Re: electron question

From: David Littlewood (david_at_nospam.demon.co.uk)
Date: 03/27/05 

Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 19:18:22 +0100

In article <KkB1e.9896$S46.7154@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net>, Kevin
Cunningham <smskjd@mindspring.com> writes
>
>"tom" <will9198@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
>news:hlz1e.92228$%Y4.35872@bignews6.bellsouth.net...
>> Has an electron ever been veiwed under a microscope? I'm an electronics
>> technician and when I went to school we studied the theory of electricity
>> so I guess electricity was still a theory back then.
>>
>> I'm just kind of curious about electrons. Electrons move so fast that I
>> doubt they have ever been seen but I am just wondering.
>>
>>
>Electrons are way to small. No microscope can see them. The smallest
>resolution is around 1.2 ang. for a transmitted electron microscope and
>thats if you are doing a resolution check. This is way bigger than an
>electron!
>
>Kevin Cunningham
>SMS
>
It's even more messy than that. Electrons do not behave like
conventional "particles", they have some of the characteristics of a
particle (mass, though very small) and some of the characteristics of a
wave whose wavelength varies with the electron's velocity (can show
interference, make images etc.). There is no real way of defining the
position of an electron at any time. Wave mechanics shows that there is
a probability distribution defined by its wave function. Heisenberg's
Uncertainty Principle shows that for such a small entity you cannot
simultaneously define its position and its velocity.

David 

-- 
David Littlewood