Like macro? That's not macro, THIS is macro!

[troypiggo]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1209726/Single-molecule-million-times-smaller-grain-sand-pictured-time.html

I'm speechless.

[iceman]

Wow, that's amazing.

[DJDD]

:thumbsup:
Thanks.


what I find interesting is the shape of the carbon rings. They are drawn as regular hexagons and you are taught that the most stable position is with all sides of equal length and all angles the same; however, this image shows that to be far from reality.

[troypiggo]

At those sort of magnifications, who knows what optical physics come into play. Wouldn't be surprised if some distortions are in there. Macro optical behaviour is different to "normal" shooting distance optical behaviour, and I'd imagine at this scale...

Hang on - we don't know if that shot is flat on. What if the mocule is actually angled slightly so the left end is closer to us and the right end further away. That'd explain it.

I was actually amazed at how closely it resembles the diagrammatic representations. I had always assumed there was some sort of artistic licence involved to get the point across, but this shows it "true".

[Octane]

Troy,

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=49399

:P

Amazing, though. I wonder what's next?

Regards,
Humayun

[DJDD]

it's not optical behaviour but yes, if the molecule were not flat to the probe's tip then that may explain it.

pretty amazing nonetheless. I thought this:
"the researchers replaced the metal with a single molecule of carbon monoxide."
was pretty cool.

[troypiggo]

Aah, sorry Hum. Missed that in the Gen Chat section.

[matt]

I'm a little confused.

I thought the atoms were kept in place by invisible (magnetic?) forces, not actual rods as you would see them in a 3-dimensional plastic model?

But there they are in that picture:shrug:

Am I missing something here?

[troypiggo]

If you're going to get all scientific on me, I'm gonna leave in a huff. Good point, now I'm off to check if it's a hoax.

[troypiggo]

My usual checks for hoaxes didn't turn up anything quick. Did turn up more on the AFM they mention, it does look fair dinkum.

[mithrandir]

Supporting some other IBMers, should I email the guys at Zurich Labs and tell them you think it might be a hoax?

As I said in the thread Humayun mentioned: "Another example of why the money spent on research lets IBM register more patents every year than any other company."

I'm not a physicist (1 year at uni), so take the following conjectures with a grain of salt.

Atoms are orders of magnitude smaller than visible light. The Van der Waal radius of carbon is around 170 picometres versus 380 to 750 nanometres.

How do you hold a molecule still while you take its picture? I'd guess that quantum scattering and vibtrations produce the fuzziness, even at the temperatures they are using. If the molecule is not square on, it is probably only something of the order of .1 Angstrom off.

Love to see someone try to get their images that flat.

[troypiggo]

I don't understand what your point is. Are you agreeing with me that it's probably fair dinkum, or are you saying it's not?

[mithrandir]

I'm saying it is real.

No way IBM would let their name be mixed up in a scientific hoax.

[troypiggo]

Ah, I see.

I thought you may have been a little sarcastic (like I often am). eg Microsoft would not like their name mixed up with hoaxes, but there's plenty of hoaxes about MS.

[mithrandir]

Don't start me on M$. They've been conning people into thinking they can write software for years. Every good program they supply, they bought the company that wrote it and rebranded it. E.g. Visio and SysInternals.

[troypiggo]

I don't want to get off topic, but...

MS are not alone amongst big corporations absorbing smaller ones, yet they seem to be the ones that cop most flak for it. Don't get me wrong, I'm no MS fanboi. I run Windows, Linux, and as of 2 days ago Mac, all alongside each other and they're all great. I'm also an advocate of open source and free software. But I don't agree with MS bashing because they're a massive company who buys out smaller ones. That's progress. That's life.

Sysinternals provided free software. They were bought out. They got rewarded well, I'm sure.

[TJD]

no compotition to see whats closer:P

[MrB]

Not every.... just recently MS lost a court case and have to pay $500 million to an Australian company for stealing the code they use to try stop multiple copies - the hardware fingerprint or whatever its called.

There was an interesting Doco on ABC about it last week, think it was Australian Story.

Ofcourse, MS are appealing the decision.

Edit: Yep, Australian Story, full episode available here:
http://www.abc.net.au/austory/specials/thebigdeal/default.htm