New Insight into the Chemistry of Solvents

[jedishrfu]

TL;DR Summary

The notion of opposite charges attract and like repel has to be modified when dealing with certain types of solvents where like charges may group together.

https://www.newsweek.com/basic-principle-physics-wrong-oxford-university-scientists-say-1874984

Opposites charges attract; like charges repel" is a long-held fundamental principle of physics that you might have heard at school, but your teacher may have been wrong.

Researchers from the University of Oxford's chemistry department found that like-charged particles submerged in solutions were able to attract each other from long distances, depending on the solvent used and the sign of the charge.

...

The study has been published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

 

[sbrothy]

I must admit I'm as skeptic as @Bystander. To be honest it almost sounds to me like homeopathy. Then again what do I know...?

Being published in a respected journal is no guarantee anymore, is it? Was it ever?

EDIT: Then again I could of course have read the article before proffering my meaning, I apologize.

 

[Bruzote]

The headline and claim that opposites don't always attract is clickbait. The particles still exhibit repulsive force. The solvent is doing it's own work and bringing them together.

 

[Bruzote]

I must admit I'm as skeptic as @Bystander. To be honest it almost sounds to me like homeopathy. Then again what do I know...?

Being published in a respected journal is no guarantee anymore, is it? Was it ever?

EDIT: Then again I could of course have read the article before proffering my meaning, I apologize.

It's clickbait. You didn't miss anything in the article. In a particular solvent, it is more energetically favorable for the solvent to move like charges closer together. The charges are still repelling each other, of course.

 

[DrDu]

If you consider the electron gas as a solvent for the positive ionic cores in a metal, the Cooper mechanism in superconductors is just of this form