Electron filmed in motion

[~enigma~]

Well, I wouldn't get too excited. On the video the reporter said the laser beam "froze" the electron. Just what does that mean?

We have "frozen" electrons into very small & confined places before, but though these situations are small, they aren't confinements to an infinitely small point in space. Thus, it doesn't seem there would be any violation of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

It should also be pointed out that because the electrons were moving around with "along a light beam", as the article states, that this would allow them to be observed in very small regions. This is consistent with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle which states that one cannot know both the position and the speed of a particle precisely.

The devil is in the details. Terms such as "frozen" and "riding along a light beam" don't do a very good job of quantifying things.

Does anyone have a more technical source on this?

If we are looking at a waveform we don't have a pinpoint on the position so why would the uncertainty principle be violated?

 

[MattusMaximus]

If we are looking at a waveform we don't have a pinpoint on the position so why would the uncertainty principle be violated?

That's part of the point of my post - I don't think there's any violation for this and other reasons. But I'd still be interested in crunching any numbers, if we could find them...

 

[shep]

And their proofreaders?



By my calculations that means it takes 25 to 45 minutes for an electron to circle the nucleus.

*cough* That's "ten to the minus 18", not "between ten and 18" MSNBC's page doesn't show it very clearly, though, I admit...

Does anyone have a more technical source on this?

I've tried search Lund University's site for any publicly accessible papers on this but so far, no luck... if anyone does find out what the scientists themselves are saying about this, please post!

 

[Overman]

Can someone please make a Gif of this???

Pretty please??!?

 

[robinson]

 

[Magtor]

I've tried search Lund University's site for any publicly accessible papers on this but so far, no luck... if anyone does find out what the scientists themselves are saying about this, please post!

I googled "elektron" (electron in swedish) and "lund" and it gave me this:
www . lu . se/o.o.i.s?id=708&news_item=2379

a press release can be found here:
www . atto . fysik . lth . se

enjoy

 

[quarky]

I hope that electron doesn't get a swollen head.

(it is special now)

 

[Overman]

[qimg]http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Video/080225/n_boyle_electron_080225.300w.jpg[/qimg]

Robinson Thanks a ton! Any chance you could make a moving gif though? With the motion of the Electron?

 

[robinson]

Yes, but that sounds like work.

 

[robinson]

You can't view youtube? How horrible. You must upgrade your system! How can you not watch youtube? AAAhhhhrrrggg the horror, the horror ...

 

[Belz...]

"Scientists have filmed an electron in motion for the first time ..."

"Using another laser, scientists can guide the motion of the electron to capture a collision between an electron and an atom on film."

You gotta love journalists!

Indeed.

"Previously it was impossible to photograph electrons because of their extreme speediness"

I don't think that's the reason.

 

[Fredrik]

This page seems to be the best place to start for those who want to know more:

http://www.atto.fysik.lth.se/

It's one of the links Magtor posted. I just made it clickable.

Electron filmed for first time ever

Now it is possible to see a movie of an electron. The movie shows how an electron rides on a light wave after just having been pulled away from an atom. This is the first time an electron has ever been filmed, and the results are presented in the latest issue of Physical Review Letters.

Previously it has been impossible to photograph electrons since their extremely high velocities have produced blurry pictures. In order to capture these rapid events, extremely short flashes of light are necessary, but such flashes were not previously available. With the use of a newly developed technology for generating short pulses from intense laser light, so-called attosecond pulses, scientists at the Lund University Faculty of Engineering in Sweden have managed to capture the electron motion for the first time.

 

[B3LYP/CEP-31G(d)]

As a graduate student, I have access to the article in Physical Review Letters through my university. If anyone would like me to email a copy as it is over the 250 Kb limit, simply email me (AWP319@aol.com).

 

[Yllanes]

As a graduate student, I have access to the article in Physical Review Letters through my university. If anyone would like me to email a copy as it is over the 250 Kb limit, simply email me (AWP319@aol.com).

The paper is freely available in the page Fredrik linked.

 

[This Guy]

Not posting this in response to the above post that mention the attosecond. Just wondering is anyone else is as impressed as I am at how short a period of time they are talking about?

From the article -

"It takes about 150 attoseconds for an electron to circle the nucleus of an atom. An attosecond is 10-18 seconds long, or, expressed in another way: an attosecond is related to a second as a second is related to the age of the universe," said Johan Mauritsson of Lund University in Sweden.


My bolding.

 

[robinson]

10^-18 seconds long?

 

[This Guy]

10^-18 seconds long?

yea, but I don't know how to do subscripts (?that's what you show, right?), and apparently the writer of the article didn't either

(I see in your quote the syntax now though. Perhaps I'll remember how next time )

 

[robinson]

I just learned myself. That is a sup script, sub is the lower one.

sup /sup is for higher (add brackets to make it work) like^this
sub /sub is for lower like_this

there is a code to allow you to see that, but I forget what it is!

Quote this post and I think you can see the code.

 

[This Guy]

I just learned myself. That is a sup script, sub is the lower one.

sup /sup is for higher (add brackets to make it work) like^this
sub /sub is for lower like_this

there is a code to allow you to see that, but I forget what it is!

Quote this post and I think you can see the code.

Thanks

 

[Acleron]

Is this a picture of an electron?

From my admittedly poor knowledge of of physics the paper reads as if this a picture of the interaction of the release of an electron with light.

It may be pretty but what does it actually portray?