When Electrons Go Wild!

SunnyD

Belgian Waffler
Jan 2, 2001
32,674
145
106
www.neftastic.com
I assume that's likely a very heavy atom with tons of orbits? Otherwise I'm not quite sure what's being seen there. And you can't really see anything "orbiting" either.
 

Analog

Lifer
Jan 7, 2002
12,755
3
0
I'm not sure what the video is really showing. But according to the uncertainty principle, we cannot both know the velocity and position of an electron. So what is this? Is it violating the uncertainty principle? The text doesn't clearly define this.
 

Canai

Diamond Member
Oct 4, 2006
8,016
1
0
Originally posted by: zoiks
Originally posted by: Tiamat
Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
shens. the atom is flat.

shens, coran doesnt say anything about atoms.

The turah or bibble doesn't either.

Well, all three of them are flat, right? I think it seems kind of obvious... Everything is flat!
 

Foxery

Golden Member
Jan 24, 2008
1,709
0
0
Check out the rest of the site - it's all doomsday, UFOs, and conspiracy theories. Gonna have to say the electron video and whole article are complete BS.

It doesn't even make sense...
 

kinev

Golden Member
Mar 28, 2005
1,647
30
91
[Professor Farnsworth] No fair! You changed the outcome by measuring it!! [/Professor Farnsworth]
 

BrokenVisage

Lifer
Jan 29, 2005
24,770
12
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Originally posted by: Foxery
Check out the rest of the site - it's all doomsday, UFOs, and conspiracy theories. Gonna have to say the electron video and whole article are complete BS.

It doesn't even make sense...

:roll:

Look at what else doesn't make sense.
 

soydios

Platinum Member
Mar 12, 2006
2,708
0
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shens.
it would violate uncertainty theory, and electron orbitals as far as we know are not concentric circles.
 

Evadman

Administrator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
Feb 18, 2001
30,990
5
81
Originally posted by: soydios
shens.
it would violate uncertainty theory, and electron orbitals as far as we know are not concentric circles.

I think that is one electron, not a bunch orbiting something.
 

DrPizza

Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
Mar 5, 2001
49,606
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I really doubt it's a video of electrons. For one thing, the electron is too small to be seen. (I know what you're thinking - well, duhhh), but it's too small to be seen with visible light. If you think of white light using the particle idea - that it's a bunch of photons, you can imagine that when you look at an object, billions upon billions of different colored ping pong balls are bouncing back. If the object is "blue", it absorbs most of the ping pongs and reflects back the blue ping pongs, which your eye receives and decodes. Except, looking at electrons using this idea would be more like trying to view a butterfly by bouncing different colored buick skylarks off it. Even if you could detect the deflection of the cars, you still wouldn't be able to see any details.
 

silverpig

Lifer
Jul 29, 2001
27,709
11
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Originally posted by: soydios
shens.
it would violate uncertainty theory, and electron orbitals as far as we know are not concentric circles.

No it wouldn't.

Each image in that frame contains position information only.

We know what electron orbitals look like. Those could be the l = 0 states (no angular momentum) which are spherical and concentric.

And I'd really not call shens on something that was published in PRL

This is the first time an electron has ever been filmed, and the results are presented in the latest issue of Physical Review Letters.


edit: I haven't read the paper, and don't have easy access at home (I'll read it tomorrow at work), but that might not be an electron on an atom. It could be just the electron itself and the rings are a diffraction pattern. I'm just guessing as to what it really shows until I read the paper of course.


edit2: Another quick summary for the shens-callers: summary @ PRL


and a source:

Coherent Electron Scattering Captured By an Attosecond Quantum Stroboscope
J. Mauritsson, P. Johnsson, E. Mansten, M. Swoboda, T. Ruchon, A. L´Huillier, and K. J. Schafer
Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 073003
(issue of 22 February 2008)
 

Rubycon

Madame President
Aug 10, 2005
17,768
485
126
Originally posted by: DrPizza
I really doubt it's a video of electrons. For one thing, the electron is too small to be seen. (I know what you're thinking - well, duhhh), but it's too small to be seen with visible light. If you think of white light using the particle idea - that it's a bunch of photons, you can imagine that when you look at an object, billions upon billions of different colored ping pong balls are bouncing back. If the object is "blue", it absorbs most of the ping pongs and reflects back the blue ping pongs, which your eye receives and decodes. Except, looking at electrons using this idea would be more like trying to view a butterfly by bouncing different colored buick skylarks off it. Even if you could detect the deflection of the cars, you still wouldn't be able to see any details.

Yeah it looks like someone took apart their PS3 and got fingerprints on the bluray laser pickup collimator when they projected it on the wall. :laugh:
 

nonameo

Diamond Member
Mar 13, 2006
5,949
3
76
Originally posted by: Canai
Originally posted by: zoiks
Originally posted by: Tiamat
Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
shens. the atom is flat.

shens, coran doesnt say anything about atoms.

The turah or bibble doesn't either.

Well, all three of them are flat, right? I think it seems kind of obvious... Everything is flat!

My coke is flat :(

edit: so is my butt :(
 

Fenixgoon

Lifer
Jun 30, 2003
31,493
9,822
136
so if i interpreted the news article correctly.. that movie is showing the change in energy distribution of a single electron (or is it an atom?) as it is hit by light.
 

silverpig

Lifer
Jul 29, 2001
27,709
11
81
Originally posted by: Fenixgoon
so if i interpreted the news article correctly.. that movie is showing the change in energy distribution of a single electron (or is it an atom?) as it is hit by light.

From what I get from the story they are showing the point at which an electron leaves an atom can be changed by changing the timing between laser pulses. What you are looking at is an image of recorded positions of electrons hitting a detector. When the images shifts, that's indicating the point at which the electron leaves the atom is shifting.
 

Eeezee

Diamond Member
Jul 23, 2005
9,923
0
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That would have to be one amazing instrument. The article claims that this is a bound electron - how about a picture of the nucleus? I'd be just as interested in seeing that, and the nucleus doesn't move around quite as much.

I'm not sure how one would even take a digital picture of an electron. That would have to be an experiment that is beyond anyone on this forum (ie someone's thesis topic). I'm not going to cast doubt on this video just yet, since I can't claim to understand the experimental techniques used (they would have to be something beyond normal photography, obviously)
 

Eeezee

Diamond Member
Jul 23, 2005
9,923
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0
Originally posted by: silverpig
Originally posted by: Fenixgoon
so if i interpreted the news article correctly.. that movie is showing the change in energy distribution of a single electron (or is it an atom?) as it is hit by light.

From what I get from the story they are showing the point at which an electron leaves an atom can be changed by changing the timing between laser pulses. What you are looking at is an image of recorded positions of electrons hitting a detector. When the images shifts, that's indicating the point at which the electron leaves the atom is shifting.

But then that's not really a movie of an electron at all, but rather a video of a change in detection position. This is a fine experimental method, but I think the title of the video is a bit misleading.

This would be like claiming that a video of a person's footprint in the sand is a video of the person (obviously a person was there, but you've just taped the consequence, not the actual person)
 

silverpig

Lifer
Jul 29, 2001
27,709
11
81
Originally posted by: Eeezee
Originally posted by: silverpig
Originally posted by: Fenixgoon
so if i interpreted the news article correctly.. that movie is showing the change in energy distribution of a single electron (or is it an atom?) as it is hit by light.

From what I get from the story they are showing the point at which an electron leaves an atom can be changed by changing the timing between laser pulses. What you are looking at is an image of recorded positions of electrons hitting a detector. When the images shifts, that's indicating the point at which the electron leaves the atom is shifting.

But then that's not really a movie of an electron at all, but rather a video of a change in detection position. This is a fine experimental method, but I think the title of the video is a bit misleading.

This would be like claiming that a video of a person's footprint in the sand is a video of the person (obviously a person was there, but you've just taped the consequence, not the actual person)

They're taking a video of the quantum state of an electron in a helium atom. Sure different electrons are invovled, but because they're identical, and come from the same state, it's fine to say this.

A better analogy would be to say I made a movie of you walking to work by taking one picture of you a day. The first one is of you leaving your front door, then the next day I take a picture a second after you leave your front door. The next day I take a picture of you 2 seconds after leaving your door etc, then build them up into a movie. You're the same person every day, and electrons don't wear clothes, so by doing this I could make a movie of you walking to work.