This hydrogen atom is bonding with nothing. Spooky! M. Eiles/Purdue University
Chemists have a plan to make ghosts in the lab, by bonding an atom to a patch of empty space.
Normal chemical bonds anchor two atoms together, usually through sharing their electrons. Now, theorists have worked out how to trick a single hydrogen atom to form a bond with nothing, by luring the atom’s lone electron into the same position and state it would be in a real bond.
Matt Eiles of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana and his colleagues are building on work from two years ago…
