Posted on 02/23/2008 5:08:00 PM PST by neverdem
I.B.M. scientists have measured the force needed to nudge one atom.
About one-130-millionth of an ounce of force pushes a cobalt atom across a smooth, flat piece of platinum.
Pushing the same atom along a copper surface is easier, just one-1,600-millionth of an ounce of force.
The scientists report these minuscule findings in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.
I.B.M. scientists have been pushing atoms around for some time, since Donald M. Eigler of the company’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif., spelled “IBM” using 35 xenon atoms in 1989. Since then, researchers at the company have continued to explore how they might be able to construct structures and electronic components out of individual atoms.
Knowing the precise forces required to move atoms “helps us to understand what is possible and what is not possible,” said Andreas J. Heinrich, a physicist at Almaden and an author of the new Science paper. “It’s a stepping stone for us, but it’s by no means the end goal.”
In the experiment, Dr. Heinrich and his collaborators at Almaden and the University of Regensburg in Germany used the sharp tip of an atomic force microscope to push a single atom. To measure the force, the tip was attached to a small tuning fork, the same kind that is found in a quartz wristwatch. In fact, in the first prototype, Franz J. Giessibl, a scientist at Regensburg who was a pioneer in the use of atomic force microscopes, bought an inexpensive watch and pulled out the quartz tuning fork for use in the experiment.
The tip vibrates 20,000 times a second until it comes into contact with an atom. As the tip pushes, the tuning fork bends, like a diving board, and the vibration frequency dips.
A single atom does not roll, and even...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
a very, very, very small pusher
The answer is 3.
Pushing the same atom along a copper surface is easier, just one-1,600-millionth of an ounce of force.
How about gold, which is more conductive than either metal? Gold should take even less force.
The work was done in the Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California.
For those who do not know, IBM started as the Bundy Manufacturing Company in Downtown Binghamton NY at the turn of the century, They then moved to Endicott, 8 miles to the west, at that time a shoe manufacturing mecca. Now the area is uber-gentrified and both Endicott-Johnson and IBM are gone, victims of the irresponsible government of Broome County and the State of New York. It is a d**n shame.
Gold is a good conductor of ELECTRONS, as in electric current. Does that mean it’s a good conductor of ATOMS? Good question. I dunno.
these are the same people who insist that man is descendent from apes, fish, and goo, correct?
it will take them a million years before they understand what it takes for a pregnant woman to give birth.
Isn’t “one-1,600-millionth of an ounce” actually one-1.6 billionth of an ounce?
Can’t these scientists count?
I don't either, I was making a wild guess, based on the shaky idea that there may some similarities.
Did it cross your mind that it might be the NYT with the problem, not the scientists?
What’s your point?
What an atom "is", and What life "is", are blank spaces to science.. Pushing an atom is not pushing little balls revolving around each other.. Thats a mythical construct..
And the earth does "seem" flat from several perpectives..
Dead DNA appears exactly like live DNA...
So many mysterys.. so much that takes "faith".. for humans..
To my knowledge, the answer is 42.
I guess we’re asking different questions.
:-)
they’ve been wrong before.
And they don't have the correct answer now, of that I'm 100% sure, so what?
As our understanding of these things increases, other scientists will say "how on earth could they not understood this or that". And then they will adjust the calculations to reflect the most current state of human knowledge. So what? That's how progress is made. That's how we developed the first atomic bomb.
Rather than come to mock them, why didn't you put in your estimate of how much energy it took?
I suspect it's because you don't know enough to even make a guess. So you are reduced to acting like a screaming monkey, jumping up and down and and shouting "they're wrong! They're wrong".
Maybe you should lay off the halucanogenics. To wit, where did I say anything remotely like that? Because I used the word "wrong" in a sentence, you transalate it that way?
The damndest thing about trying to communicate is the absolute gamut of misconceptions that people who probably watch wayyy too much TV misread into the simplest statements.
The fundamental breakthroughs come from intellect and a bit of luck. Who knows when some everyday event will trigger a thought in a scientists mind that takes him/her down a revolutionary scientific path.
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