A Snapshot of the Inside of an Atom 40
sciencehabit writes "Physicists have, for the first time, been able to image the quantum workings of electrons in hydrogen atoms, an advance that could open the door to a deeper understanding of the quantum world (abstract). Building on a 1981 proposal by three Russian theorists and more recent work that brought that proposal into the realm of possibility, the team first fired two lasers at hydrogen atoms inside a chamber, kicking off electrons at speeds and directions that depended on their underlying wave functions. A strong electric field inside the chamber guided the electrons to positions on a planar detector that depended on their initial velocities rather than on their initial positions. So the distribution of electrons striking the detector matched the wave function the electrons had at the moment they left their hydrogen nuclei behind. There may be practical applications in the future—a commentary accompanying the paper suggests that the method could aid in the development of technologies such as molecular wires, atom-thick conductors that could help shrink electronic devices—but that their result concerns 'extremely fundamental' physics that might be just as valuable for developing quantum intuition in the next generation of physicists."
Nuclei (Score:1)
Don't you mean nucleolus?
MOD PARENT UP! (Score:1)
Correct. This should be "nucleolus"
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
I think you mean nukyueolus.
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The nucleolus is a structure involved in RNA transcription inside biological cells. I am not aware of any use for the term 'nucleolus' in the context of subatomic physics.
Indeed. Unfortunately, there's no moderation option for "WTF are you talking about, you fool".
More apropos of the actual topic, I would remind readers of the adage that if they imagine they understand quantum physics, they probably haven't been paying attention.
Pics? (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Pics? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Pics? (Score:5, Informative)
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Pics or it didn't happen!
Link [aps.org] to the actual artical "Viewpoint: A New Look at the Hydrogen Wave Function" (with pics!) or PDF [aps.org] available.
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So much truer on the quantum level.
Re:Pics (Score:5, Insightful)
...or it might or might not have happened (or maybe both)
Gluons or GTFO (Score:1)
I can tell this is shopped, I work with the periodic table every day
Not good enough. (Score:2)
No, as an engineer, I need to know both what direction the wire is in, and where it is at, at the same time, or game over.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Well it's nice to have just a bit more backup. Break out the quote about science being mostly boring except on occasion when something new is discovered. Which is not always a goal but sometimes a side affect.
Reality Check (Score:1)
Theoretical mathematics is a useful tool for exploring the unknown. But anyone, anyone who has ever been involved in any engineering or practical application projects painfully knows the limitations of theory. The above poster makes it sound like experimental science is dead and all things can be done en silico. This is absolutely not the case. At best, theory can give us ideas about the trends of things. It seldom, if ever, gives the absolute correct physical answer. For example, in the case of quantum mec
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I think the value of practical experiments is that you can mess with them and see what happens.
My understanding of QM and the practical setup of the experiment is too limited to be able to come up with a way to try and tease out some unexpected results, but I hope the people working on this experiment can.
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They mention a tiny screen, I think that's what received the electrons. The image drawn could be as big as they want.
So if matter is a wave (Score:1)
So if matter is really an expression of a wave, let suppose that its a wave in some more fundamental *stuff* we can't currently envisage. So the *stuff* is rippling and where that ripple is large we perceive it to be a particle.
http://i.imgur.com/AUXb2N9.gif
In other words, we can only see the big circles in that picture, we can't perceive the underlying stuff, and these particles do all manner of weird things, jump around, have a certain probability of being found in unexpected places, appear to travel fas
Time is matter and matter is time (Score:3, Interesting)
Watch the appearance and disappearance of the big circles in this picture:
http://i.imgur.com/AUXb2N9.gif
If you could only detect the big circles as matter, then matter is created and destroyed, seemingly randomly jumping around according to some probability function. This is what you see in Quantum Physics models.
Not only that, watch the energy flow, sometimes there are 5 big circles, sometimes 1, matter (big circles) is being 'converted' from energy (the flow) to matter and matter to energy all the time. I