picture of an atom?

Comments

• Reaver4k Trainee in training

  October 2004

  I have seen Pictures of Atoms, it it was on TV:(
• An ex-Squid Elite Ranger

  October 2004

  One of the science journals/magazines will likely show some photos later (you probably wouldn't see too much anyway other than the general "shape" of the atoms; I don't think 0.6 angstrom is fine enough to show the individual particles - much less the nucleus, plus electrons move too fast to show up even if the resolution were fine enough).
• Biggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>

  October 2004

  You won't be able to see individual sub-atomic particles.
• An ex-Squid Elite Ranger

  October 2004

  Like I said...;) You'd need not only much finer resolution, but you would also need a way to "freeze" the particles in place, so to speak. Some researchers have thought of using lasers for this (kind of like using a strobe light for high-speed photography) but no one has figured out an effective way to do it yet, AFAIK.
• Biggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>

  October 2004

  Well part of the problem with using lasers would be that, unless the particles are frozen to near absolute zero, they'd just absorb the energy. I'm not even sure if freezing to near absolute zero would help, but I'm no quantum physicist.
• Bekenn Sinclair's Duck

  October 2004

  Well, then, you're in for a shock... laser beams are used quite often in freezing things down to that level. The idea, if I understood it correctly, is that these incredibly fine laser beams provide a tiny per-atom push such that, relative to each other, the individual atoms move as little as possible.
  
  More [url=http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/bec/lascool1.html]here[/url].