The Computational Chemist said...what?

So I like cruising around Reddit.com's subreddit on chemistry from time to time because it's a generally useful place for seeing others' work, help out aspiring academics, and generally have a place to get extra help on advanced chemistry techniques. The atmosphere around there is full of polite, like-minded individuals all looking to have a good time in their field.
But sometimes people get a little too helpful, and step outside their comfort zone.

I took this little screen grab from a r/chemistry thread where a particular chemist has been asking about building his own inert atmosphere (nitrogen only) glove box. He wants to heat up some samples in it. So a computational chemist, a chemist that does all of their experiments inside a computer program, probably took this little gem of advice from their gen-chem lab when suggesting the original poster try to light a burner inside the glove box.

Now, Bunsen burners (named after the scientist Robert Bunsen) work from atmospheric oxygen being supplied to a pressurized stream of gas. That gas comes through a hose, mixes with the oxygen at the basal inlet of the burner, travels up the barrel, and is finally ignited at the top of the burner. If there's no oxygen around in the air, it won't light!

That's why quantum_mechanic's suggestion of "practice makes perfect" is silly- you can't practice making oxygen in a glove box where there is none!

Quotes from Chemistry...Part 6!

"A bond of any sort, whether between planets, molecules, atoms, nuclei or quarks, is just a happenstance when when two or more particles together have a lower total energy than when they were apart. Like if you're married, and your taxes go down."

-Henry Reich of Minutephysics

Nanomechanics

"By irradiating the surface through appropriate filters, the controlled mechanical  motion of the bistable [2] rotaxane molecules were harnessed to push droplets of iodomethane uphill on a substrate positioned at a 12º incline." [1]

This line comes from a 2012 Chem. Soc. Rev. article titled "High Hopes: Can Molecular Electronics Realize its Potential?" In short, the authors of the original article[2] were able to utilize light energy to push a fluid against its normal direction of flow. By changing the physical location of one molecule with respect to another in a thin film, the scientists were able to control how a liquid acted in real-time on this thin film.

If that doesn't blow your mind, think about it this way. The potential energy in light was transferred to a molecule, which was able to undergo a mechanical change. So potential energy was converted into kinetic energy. This change, affected by the movement of the molecule, then caused a change of potential energy of the liquid on its surface which was eased by converting this new energy into movement- more kinetic energy. Shine light, move liquid. 

Heck, shine light-move anything is a staggering possibility. Controlled surface wetting has implications for cool new polymer films. Maybe even one that will collect water from rain (or the atmosphere![3,4]).  The Cohen paper [4] also discusses controlled drug release but why limit it to medicine?

Almost, Morpheus. I like your imagination though.

What about creating nano-machines? 

Oh. Well thanks anyway graygoo.net

 Still, it's an interesting thought.

[1]Coskin, A., Stoddart, F. et al.; Chem. Soc. Rev., 2012, 41, 4827-4859

[2]Berna, J., Zerbetto, F. et al.; Nat. Mater., 2005, 4, 704-710
[3] MIT Review
[4] Zhai, L., Cohen, R. et al.; Nano Lett., 2006, 6, 1213-1217