

Atomic bond types discernible in images - petenixey
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19584301

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superxor
Fc*king paywalls. This is such an amazing article, if only they could not have
paywalls for research articles. Its as if the licenses will make enough money
to fund the research, stupidity I say.

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montecarl
<http://www.filedropper.com/science-2012-gross-1326-9>

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pixie_
you are a king among men.

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raldi
I'd really like to see a labelled version of one of these images.

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delinka
I'm genuinely impressed by this research and would have probably become a
physicist myself if images like this were available when I was in high school.
But I have a nit to pick...

"hexagonal bonds of carbon atoms"

No. Maybe I'm just having an issue with the terminology, but those hexagonal
shapes are not the "bonds" like the ones we'd draw for a molecular shape in
chemistry class. That's just where the orbiting electrons squeeze between the
nuclei. You get these bright lines because electrons' orbital paths are
concentrated in these areas.

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Evbn
Isn't all solid matter surface form just the high probability areas of the
electron clouds?

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lisper
Yep, pretty much.

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clarebear
Does anyone know if the tip carbon monoxide was oxygen toward the probed
surface or carbon? I wonder if using the same atom to probe as be probed is
part of the resolution enhancement.

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dschleef
The tip atom would be oxygen, as CO adsorbs to metal surfaces via carbon-metal
bonding.

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anonymouz
These pictures are simply amazing. It's mind-boggling how far science and the
necessary technology has progressed that we're able to do such a thing.

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dean
Amazing pictures. But not really sure what I'm looking at here. Are those red
spheres meant to be the nuclei of atoms? Are the bright hexagonal lines meant
to be the path of electrons? If so, isn't the nucleus much too large in
relation to the size of the whole atom? Isn't the proportion of the size of
the nucleus to the whole atom akin to the size of a fly in a cathedral?

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ars
It's the size of the electrical field of the nucleus, which is about the size
of an atom (well, as much as you can define a size for such a thing).

The size you are thinking of is the size of the strong force of the nucleus -
a lot smaller.

Atomic particles don't actually have a size - at all. They are entirely empty
space. The only "size" you can define for them is the size of the forces that
act on them, but then you have to say which force you are talking about.

Electromagnetic force, strong force, weak force, gravity and quark force
(gluons), are your choices.

Note that some forces have a distinct "edge", others just peter out - so there
is no real good way of defining the size. Gravity is especially interesting,
because measured by that force objects are huge. But of course gravity has no
edge, so how do you define size?

Probably the best definition for forces without distinct edges is where does
the signal from the force get lost among the noise from other objects? (For
example, the other atoms in a molecule.) That's what you see here - each atom
is visible until the next atom near it is closer.

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anamax
Some IBM group produced images of single and double bonds "pre-internet", or
very early internet at the latest.

I remember thinking how the double bonds looked like the plastic plug-together
model that I had for chemistry class.

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DiabloD3
Why did they choose colors that make it look like a Metriod? Seriously, I
can't unsee no matter how hard I try.

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m-i
Incredible stuff. If this would have been when I was in school maybe I would
have chosen a diffrent career.

