Wikipedia:Picture peer review/Molecular gyroscope

Molecular gyroscope


I am nominating this image because it nicely illustrates how molecules can be synthesized to mimic macroscopic objects. In this case a chlorine ion is bound within one macrocycle that is bound within a second larger macrocycle. The entire complex resembles a gyroscope, but is only about 2 nanometers wide. It was synthesized by Day and coworkers. The image was created using the X-ray crystal structure data that they reported in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., year 2002, pp 275-277. It is beautiful example of a sophisticated molecular structure that can be created by employing supramolecular chemistry. The image appears in the supramolecular chemistry and cucurbituril pages, and I created the image.

Comments:
 * Nominated by: M stone 20:33, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I also don't know if .png is the best format for this image. However, I don't think that this image contributes very much to either of the articles that it is in.  It seems that maybe Day et al would have appreciated this as an image for their article, but this image doesn't illustrate the Wikipedia articles it's in any better than the images that were already  there.   It is a pretty 3-D chemical structure, but I don't think it's going to be a featured picture.  Enuja  (talk) 20:07, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * In defense of the "illustrative" value of the picture, I think that it does significantly contribute to host-guest chemistry and applications sections of the cucurbituril article. The primary difficultly with describing supramolecular structures is their representation.  Most chemical structures can be understood from two dimensional drawings, however, the three-dimensional shape and size of molecules is crucial to understanding their supramolecular properties.  In this case the image illustrates one of the challenges that was faced in the isolation of cucurbit[10]uril, which is that cucurbit[5]uril (also generated during its synthesis) is an almost a perfect guest for its cavity.  A process was developed by Isaacs and cooworkers to isolate pure cucurbit[10]uril that employed a competitive binding technique.  Once obtained in its pure form the enormous cavity of cucurbit[10]uril (870 cubic angstroms) has been demonstated to be capable of binding much larger guests then most other molecular hosts.


 * Also to my knowledge this would be the first featured picture illustrating real molecules, which would make it rather unique. M stone 21:38, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, I really don't know what you mean. This image isn't even in host-guest chemistry.  There is nothing in the text of the applications section of cucurbituril that mentions this molecule.  In supramolecular chemistry, there are five other images (apparently, all made by you) that are described as representations of real molecules.  In cucurbituril, there are two other images (one of which is also in supramolecular chemistry, and, again, all made by you) that also show real molecules.  Your comments on this peer review page tell me much more about the importance and give this image much more encylopedic value than the articles the image is in.  Editing the articles to describe issues of isolation that this molecule helped solve and adding other relevant facts would probably greatly increase the encylopedic value of this image.


 * The overabundance of images is to your credit, and maybe you should nominate all of these images, but I don't think the one you nominated is the best of them.  If you upload the images in .svg format, resolution is not relevant.  Enuja  (talk) 01:54, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the feedback. My motivation for selecting this particular image was atheistic.  I guess that I had not adequately considered the “encyclopedic value” of the image.  I would like to create svg images, however my version of photoshop does not give the option to save images in this format.  Can you recommend the easiest (preferably free) program to create svg images? M stone 04:16, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * AFAIK no version of Photoshop does svg. A popular and apparently very good program for making svg files is Inkscape (not that I've ever used it myself). And yes, it's free. --jjron 07:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Seconder:
 * Clear, illustrative, and interesting. But can someone comment if .png is the right format? --Malachirality 18:45, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, overlooked this comment. I'd say it needs to be svg - I suspect it would get a hard time if nominated as png (maybe someone like Jeff Dahl could convert it?). --jjron (talk) 08:15, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I've never tried to do chemical structures as vectors before, least of all 3D structures. I've used several 3D molecular modeling programs, and none of them will export to SVG or make vector images. They will export to a file with cartesian coordinates, but I have no idea how those might be converted into an image with a 2D vector editor. The best solution I can come up with is to simply redraw them. Fortunately, most chemical structures consist of very simple spheres and tubes which are easy to draw and replicate, but the deeper the 3D goes the harder it is to draw using a 2D editor. Aspirin wasn't too tough, but your cucurbituril is a lot more challenging. Forget about doing proteins this way. If you can send me a .mol file or some .pdb coordinates, I might be able to have a crack at it; hopefully drawing the structure won't be as tough as actually synthesizing the molecule. Jeff Dahl (Talk • contribs) 06:20, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I appreciate the offer to redraw the structure, however I have investigated the matter further and I do not think it is necessary. I think that the png format is the correct format for 3D molecular images and have I found two previously “featured pictures” of molecular models that used a png format.  I have also expanded the cucurbituril section illustrated by the image that clarifies the importance of the crystal structure.  I would like to officially nominate the image.  Could someone help me with the process?[[Image:Eight_Allotropes_of_Carbon.png|100px|center]][[Image:Types of Carbon Nanotubes.png|100px|center]]

Nominated at FPC on 13/12/2007 as Featured picture candidates/Molecular gyroscope. --jjron (talk) 07:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

