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25 Feb 08 - 03:13 PM (#2272111) Subject: BS: Photographing the electron? From: GUEST,left handed guitar Is this possible? I just read on the Yahoo news service that scientists have found a way to photograph an electron!!!How can that be??? That's smaller than an atom. I didn't even know we could see a molecule!! Any science geeks out there who can explain this to me? This seems like a development of great importance. (Please don't be offended by my affectionate use of the slang tern:geek- I would be a science geek myself if I could only understand it- but I AM an amateur naturalist, and find this quite a fascinating development). |
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25 Feb 08 - 03:59 PM (#2272148) Subject: RE: BS: Photographing the electron? From: Amos See this article and picture. Excerpt: "The researchers used a planar transducer – basically, a loudspeaker that produces flat, not focused, sound waves – to pummel the whole volume of liquid helium with sound. As each wave overtook an electron bubble, it alternately increased and decreased the surrounding pressure. Under negative pressure, the bubbles expanded to about eight microns, the size of a small speck of dust, then shrank again as the next wave of high pressure washed over them. A strobe light, synchronized to the sound pulse, illuminated the bubbles without overheating the chamber. Running a camcorder in "super night mode," Guo and Maris were able to record the approximately 2,000 photons they estimate were scattered by the expanded bubbles, producing a series of electron-bubble images on each frame of videotape. "The results are very original and really spectacular," said Sébastien Balibar, research director for physics at l'Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, "imaging single vortices of atomic size with a sound wave is an astonishing achievement." To be sure they were seeing electron bubbles and not just trapped dust, the researchers gradually increased the power to the transducer. They detected no points of light at low power and then a rapid increase in the appearance of bubbles at a particular voltage, just as their calculations predicted. Dust particles would exhibit no such threshold. The researchers had planned to introduce streams of electrons into the chamber from a radioactive source, but found that even without a source, a number of electrons could be seen moving through the chamber. Most traveled in a fairly straight line leading away from the transducer, which produces a flow of heat down through the liquid. A few of the electrons, however, followed a distinctly different snakelike path. Maris and Guo hypothesize that those electrons are following the lines of superfluid vortices – a phenomenon akin to a tornado in which the liquid spins at high velocity around a line. "The vortex is like a piece of string running through the liquid," said Maris. "The electron bubble is attracted to the core of the vortex and gets attached to it. It's as though it's sliding down this rope that winds through the fluid." By following the path that the electron takes as it slides along the vortex, the researchers were able to observe vortex lines for the first time. "People never thought it would be possible to visualize the vortex lines," said Guo, "but then, almost by accident, we saw them." " Hope this helps. See also Google Image Search for related links. A |
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25 Feb 08 - 04:00 PM (#2272149) Subject: RE: BS: Photographing the electron? From: JohnInKansas Electron filmed in motion for the first time A link there will let you see a "video of an electron." You can judge for yourself whether to call it a photograph; but in the absence of more information than is given in the "press release" I would take it as a "very loose description" of what (if anything much) was done. The investigators do claim to have been able to produce "attosecond laser pulses" (10-18 second) at high repetition rates, and recorded artifacts with a "camera." John |
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25 Feb 08 - 04:09 PM (#2272154) Subject: RE: BS: Photographing the electron? From: GUEST,lefthanded guitar Well are we seeing the actual electron itself? Or the 'trail ' it leaves? I think this astounding, I truly do. I don't fully understand most of this article, to be honest, but I could see those white blips that I assume are the electrons. (WOW!) When I was a child, the science books said that you could not see atoms, or electrons, and it was long way off in the future til you could look at a magazine to see the place in the galaxy where stars are being born. The future has surpassed itself. It enough to make you stop in the middle of your daily path through life, and contemplate the universe. I cannot say I fully understand this, but it IS amazing. |
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25 Feb 08 - 06:02 PM (#2272248) Subject: RE: BS: Photographing the electron? From: redsnapper You're not seeing the electron itself... rather the artefact it creates, i.e. the expanded bubble. But it does indicate the paths the electrons are following. It is possible now to visualise individual atoms and new ultra powerful microscopes like the recently installed TEAM 0.5 and TEAM 1 (currently being installed) at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory will further improve the resolution possible (0.05nm or half an Angstrom with TEAM 0.5). I work in nanoscience and still find this incredible. RS |
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25 Feb 08 - 06:18 PM (#2272256) Subject: RE: BS: Photographing the electron? From: JohnInKansas The link that Amos posted gives much better detail than the one I was working on when he beat me back. Quite obviously, someone at the source (Brown Univ) knows a lot more about what was done than the "average science reporter" at the other news bits. ... And agreed - it's an impressive bit of work, especially if one believes the "author comment" that it was a holy sh#t! discovery that wasn't really being looked for on purpose. John |
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25 Feb 08 - 06:19 PM (#2272257) Subject: RE: BS: Photographing the electron? From: McGrath of Harlow Any chance of a link to a Swedish video of this, where they don't go overboard with ads for crackers and washing machines at the expense of anything interesting? |
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25 Feb 08 - 06:47 PM (#2272269) Subject: RE: BS: Photographing the electron? From: Donuel I see a cavitation in a liquid due to pressure differences. Propellers do this in water. IF they want to say that this cavitation bubble is the REGION of the elctron that is fine...but it is not the electron. Quantum mechanics is very clear on the subject that you can not ascertain the position of an electron. And furthermore if you try you will change the state of the electron or photon by the sheer act of "looking". |
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25 Feb 08 - 06:52 PM (#2272273) Subject: RE: BS: Photographing the electron? From: Donuel As for filming in attoseconds??? I can't get the video to play. ACK |
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26 Feb 08 - 01:27 PM (#2272851) Subject: RE: BS: Photographing the electron? From: Rapparee The electron, when photographed, shows a smiley face. That's why nobody shows the real photo. |
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26 Feb 08 - 01:38 PM (#2272866) Subject: RE: BS: Photographing the electron? From: Mr Red Thats one hell of a shy electron. I can't see the video and I will believe it when the New Scientist prints it. I am currently about 6 issues behind the curve. And next folks........... the Higgs Boson will dance a pas de deu for you................ |