Dft Memes

That special moment when your computational chemistry simulation becomes an exercise in existential despair. Two weeks of your life sacrificed to the VASP gods (Vienna Ab initio Simulation Package with Density Functional Theory), meticulously calculating how molecules stick to surfaces, only for the results to violate every prediction and possibly several laws of physics. Nothing says "reconsider your career choices" quite like watching your supercomputer time produce garbage that would make even Schrödinger's cat play dead for real.

When computational chemists brag about Density Functional Theory (DFT) using electron density instead of wave functions, only to discover the dirty little secret—the density itself comes from wave functions! The cat's shocked expression perfectly captures that moment of existential crisis when you realize your entire PhD is built on a mathematical ouroboros. It's like claiming you don't eat animals while ordering a burger with extra cheese.

The existential crisis every chemistry student faces when they realize their fancy computational models are just glorified thermodynamics equations wearing a tuxedo. DFT (Density Functional Theory) sounds impressive until you strip away the quantum mechanics jargon and find that good ol' Gibbs free energy equation (ΔG = ΔH - TΔS) is running the whole show behind the scenes. It's like spending four years learning advanced computational chemistry only to discover you've been calculating whether reactions are spontaneous the entire time. The astronaut with the gun is basically every professor who's been through this realization decades ago, watching new students discover the cosmic joke of chemistry.