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Science 7 February 2003:
Vol. 299. no. 5608, pp. 833 - 834
DOI: 10.1126/science.1080715
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Perspectives

CHEMISTRY:
Chemical Reactions Involving Quantum Tunneling

Robert J. McMahon

Hydrogen tunneling plays an important role in many chemical and enzymatic reactions. Less common is the tunneling of heavier atoms such as oxygen and carbon. In his Perspective, McMahon highlights the report by Zuev et al., who have identified a reaction in which carbon tunneling increases the reaction rate by over a hundred orders of magnitude. The authors observe close agreement between theory and experiment in the study, yielding important new insights into heavy-atom tunneling.

The author is in the Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA. E-mail: mcmahon{at}chem.wisc.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Bioinorganic Chemistry Special Feature: The bioinorganic chemistry of iron in oxygenases and supramolecular assemblies.
J. T. Groves (2003)
PNAS 100, 3569-3574
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