Quantum computing meets the Möbius molecule

Last week, IBM trumpeted its contributions to a rather unusual paper: the production of a molecule with a half-Möbius topology, assisted by an algorithm run in part on a quantum computer. There was, to put it mildly, a lot going on in this paper, and it took a little while to digest. But it’s interesting in what it says about the sorts of chemistry that we can construct with tools developed over the past several decades, as well as how quantum computation is inching toward utility.

But getting the full picture requires about three different stories, so we’ll go through each of them separately before bringing the big picture together.

Orbitals with a twist

Those of you who can still dredge up your high school chemistry lessons probably remember benzene, a six-carbon ring with alternating single and double bonds that kept all the carbons locked into a single ...