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A comment on Physicists captured individual atoms and observed them merge into a molecule. Parent comment

Re:Physicists captured individual atoms and observed them me... by staticautomatic on Saturday February 22, 2020 @09:56PM (#22394791)
Catalysts work principally by lowering the activation energy of the reaction.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activation_energy

They don't necessarily bring atoms or molecules together, per se, but some do.

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Re:Physicists captured individual atoms and observed them me... by sfifs on Sunday February 23, 2020 @04:57AM (#22396013)
Yes but activation energy is still a "system" level concept. It's not the actual atomic level mechanism that results in the reaction.
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