Talk:Transition state

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Untitled[edit]

transition state is a ramification of transition state theory, the two should remain seperate

S_N2 reaction of bromoethane with hydroxide ion

Looks like a perfect example of an transition state for me.--Stone 09:06, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I added a version of this file with the transition state labeled.Jeff Dahl 23:09, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

NEB&DIMER[edit]

Would it be useful for me to create separate, detailed, articles for NEB and the Dimer (I know the methods quite well). Bwibbwz (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 08:02, 13 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]

sounds great! you can use the tag to provide a link from this page. (tip: use 4 tildes in a row for your user signature) V8rik (talk) 17:21, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think I wrote the comment above but forgot to sign it and never got around to doing anything about it. Anyway, I have moved the stuff on finding the geometry of transition states to another existing page on geometry optimization / energy minimization of molecules. I plan to expand and improve that page heavily. AussieScientist (talk) 18:19, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Confusing hatnote.[edit]

The hatnote at the top of the article now reads: "Not to be confused with Activated complex or Transition of state". These two subjects do not go together, since Activated complex is a related subject with a name very different from the article name, whereas Transition of state is a totally unrelated subject with a name similar to the article name. The table at WP:DISTINGUISH says that type of hatnote is intended for "Top of articles with deceptively similar titles", which here fits the second subject only. So I am going to remove the first item, and instead include in the article intro a brief explanation of the difference between Activated complex and Transition state. Dirac66 (talk) 22:57, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fishy sentence[edit]

Because of the rules of quantum mechanics, the transition state cannot be captured or directly observed; the population at that point is zero[citation needed].

How is this quantum mechanics?

Isn't it just that the transition occurs very quickly?

If it is to be a matter of principle, it sounds more like there is a continuum of states along the reaction coordinate, so the distribution of states is given by a density function, so that every state along the way has "zero" occupancy, just as there is no person of height exactly 175 cm.

This is borne out in the article by the remark that the transition state can actually be approached quite closely (more and more closely) by femtosecond measurements.

If there is a bona-fide principle of quantum mechanics here, it should be named. Is it simply the uncertainty principle? Or something fundamental about the representation of transitions in quantum mechanics? 178.38.90.162 (talk) 08:20, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

make page: Transitional state (physics)[edit]

colloquialism: the wavefunctional time-period a collapse lasts

The duration of the collapse of a wave function; and all phenomena related to this particular event. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2149:8237:D400:4DA2:87E:4FBC:47 (talk) 13:14, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Problematic sentence about "force"?[edit]

Since being at a saddle point along the potential energy surface means that a force is acting along the bonds to the molecule, there will always be a lower energy structure that the transition state can decompose into.

Well actually, in physics, a saddle point of potential energy is specifically any point (other than a min or max) in which there is not a force, isn't it? Force being basically the gradient of potential energy, and a saddle point being a point where all spatial derivatives are zero (whether it's a maximum, minimum, sigmoid critical point, or flat line with respect to a given dimension/coordinate)

But then chemistry doesn't work according to simple forces on the states along the reaction curve, does it? It's a constant pandemonium of forces and jostles at any temperature above absolute zero, and the potential energy surface simply describes the states collections of nearby atom are statistically likely to occupy more often and which transitions they're likely to fall through more often, over large numbers of them. And the significance of a transition state being a saddle point is that it's a metastable state, right? (a place which would have no actual force forcing it, yet which is unstable due to being anything other than a minimum of potential energy, and thus any tiny perturbation (eg, the chaos called temperature) will knock it off, like a ball in gravity on an actual saddle)

--RProgrammer (talk) 15:04, 3 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]