

Atoms star in world's smallest movie from IBM - T-zex
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22364761

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mjfisher
The thing I find most fascinating about tunnelling electron microscopes is
those "ripples" you can see around the atoms. Because of the tunnelling effect
that those microscopes rely on, they're actual manifestations of the
electrons' quantum mechanical wavefunctions; the complex waves of pure
probability that are - when you get right down to it - the best answer to the
question "what is an electron made of?" Ripples in probability and a few
associated numbers like mass, charge and spin; that's it. Nothing more. And
you can actually see it in the video.

Very, very cool.

~~~
bane
Yeah, I was going to ask what those were.

If that's the case, it was interesting to me that the waves appeared to
manifest a bit like a standing wave, with regularly repeating, equally
distanced, higher and lower probability/amplitude propagating away from the
atomic groups.

If _that's_ correct, and electron probability wave functions mimic a standing
wave, do different atoms have different standing wave frequencies? Does the
resonance between different elements create any physical properties or predict
anything...like what elements are likely to form a compound or the physical
property of a compound?

~~~
sp332
Yes, great insight! One of the reasons quantum mechanics is "quantized" (which
means limited to certain discrete values instead of being continuous) is that
standing waves are reinforced as particles move around. For example, the
rotational frequency/energy of an electron is limited to integer multiples of
the circumference of the orbit. The "particle-in-a-box" model is the name of
this quantum model. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_in_a_box>

~~~
bane
ah, so is what we're seeing in some sense the energy state of the electron? Or
is it some probability function of what state the electron might be in?

I'm mentally trying to connect this image to modes of a vibrating string [1]

1 - [http://hyperphysics.phy-
astr.gsu.edu/hbase/waves/imgwav/strh...](http://hyperphysics.phy-
astr.gsu.edu/hbase/waves/imgwav/strhar.gif)

~~~
sp332
"The device works by passing an electrically charged, phenomenally sharp metal
needle across the surface of a sample. As the tip nears features on the
surface, the charge can "jump the gap" in a quantum physics effect called
tunnelling." So the image is a map of the probability that an electron will
jump from the scanner to the surface! Check out the "quantum corral" at the
bottom of this page <http://education.mrsec.wisc.edu/Edetc/background/STM/>

~~~
bane
wild, thanks so much for the explanation and great links!

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Patient0
Once you can manipulate atoms directly, I wonder why you couldn't create any
of the following:

\- Tiny self-replicating machines which produce other things to atomic
precision? i.e. Nanobots... which could in turn create:

\- "Surfaces" with "unimaginably high" surface area (due to the fractal
arrangement of atomic height on the surface)

\- "Solids" made out of dense things like 'iron' or 'carbon' and which have a
volume but hardly any mass because there are so many holes (e.g. a 3D
sierpinksi triangle)

... just 'data storage' seems the least exciting application (but then
probably I'm misunderstanding some limitation...)

I'm inspired by this video: <http://vimeo.com/63469979>

~~~
bct
> Tiny self-replicating machines which produce other things to atomic
> precision

Don't expect it to happen soon - we can't even make big self-replicating
machines yet.

We don't even know what machines would look like at such a small scale.
Structures behave very differently than they do at human scale; fundamental
components like ropes, gears and pulleys might not be possible.

And then there's the problem of programming these machines; you can't exactly
put an AVR inside them.

~~~
mikeash
I don't think there's any particular reason to believe that building a large
self-replicating machine wouldn't be feasible with modern technology. It's
just not useful or cheap, so nobody's done it. NASA studied the idea and I
don't think they came up with anything too impossible about it:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clanking_replicator>

From-scratch nanoscale replicators are a whole other beast. However, I think
we can say that we know what they would look like, as we have a ton of
examples from the natural world. Building ones that do our bidding is a bit
tougher, obviously.

~~~
jessriedel
A machine that could build faithful copies of itself using only materials from
the natural environment (i.e. not this
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MolecubesInMotion.jpg>) would be absolutely
revolutionary and would essentially be a completely alien and artificial life
(mutation not being especially difficult to include, and probably difficult to
prevent). It would change the world, because once you have replication you can
piggy back just about any other ability on top of it and do it on a _massive_
scale, no matter how inefficient at the individual level.

I will gladly pay you $100 billion for a self-replicating machine.

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T-zex
I like this quote: "This isn't really about a particular scientific
breakthrough. The movie is really a conversation-starter to get kids and other
people talking about - and excited about - math, science and technology."
Technology gets the momentum once it is demonstrated to be used in some fun or
even crazy ways.

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jacquesm
More atoms starring in movies by IBM (1977):

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0>

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non-sense
It is incredible to think how we can control atoms so precisely! This shows
how nascent this science is and we have to go a long way. Once precise nano-
control becomes more widespread we will see a new wave of engineering
delivering goods that we thought were possible only in movies. At very high
storage densities everyone of us could carry the same amount of data that
powers Google's search engines.

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Toshio
When everything starts to fall apart for your business model of milking your
customers for all they're worth and outsourcing all you can to cheap
countries, have Carrie Underwood sing and make geeky movies about boys playing
with atoms.

