Molecule actually "seen" with a microscope.

[keyser28146]

Figured there were a few more science heads like me on here...

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

[Rommel]

'If you think about how a doctor uses an X-ray to image bones and organs inside the human body, we are using the atomic force microscope to image the atomic structures that are the backbones of individual molecules,' said IBM researcher Gerhard Meyer.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...#ixzz0PdiOvmNF

In other words, they're not actually "seeing" the molecule (Or I have a different concept of what the verb "seen" means). I will go on a limb and say that it's physically and mathematically impossible to see a molecule directly through a microscope without using some sort of light refraction method like the one they used here. The electrons are simply moving too fast I think. I'm just guessing, since I quit my chemistry major (Boooo :( ). Maybe if they managed to reach absolute zero temperatures, but then, wouldn't the molecule fall apart due to lack of energy?

If I happen to meet my old Quantum mechanics teacher, I'll ask him.

[keyser28146]

I could be mistaken, but the "absolute" in absolute zero means that all vibration BETWEEN atoms/molecules would cease to exist... but I don't think this applies to forces inside the atomic structure. Again, not something I've looked too deeply into theoretically, and I'm several years out from practical study, but I don't recall any change from temperature affecting atoms themselves (other than vibration and thermalization of radioactive particles in pressurized water reactors). The collisions between subatomic particles seem to be the largest change in energy states of excited electrons, where lots of features of molecular bonding change wildly depending on temperature... like allotropic phase transformation in welded materials for example.

It's pretty impressive they have gotten to the point of being able to zero in on the individual fields of a singular molecule though, even if it's not like a "color snapshot", but then again light is a form of EM radiation, so I think it's pretty amazing it's come this far. It's almost like the stuff I used to consider as impossible to fathom is becoming a tangible reality.

[Rommel]

You seem to know more about it then me, so I'll take your word for it. :p

Still, if I bump into my nerdy teachers, I'll ask them.

[FunkyFaulc]

Seeing in microscopy is pretty non-existent once you get down to electron microscopy or below. Even an image aquired by electron microscopy isn't really an image of the actual point of interest (a virion, protein, etc) it's the imprint it makes against the medium coating the sample (gold dust is commonly used).

I haven't heard of this new technique, but I'm sure you can find something about it on the internet. My first inclination is that the "tuning fork" is essentially an ultrasound at the nanomolecular level (just my own estimation of how it MIGHT work).

[keyser28146]

@Rommel

...and funky knows more about it than me, so I'll take his word for it :)

[Rommel]

Well, Funky is looking at me with some weird eyes and keyser is pointing a gun at me. I'm afraid to even say anything.

Anyways, I found a good description of how the microscope works:

[...] Another, called atomic force microscopy (AFM), measures the attractive force between atoms in the probe and the target. The image is created by bumping the probe over the atoms of the molecule – much in the way we might feel our way around in a dark bedroom.
[...]
Leo Gross and his colleagues at IBM in Zurich, Switzerland, modified the AFM technique to make the most detailed image yet of pentacene, an organic molecule consisting of five benzene rings (see picture).
[...]
The researchers measured the repulsive force the probe encountered at each point, and from this they could construct a "force map" of the molecule. The level of detail available depends on the size of the probe: the smaller the tip, the better the picture.

LINK: http://www.newscientist.com/article/...s-at-last.html

So it wasn't light (and it wasn't sound). LOL.

[FunkyFaulc]

All this Force talk makes me want to spare with a lightsaber and toss someone around in the Force Unleashed.

[keyser28146]

Word up.

[RaTix]

Regardless of how they did it, it's pretty amazing to see the structure of a molecule like that through anything. Maybe they'll be able to find midichlorians now and realize the force truly is strong with me.

Slightly off topic Q, well not really, they mentioned using this technology to help with nanotechnology. But anyway, if they create nanobots and your body is "infected" with them in some way.. Can you stun yourself with a taser to short circuit and deactivate them? Just planning ahead for the Borg invasion.

[keyser28146]

Or an EMP blast? Do you piss the dead ones out? What if they become self aware? Skynet in your brain?

[Rommel]

I thought we were all asleep in a giant Matrix and this was just a dream. I need to take my pills.

[keyser28146]

Dude, you know, I watched They Live this week (first time in years) and was blown away at how much of The Matrix had similarities to it...