Intuition could be one of the ab initio methods. No such "ab intuitio"
paper till now. The first to appear should theoretically be signed by
women, because obviously men lack of this faculty of immediate cognition.
Nevertheless, a category of papers in the SDPD-D (Structure Determination
from Powder Diffraction Database) has made use of the faculty of knowing
without rational processes. To obtain them, make a search at :
http://pcb4122.univ-lemans.fr/cgi-bin/perl.exe?iniref.pl
Use the keyword "guess" and you will obtain 15 references in a list of
247 papers up to the 1996 end. Among these, 3 derive from perovskite
so that it is not difficult to understand how they were guessed. There
are 4 phosphates and other materials for which it is not easy to
guess what is under the word "guess". You can find 3 oligothienyl
with up to 30 independent atoms which I would have been unable to
guess. This is larger than the highest number of atoms located
simultaneously by direct methods from powder data up to now (18)
although direct methods should be able in a near future to solve
problems with up to 60 non-hydrogen atoms (synchrotron powder data).
Guessed structures are hard to classify in the SDPD-D, anyway.
Armel ;-)
PS: Some definitions which could help :
intuition
1. a. The act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational
processes; immediate cognition. See Synonyms at REASON. b. Knowledge gained
by the use of this faculty; a perceptive insight.
2. A sense of something not evident or deducible; an impression.
[Middle English intuicioun, insight, from Late Latin intuitio, intuition-,
a looking at, from Latin intuitus, a look, from past participle of intuêrì,
to look at, contemplate : in-, on. See IN-2 + tuêrì, to look at.]
guess (gès) verb
guessed, guessing, guesses verb, transitive
1. a. To predict (a result or an event) without sufficient information. b.
To assume, presume, or assert (a fact) without sufficient information.
2. To form a correct estimate or conjecture of: guessed the answer.
3. To suppose; think: I guess he was wrong.
verb, intransitive
1. To make an estimate or conjecture: We could only guess at her motives.
2. To estimate or conjecture correctly. See Synonyms at CONJECTURE.
noun
1. An act or instance of guessing.
2. A conjecture arrived at by guessing.
[Middle English gessen, probably of Scandinavian origin.]
Armel Le Bail - Laboratoire des Fluorures, CNRS UPRESA 6010
Universite du Maine, Avenue O. Messiaen, 72085 Le Mans cedex 9, France
Web: http://fluo.univ-lemans.fr:8001/