Well, chalk this up to another one of those "the more they test it, the more convincing it becomes". Using field-emission electron microscope, we can now really map the electronic orbitals. And SURPRISE! It clearly matches QM's description!
Quantum mechanics states that an electron doesn't exist as a single point, but spreads around the nucleus in a cloud known as an orbital. The soft blue spheres and split clouds seen in the images show two arrangements of the electrons in their orbitals in a carbon atom. The structures verify illustrations seen in thousands of chemistry books because they match established quantum mechanical predictions.
I'll edit this and put in the exact reference when the paper is out.
Zz.
5 comments:
That's really cool and a clever way to take those pictures.
Man, I really take for granted what incredible times I live. Virtually no humans in history have seen what I just saw.
This brings to mind my middle-school chemistry class in the early 1970s. I read in an issue of Time about how uranium & thorium atoms had been imaged for the first time ever, using electron microscopy.
I told my chem teacher, and he was totally disbelieving. I told him where I'd read it, and the next day he told me that he'd checked it out, and was totally flabbergasted. He had been a lifetime subscriber to the pithy, simplistic myth that "atoms are too small to see, period". It never occurred to him that time passes, progress is made, what was once beyond doubt can be made quaint.
electton orbitals!!
coooool.
That is very cool! Also, I don't know why I've never subscribed to Physics Buzz blog before. Hmm.
ahh... cool...
I think photos and videos are a nice thing how amazing the world can be...
linke this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8wDC429NMM&feature=player_profilepage#t=101
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