Quote:
Originally Posted by Pleasurepays
thats not true.
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Um yes it is... Not withstanding all the physics books I read and just finishing my 4th quantum theories book I know for FACT it is true.
"...it is actually impossible for anybody to "see" an individual atom since all atoms are thousands of times smaller than the smallest light waves we can see using our eyes... even though they cannot be seen directly with our eyes there is so much evidence for atoms, and we know so much about them, that it is impossible to say they do not exist."
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/newton...ics/PHY118.HTM
You cannot "see" anything smaller than the shortest wavelength of light detectable with the human eye. The shortest wavelength, violet light, is 4 x 10
-7 meters. An atom is about 10
-11 meter. So an atom is 4 x 104 or 40,000 x too small to be seen.
HOWEVER...
There are ways to "visualize" it, like Atomic Force Microscopy. But these are all just measurements converted to computer images, and are not in any real sense "seeing" the atom.
AND
There are imaging techniques such as STM that allows you to see the shapes of atoms, BUT it is determined only by the shape of the electron cloud surrounding it.
So again, at present, no one has ever SEEN an atom, let alone with the human eye. The closest approximation is a mathematically measured computer generated image, representation or model.
I could go on but I am sure you didn't even get through that.