> What sort of "picture" of the atoms in marcasite do you refer to Glenn--are
> they direct images or some indirect visualization such as an Xray
> diffraction? I didn't think that the resolution of electron microscopes was
> sufficient (especially in 1967) to directly visualize atoms. If atoms can
> be directly visualized, it may still not satisfy Comte if he were alive
> today, because he may not accept the existence of electrons and subatomic
> particles unless they too could be seen.
>
> By the way, if the photo you refer to was in color, what color would atoms be?
Just for fun -- and way off topic:
Within the last 10 or so years, it has become possible to trap a single atom
or a single ion, shine an intense laser on it, and see the fluorescence
with the unaided eye. Really.
Time to toss out all those old textbooks and encyclopedias which say,
"It is impossible to see a single atom."
Sodium atoms, by the way, are yellow. (Shine a light on them, they give
back yellow photons.)
Loren Haarsma --- whose thesis project included detecting radio waves
from a single trapped electron.