'Rule of Four' , Molecular Structure , Stumps Scientists.<br />'Newsweek' reports that scientists are baffled by a bizarre <br />"Rule of Four" that has been identified in the basic <br />molecular structure of most inorganic materials.<br />The pattern can be observed in the "unit cell" <br />of the materials, which is the smallest possible <br />repeating section of each molecular structure.<br />Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in <br />Lausanne (EPFL) were surprised to find most of over 80,000 <br />known and predicted materials displayed the pattern. .<br />60% of those materials had <br />a unit cell with a total number of <br />atoms being a multiple of four.<br />The team ruled out the possiblity of <br />a computing bug, chemistry and the energy <br />requirements of atoms to form bonds. .<br />The materials that are most abundant <br />in nature should be the most energetically <br />favored, which means the most stable ones, <br />those with negative formation energy. , lena Gazzarrini, Former EPFL researcher <br />currently at CERN in Geneva, via 'Newsweek'.<br />But what we saw with classic <br />computational methods was <br />that there was no correlation <br />between the Rule of Four and <br />negative formation energies, lena Gazzarrini, Former EPFL researcher <br />currently at CERN in Geneva, via 'Newsweek'.<br />But what we saw with classic <br />computational methods was <br />that there was no correlation <br />between the Rule of Four and <br />negative formation energies, lena Gazzarrini, Former EPFL researcher <br />currently at CERN in Geneva, via 'Newsweek'.<br />Despite being unable to determine why the pattern was <br />appearing, a form of artificial intelligence was able to <br />predict the pattern in materials with an 87% success rate.<br />Despite being unable to determine why the pattern was <br />appearing, a form of artificial intelligence was able to <br />predict the pattern in materials with an 87% success rate.<br />This is interesting <br />because the algorithm <br />uses only local rather than <br />global symmetry descriptors, lena Gazzarrini, Former EPFL researcher <br />currently at CERN in Geneva, via 'Newsweek'.<br />According to Elena Gazzarrini, a former EPFL researcher currently at CERN in Geneva, this , "suggests that there may be small chemical groups in the <br />cells (still to be found) that may explain the Rule of Four.".<br />The team's findings were published in <br />the journal 'NPJ Computational Materials.'
