I'll put up the Road Runner and Speedy Gonzalez against that ol' electron any day.

Interesting.  Looks like that was as hard to do as photographing the elusive neutrino.  Now they've done both.

by Sandy Sand (198 articles, 0 quicklinks, 227 diaries, 1548 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Mar 9, 2008 at 3:47:25 PM

  (0+)

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is more than a statement about the practical possibility of filming an electron. There is no such thing as 'the path taken by the electron'. An electron is not like a ping-pong ball only smaller. It doesn't even have its own existence separable from other electrons nearby. Quantum reality cannot even be talked about in the language of our everyday experience.

Physicists can use QM to predict the results of experiments, and that works very well. But the meaning of the quantum world - how we might conceive it - these are question with which physicists and philosophers are still wrestling.

I recommend the book Quantum Reality, by Nick Herbert.

You can't follow an electron with a strobe light. It is not meaningful to say that the electron followed such-and-such a path from here to there. The quantum world really is that strange.

by Josh Mitteldorf (27 articles, 82 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 73 comments [39 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Mar 9, 2008 at 3:50:47 PM

  (0+)

Heisenberg's principle shows that observation of an electron no less photographing it changes its characteristics and renders the information irrelevant.

by John Sanchez Jr. (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 25 diaries, 1791 comments [148 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Sunday, Mar 9, 2008 at 6:44:29 PM

  (0+)

Thanks for the comments. 

If I said the image shows the energy distribution of the electron riding on a light wave, and not its physical representation (as if the human eye could see an electron), would you be more or less willing to say the development is "meaningless?"

I asked one of the US physicists who collaborated on the laser component of the project about how this development might "collide" with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and after several days he hasn't responded.

by Kathlyn Stone (46 articles, 227 quicklinks, 27 diaries, 690 comments [1 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Mar 9, 2008 at 8:30:53 PM

  (0+)

in the advancement of imaging technology. The fact remains, however, that any information about the electron has no meaning because the photons captured to generate the image changed the direction or velocity or energy level of the electron. Any conclusions drawn from that information must be in error.

It is somewhat analogous to examining the structure of a building by demolishing it with dynamite. You may have a very good idea of the type and quantity of materials that it is made of, but you are not likely to get a very good idea of its appearance or purpose.

by John Sanchez Jr. (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 25 diaries, 1791 comments [148 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Monday, Mar 10, 2008 at 8:39:31 AM

  (0+)

RE: "I asked one of the US physicists who collaborated on the laser component of the project about how this development might "collide" with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and after several days he hasn't responded."

According to Heisenberg - in some parallel universe he HAS responded... several times already... or not, depending upon who's looking and who's keeping score.

Thanks for the post.

by mrk * (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 311 comments [12 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Mar 10, 2008 at 9:27:38 PM

  (0+)

Are you as cynical as I read "not impossible so much as meaningless" to be?

The truth is no one knows what the quantum world is any more than the people who made that movie. The impossible, until now, has been the actual, not the artist, visual rendition.

Meaningless is what will they discover; if they knew, it would cease to be discovery.

Clearly, they are on the cutting edge of something; what thing who knows?

Truly revolutionary ideas usually result from the relentless pursuit of some meaningless impossibility.

by Drew Terry (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 28 diaries, 125 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Mar 9, 2008 at 11:03:44 PM

  (0+)

the world was going to hell in a hand basket, they find a way to capture the image of an electron. Why that's simply electrifying.

by James Strait (39 articles, 0 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 193 comments [1 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Mar 9, 2008 at 4:42:45 PM

  (0+)

film at ten angstroms.

by John Sanchez Jr. (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 25 diaries, 1791 comments [148 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Tuesday, Mar 11, 2008 at 8:37:02 PM

  (0+)

Greetings Kathlyn,

Thank YOU for presenting this information.

I think YOU may be interested in a book, The SPIRIT: That Stranger Inside Us,  published by discarnate Jean Emile Charon, on his related work. JEC worked as a Nuclear Physicist - Engineer - Physicist-Theorist and Metaphysicist, and wrote that his last book The SPIRIT: That Stranger Inside Us - originally published in French in 1977 under the title L 'Esprit cet inconnu, along with the corresponding book, THEORY OF COMPLEX RELATIVITY (Théorie de la Relativité complexe, which addresses itself to specialist in Theoretical Physics, with mathematical formulas, 'models', and in the language of physicist) - was his best of the over 20 books that he wrote on the subjects of physics, scientific philosophy and computer science. 

I published a newsletter about this, with more particulars, on February 8, 2006, under the title THE GREATEST SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY OF ALL TIMES!!!

by Rama Demetrius Dyushambee, DD (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 19 comments) on Sunday, Mar 9, 2008 at 5:00:08 PM

  (0+)

I am indeed interested in the books and articles you listed.

Physics and spirituality both intrigue me, particularly where they converge. Physicists for a long time have operated on their own  faith in the existance of protons, neutrons and electrons. I wish more of them were around to see this movie.

While much of physics, quantum or otherwise, is unintelligible to me, still I am in awe of great minds that study and work with it.

I met a quantum physicist who devotes his life to distant healing and writing books about it. That is a wonderful application of science, IMO! 

by Kathlyn Stone (46 articles, 227 quicklinks, 27 diaries, 690 comments [1 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Mar 9, 2008 at 5:21:34 PM

  (0+)

 Man, what a needed relief and breath of fresh air this is. It's just what the doctor ordered to pull me out of a political news induced state of temporary insanity! I am so glad to know that some people just don't give a rat's ass about Barak and Hillary, and are doing the important work that keeps our narrow minded asses alive and provided for. Thank God[sic] for hard, boring science!

by Rick Mason (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 26 comments) on Sunday, Mar 9, 2008 at 7:01:07 PM

  (0+)

What fascinating possibilities that brings to mind. Now to find the proper saddle...

by Rob Kall (952 articles, 4177 quicklinks, 374 diaries, 2087 comments [45 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Monday, Mar 10, 2008 at 6:49:42 AM

  (0+)

nice imagery :-)

by Kathlyn Stone (46 articles, 227 quicklinks, 27 diaries, 690 comments [1 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Mar 10, 2008 at 10:13:39 AM

  (0+)

Beautiful image - regardless of the aforementioned problems inherent in "filming" an electron.

I love the images produced in bubble chambers as a result of particle collisions.

I would recommend the Tao of Physics to anyone with a spiritual interest in our nano-world. And my recent Star Theory posted on this site, too ;-)

by Ferdinand (17 articles, 4 quicklinks, 39 diaries, 259 comments) on Monday, Mar 10, 2008 at 6:28:45 PM

  (0+)

I love the images, too.

Thanks for pointing me toward your articles. Things move so fast here it is easy to miss them.

by Kathlyn Stone (46 articles, 227 quicklinks, 27 diaries, 690 comments [1 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Mar 11, 2008 at 9:28:01 AM

  (0+)

With or without the Uncertainty Principle, the electron is supposed to be a probability.  According to Gell-Mann, Pauli, etc., even Mars is a probability, one we see only due to "decoherence".   But this is not a picture of a probability.  If it is not an electron, these fake physicists commenting here need to tell us what it is.  Telling us that it is meaningless or not what we think it is, is nothing more than propaganda and denial.   The pseudo-philosophy of QED, which is no more than dogma, a continued praying before the gods Bohr, Feynman, etc., hasn't explained anything mechanically.  Telling us over and over that it is disallowed or impossible to explain quantum physics rationally is not scientific in itself.  Why can't we understand quantum physics rationally, or in terms of real mechanics? Because Bohr said so?   You can take his word for it if it makes your life easier, but don't expect me to listen to that rubbish.  These photographs are clear evidence against the Copenhagen Interpretation, and everyone knows that.   Repeating stale old rules based on authority isn't going to change that.

by miles mathis (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 19 comments) on Monday, Mar 17, 2008 at 2:04:30 AM

  (0+)