• IBM creates an animation out of atoms
    22 replies, posted
[IMG]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/05/01/article-0-1990C7D6000005DC-262_634x356.jpg[/IMG] [QUOTE][URL="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2317604/The-worlds-smallest-film-IBM-reveals-incredible-animation-using-ATOMS.html"]Scientists have taken the idea of a film short down to new levels. Molecular levels. [/URL]IBM says it has made the tiniest stop-motion movie ever - a one-minute video of individual carbon monoxide molecules repeatedly rearranged to show a boy dancing, throwing a ball and bouncing on a trampoline. [/QUOTE] [URL]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2317604/The-worlds-smallest-film-IBM-reveals-incredible-animation-using-ATOMS.html[/URL] video is inside
Atomic porn.
This is why Facepunch needs a Scientific rating.
So this is what scientists do when they are bored.
Coincidentally I'm currently working on my formal scientific report due in for my materials lab this Friday which basically involves me staring at a whole bunch of images from a Scanning Electron Microscope. I'm not staring at anything as small as atoms, but still some pretty interesting stuff. Also, my demonstrator was an immense cunt for this lab. He emailed my whole group the files but they're all named spastically or aren't quite in the right format and it's taking me for fucking ever to work it all out. Back to work. Good going, IBM.
this really reminds me of those early 1920's-1940's stop motion experiments and it's a great feeling
atomic rule 34
[QUOTE=Teddybeer;40487789]They probably pretend to work all day and do things like this. Smart bastard thought we wouldn't notice something so small.[/QUOTE] I tried etching a microscopic drawing of a penis into the sample we were looking at in the lab I'm doing this report for. Didn't quite have enough time, unfortunately :(
SPOOKY SCARY HYDROGENS SEND SHIVERS DOWN YOUR BONDS
[QUOTE=Deprehensio;40487726]Atomic porn.[/QUOTE] Look at these huge round uranium atoms. I wonder if they have any free valence electrons.
[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;40487872]Look at these huge round uranium atoms. I wonder if they have any free valence electrons.[/QUOTE] I'd put them into an excited state if you know what I mean
[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;40487885]I'd put them into an excited state if you know what I mean[/QUOTE] I hope you don't want to excite them enough for them to emit electromagnetic radiation. That would be so dirty.
I didn't see anything in the article about it, how does the microscope work? Visible light?
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/zoZOIA9.png[/IMG] Bite-sized science for Dailymail readers. [QUOTE=Awesomecaek;40487899]I hope you don't want to excite them enough for them to emit electromagnetic radiation.[/QUOTE] I can't wait for that to come to gamma-ray™.
[QUOTE=POLOPOZOZO;40487900]I didn't see anything in the article about it, how does the microscope work? Visible light?[/QUOTE] scanning-tunneling microscope visible light wavelengths are too big
So... based on this, how close are they to building an atomic computer?
[QUOTE=RoboChimp;40488217]So... based on this, how close are they to building an atomic computer?[/QUOTE] Far. Keep on mind they have to do these shenanigans at temperature near absolute zero. Otherwise it would be like attempting stopmotion with cloud of flies on crack.
[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;40488233]Far. Keep on mind they have to do these shenanigans at temperature near absolute zero. Otherwise it would be like attempting stopmotion with cloud of flies on crack.[/QUOTE]Ah ok so what would you estimate, 60 years?
[QUOTE=Durrsly;40487754]This is why Facepunch needs a Scientific rating.[/QUOTE] Aye; a glass beaker with green fluid in it should be an appropriate icon. Either that or the traditional atom symbol with the nucleus and the rendered orbits. Also here's the actual movie on YouTube. To think that an experiment that made the atoms dance is on YouTube of all places. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSCX78-8-q0[/media] So much optical tweezering must have occurred that day.
Someone doesn't know the difference between atoms and fucking molecules.
Oh right, big distinction since molecules are comprised of multiple atoms.
[QUOTE=POLOPOZOZO;40487900]I didn't see anything in the article about it, how does the microscope work? Visible light?[/QUOTE] Electrons accelerated to very high velocities. Just as light exhibits wave-particle duality, matter itself also exhibits wave-particle duality (waves and particles are really just different forms of the same thing I guess). Turns out that the 'matter-wavelength' is inversely proportional to the matter's momentum, so a huge velocity produces a small wavelength (de Broglie wavelength if you wanna look it up). In an electron microscope the electrons are accelerated to such high speeds that their effective wavelength allows us to achieve resolutions smaller than a nanometre (the limiting factor now is the 'magnetic lenses' that are used which currently have a lot of issues with aberrations). Visible light has a wavelength MUCH too large to resolve anything on an atomic scale, and you can't really use low wavelength electromagnetic radiation like gamma rays to probe small structures either because unfortunately the interaction cross section of a gamma ray with atoms in comparison to an electron at high velocities is ridiculously low - gamma rays are just gonna penetrate straight through 99.9999999999% of the time and not interact. Electrons obviously interact much more readily because they're charged and, lo-and-behold, when you get close to an atom it's negatively charged on the outside.
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