Talk:MRD:mmn115
Great work! I especially liked your clear description of experimental results and how you illustrated all your answers with experimental data. Here are a couple of pointers to help you improve further:
- TS properties: Since this is a 2D problem, there are two principal gradients and three curvatures (, & ). The transition state is not an ordinary maximum, but a maximum in one direction and a minimum in another (i.e "a maximum of minima"). Can you now come up with the right mathematical formulation?
- MEP: Did you realise that you can extend the timeframe of the simulation? If you let the MEP run along enough the simulation will trace out the path along the entire valley. Well done on recognising that the MEP resets the mass!
- TS theory critique: The facts you mentioned are true, but I would have liked you to draw conclusions from your own results as well. What about trajectory #4, does this comply with TS theory?
- Experimental verification of vibrational energy release: Do you know IR spectroscopy well enough to draw out the transitions you are trying to observe and how these differ from the ground state transitions? Which approximations do you need to invoke / which ones aren't sufficient?
- Polanyi's rules: Your answers are correct, but two sets of experimental data aren't enough to convince me of the validity of a theory. For all I know, these two could be just happy accidents.
- English: Your English is grammatically and syntactically correct, but I think a more formal style would be more suitable. Avoid personal pronouns, such as "I" and "we" and use nouns instead. "These results show that....", "To obtain this result, a rough estimate of..."