in the scientific literature is seen as being an major unsolved problem.
#The frontier of chemistry (what it is that people are trying to do but have not done yet) - eg the use of gold nano particles to deliver drugs.
#Conceptual problems where empirical results contradict theory or areas where one theory contradicts another.
#Areas where we do not understand why something occurs empirically (we have no theory at all). eg Why do fluorines have such unusual properties?
*Chemistry is pretty much solved by now. The origin of Life is the only decent scientific problem. 
*All arguments would need to be justified by quoting the appropriate literature. So one could either show that the literature says 'X' is a major unsolved problem. Or one shows that the literature says that one of the other categories apply and that the case is not trivial. Thus it would be recommended that this is something that would be left to practicing scientists. Heliumballoon 17:38, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: A Suggestion for a Definition

message: :I've tagged this article as unsourced for the time being until some criteria is agreed upon and sourcing is implemented (pending the outcome of the AfD of course).--Isotope23 17:38, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The NPOV tag may have been overkill... I've removed it.  Per your comment on references though, I don't think expecting a ref in the homochirality article to reference the contention in this  article that "What is the origin of homochirality in amino acids and sugars?" is a "persistent questions with deep implications" that should be included on this page is the optimal way to present this.  That should be attributed on this page, even if that attribution is simply taking a source from homochirality and incoporating it here.--Isotope23 19:25, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I plan on going through all the listed problems and either sourcing them or deleting them if sources cannot be found. Heliumballoon 22:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be fantastic.  I have no problem with WP:BOLD removal of that tag once sourcing is undertaken.--Isotope23 00:40, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have found and added some sources and I will be adding more. Heliumballoon 12:30, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Unsourced

message: 1. Provide at least 2 peer reviewed articles that explain what the problem is. 
2. Provide some evidence (at least 2 different sources) that the problem is not marginal and has significant impact. 
:This can be done by either:
*a. Showing that peer reviewed articles implicitly or explicitly consider the problem to be important.
*b. Show the above by means of a textbook or other recognized scientific book.
*c. Show that the problem is listed as being non trivial on an authoritative website. e.g. the American Chemcial Society's website
*d. Giving details of several organizations/groups committed to solving the problem. e.g. Many groups are working on the protein folding problem.
3. Include a least a paragraph explaining the problem. 
4. Include an explanation as to why the problem is important. 
5. Categorize the problem as:
*a. An empirical question or anomaly
*b. A lack of understanding in theory
*c. An inability to use theory to predict what happens in practice. Heliumballoon 12:30, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You write: Publications will not always conclude that a problem is unsolved. Then how will we? You're asking Wikipedia editors to exercise research-level quality assessment and taste in chemistry. The result will be a mess. And indeed, it is. 89.217.31.142 (talk) 22:05, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

text: All I was trying to do was to achieve consensus after the Afd process. People kept on wanting some kind of criteria for inclusion on the page. They went on and on on wanting to know what the difference between a minor question and something that belonged on the main page. They used that as an argument for deletion. This page has been nominated twice. They deleted the biology page this time. I don't want it to happen again and was trying to address their concerns - thats all.Heliumballoon 21:22, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: A Suggestion for a Process for Including an Article

message: I don't agree with my last little edit being reverted. I kept the explanation in there, and it's still given in detail in the Feynmanium article, too. I just worded it a bit better. AWeishaupt 04:11, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Feynmanium

message: It should read instead "is there a Mpemba effect" or even "why don't we ever, ever observe the Mpemba effect" and then there are thousands of such fringe problems. Plus it's unsourced. 89.217.31.142 (talk) 21:51, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleted Mpemba effect 

message: Could be interesting but it's really minerology or something. Also, there was no source. 89.217.31.142 (talk) 21:54, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleted septaria question 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on List of unsolved problems in chemistry. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130401070449/http://depts.washington.edu/bakerpg/drupal/node/465 to http://depts.washington.edu/bakerpg/drupal/node/465
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 00:07, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on List of unsolved problems in chemistry. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130928021907/http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/biology/7-88j-protein-folding-problem-fall-2007/index.htm to http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/biology/7-88j-protein-folding-problem-fall-2007/index.htm
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060901202428/http://www.chbmeng.ohio-state.edu/centennial/tirrell.pdf to http://www.chbmeng.ohio-state.edu/centennial/tirrell.pdf
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 07:45, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Copied the unsolved biochem sections from the chem article to the bio article. Jamgoodman (talk) 16:52, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copied content

message: 1. At the moment google suggests "chemistry" as the #5 auto-complete for "unsolved problems in..." (ahead of biology). That seems to suggest that people find it an interesting question. 2. Is it perhaps time to archive some of the very old talk topics which clearly did not gain traction? 
3. Would the need to characterize most chemical compounds qualify as a major problem? (https://web.archive.org/web/20230828034000/https://scitechdaily.com/peeling-back-the-chemical-unknown-scientists-are-on-the-hunt-for-the-other-99-percent/) DKEdwards (talk) 03:53, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  3 quick comments