
Real-space charge-density imaging with sub-angstrom resolution - bookofjoe
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1649-6
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TheEndless
We can now look at electron closer up.

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throwaway_law
Like all things in physics on its face its easily acceptable, but when you
think about the concept looking at a particle closer up when that particle
takes up no space (I think saying infinitely small is wrong) its hard to wrap
the mind around.

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Filligree
Particules absolutely take up space, but there are multiple incompatible
senses of 'space' you might mean, none of which quite match with intuition.

The closest thing to a "physical size" is probably the typical size of the
wavefunction when arranged in typical fashion as part of solid matter, but
then you have to specify a cutoff point -- "90% of the wavefunction is in this
volume", as 100% would be infinite -- as well as the 'typical fashion'. Free
electrons have far less compact wave-functions than bound ones.

The property that affects things-which-we-would-think-are-affected-by-
physical-size most is the scattering cross-section, however, which is a
completely different concept.

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ncmncm
There could well be a Nobel prize in this. I wonder whether it would be the
Physics or the Chemistry prize.

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stallmanite
Anybody got the sci-hub link?

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kken
You mean the DOI? It's at the bottom.

