Atoms in a Crystal...
This is an image of silicon atoms arranged on a face of
a crystal. It is impossible to "see" atoms this way using ordinary
light. The image was made by a Scanning Tunneling Microscope,
a device that "feels" the cloud of electrons that form the outer
surface of atoms, rather as a phonograph needle feels the grooves
in a record. |
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| It had long
been suspected that crystals are made of atoms lined up in
neat arrays. But at the start of the 20th century there was
no way to actually see them. Some scientists thought the "atom"
in physics theories might be merely a sort of abstract device
useful for computations. Einstein's paper gave one of the
first convincing proofs that atoms do exist as real objects.
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Courtesy Synkrotronljus research group, Lund
University.
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