Can someone explain this to the uninitiated? I remember when that black hole picture came out, it turned out actually to be: "how this algorithm we invented generates an image of a black hole", so not really a "picture" in the colloquial sense.
Here I'm having trouble understanding how we could actually "record video" of a bond forming and I'm not even sure the words "record" and "video" are what I think they mean. For instance, could the frame rate of our video-recording technology really be high enough to "capture" something that probably happens near-instantaneously? And what "wavelength" is the light used to record these videos -- wouldn't it need to be tinier than the kind of light we usually use, in order to capture atoms? I'm sorry if this is vague, but I don't know enough terms to pose this question rigorously.
I remember in an intro bio class we were shown simulated animations of how reactions occur. For example it depicted molecules floating perfectly and almost intently into an enzyme demonstrating the lock and key model.
The teacher made it point that the animations were not realistic in the sense that there should be a lot more stuff flying around. And a lot more denser and faster otherwise reactions simply wouldn't occur. But that chaos isn't educational to visualize.
So I guess my question is why does it look so neat in this real life video?
Seeing the atoms jump around reminded me that at that scale things don't have definite locations like we'd intuitively expect. It is probably an artifact of the recording though, and not really related to the uncertainty principle. Could we double the framerate to see the intermediate positions?
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 37.7 ms ] threadThis is truly an awesome accomplishment. Hats off to the scientists & engineers who made this happen.
Here I'm having trouble understanding how we could actually "record video" of a bond forming and I'm not even sure the words "record" and "video" are what I think they mean. For instance, could the frame rate of our video-recording technology really be high enough to "capture" something that probably happens near-instantaneously? And what "wavelength" is the light used to record these videos -- wouldn't it need to be tinier than the kind of light we usually use, in order to capture atoms? I'm sorry if this is vague, but I don't know enough terms to pose this question rigorously.
They used TEM for imaging. https://www.umassmed.edu/cemf/whatisem/
Read the article, it didn't capture the minutia of a bond happening, just a few frames of what atoms look like when they do bond.
And the other way 1g of rhenium contains 3234111231049296000000 atoms (3.23 x 10^21).
This experiment is looking at the joining of 2 individual atoms.
It is not as artificial as it appears.
What people see with their own eyes is an image generated by their brain using algorithms shaped by evolution.
The teacher made it point that the animations were not realistic in the sense that there should be a lot more stuff flying around. And a lot more denser and faster otherwise reactions simply wouldn't occur. But that chaos isn't educational to visualize.
So I guess my question is why does it look so neat in this real life video?
Seeing the atoms jump around reminded me that at that scale things don't have definite locations like we'd intuitively expect. It is probably an artifact of the recording though, and not really related to the uncertainty principle. Could we double the framerate to see the intermediate positions?