Physicists Observe Electron Ejected from Atom for First Time

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base ^ | September 28, 2010 | Maria Callier

[decimon]

Pulsating ping.

[Talisker]

Single-atom assembly engineering.

Now THAT’s cooking!

[east1234]

Interesting, but why the hell is the Air Force spending money on this research?

[Mr. K]

Ok here’s one for the scientists here...

if an electron can only occupy certain valence shells within an atom, and ‘jumps’ from one quantum level to another, then what happens to an electron freed from an atom?

is it able to move without dissapearing at one place and reappearing at the next?

or does it become more of a wave when traveling? (wave/particle dual nature)

[The Cajun]

Damn, no picture at site. Willing to bet that sucker was hauling. Probably was just a pic of the aftereffect on the atom.

[Constitution Day]

Amazing! Thanks.

[evets]

Here's a diagram explaining the scientific concept.


... You're welcome.

[ComputerGuy]

The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.

Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg

[GeronL]

lol

[The Comedian]

Atto-boy! ping.

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[Red_Devil 232]

"... one attosecond is one billionth of one billionth of a second ..."

How do they know?

[Oberon]

...a laser pulse that lasts less than four femtoseconds (one femtosecond is one millionth of one billionth of a second)

Here's a question: How long, in inches, is that pulse of laser light?

[EvilOverlord]

My understanding, not being a professional physicist, is that the electron is confined to one of several energy levels when it is bound to the atom. Applying enough energy to free the electron (known as the 'work function'), allows the electron to have any energy level, and can move freely.

Free space is essentially a continuum of an infinite number of very closely spaced energy levels that the electron can occupy.

An electron is a wave function when bound to the atom. It has no single position, but appears as an 'electron cloud' around the atom. The electron may appear to be a particle, or a wave, in free space, depending on its interactions with other matter, energy, and observers. It's always a particle and a wave. It's called wave-particle duality.

[ComputerGuy]

I’ll betcha it ain’t very far.

[decimon]

"... one attosecond is one billionth of one billionth of a second ..."

How do they know?

The answer takes too long. ;-)

[3niner]

Here's a question: How long, in inches, is that pulse of laser light?

About 0.00005 inches.

[whd23]

Post pics or it didn’t happen

[antiRepublicrat]

Here's a question: How long, in inches, is that pulse of laser light?

Thanks to Grace Hopper, I know a nanosecond of light is just under a foot long. A nanosecond is a billionth of a second, so this would be just under 1/250,000th of a foot, or 0.0000472 inches.

[MarkL]

Here's a question: How long, in inches, is that pulse of laser light?

It depends on whether it's being measured by a man or a woman!

Mark