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   John Carlos Baez (johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Monday, 10-Jun-2024 04:24:16 JST John Carlos Baez

   in reply to

   A lone proton in water can attract a lot of water molecules and form a variety of interesting large structures. Nowadays chemists study these using computer simulations, and compare the results to experiments.

   In 2010, Evgenii Stoyanov, Irina Stoyanova and Christopher Reed used infrared spectroscopy to argue that a lone proton often attaches itself to 6 water molecules, forming H₁₃O₆⁺, as shown here. The extra proton stays roughly within the dotted line.

   So when you look at a glass of water, know that a lot of complicated and interesting things are going on in there, which scientists are still struggling to understand!

   (5/n)

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     John Carlos Baez (johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Monday, 10-Jun-2024 04:24:17 JST John Carlos Baez

     Often a hydronium ion H₃O⁺ attaches itself to *three* other water molecules, forming H₉O₄⁺.

     This is called an 'Eigen cation', named after Manfred Eigen, a famous chemist who has nothing to do with eigenvectors.

     Even this isn't the end of the story. More and more water molecules can surround a lone proton, forming larger and larger structures. And thanks to quantum mechanics, the extra proton's wavefunction can spread out over the whole structure! It naturally does that, to lower its energy.

     Let's see an example.

     (4/n)

     clacke@libranet.de is my main repeated this.