viewing atoms up close (what other way would you view them?)

[ProdigalJunkMail]

sounds cool...

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/09/21/electronmicroscope.ap/index.html

Scientist are getting a good look at individual atoms...no pics for us though...

theProdigal

[Squeech]

1. Least they can do is provide pictures

I remember when I was a kid, there was a report on something called the Field Ion Microscope, and the story came with a picture taken with that microscope of individual uranium atoms! They were just weird blobs, out of focus, against a featureless background-- and of course uranium is the biggest naturally-occurring atom there is. But even so, I was thrilled!

What with all the aberration correction and whatnot, it's a question whether we're actually "seeing" atoms or inferring their presence and/or structure, and computer-enhancing the results...

[ProdigalJunkMail]

3. pictures would be great

I remember looking at a mercury atom several years ago...that was cool, but unfortunately it was as you described (fuzzy and such). Hopefully in the future, as the technology improves, we will get a clearer picture of the outer electron shells...

theProdigal

[ladjf]

2. That's where the answers are, at the atomic level.

[Donkeyboy75]

5. What answers?

Will it reveal who killed Laura Palmer?

[ProdigalJunkMail]

6. it's where the WMDs will be found?

I guess...it really COULD be :-) :nuke:

theProdigal

[ladjf]

7. The answers to what makes things happen.

[BlueJazz]

4. Have they found an "EVE" yet??

Heh...Heh..Heh.... :)

[Magrittes Pipe]

8. Wall him up inside the abondoned coke oven!

[DrWeird]

9. Of course, scientists have been imaging atoms for years now.

Via scanning tunneling microscopy. It's not just "simulation", but images of actual atoms.

But this is cool too.

Just thought I'd interject a fact or two for the functional scientific illiterate.