Re: How can this be?

TMA asked:
<http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn11272-microscope-discerns-atoms-of-different-elements.html>

With all the confusion and theories about what atoms are or aren't, how can
pictures like this be taken and be referred to as actual atoms?

Chris L Peterson replied:

Why not? What "confusion and theories" are you referring to? No theory
(no credible one, anyway) denies that atoms are physical things, with
physical properties that can be measured. An atomic force microscope is
a device that measures some of these properties, and does so on a
mechanical scale small enough to resolve individual atoms.

OK, OK, but /what/ am I /looking/ /at/ in the referenced photograph?

AFAIK none of the theories says that an atom resembles a cotton ball.
My simple understanding is of a compact nucleus with a quite high
probability that electrons exist at various energy levels -- orbitals
-- surrounding the nucleus in a sphere, and a much smaller, but
non-zero, probability of finding those electron on the other side of
the universe; the electrons are a mathematical abstraction, or so I'm
told -- until we look at them. When we examine the atom (with an
atomic-force microscope, e.g.) the probably smeared-out electrons take
definite positions for the instant of observation and are real, not
just abstractions. Look away, and they become a probability again, no?
I'm asking you, not trying to tell you...

So what is the microscope "seeing?" Physical bumps (atoms) in the
surface of the material being probed? Tiny forces, the topology of
which is defined by the limit of the outermost orbital? Cotton balls?

Davoud

"Don't worry about the projector not working; look away and it doesn't
exist, anyway." -Theoretical physicist, Johns Hopkins University,
addressing the Howard Astronomical League.
.

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