> 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."
Glenn and everyone else, you'll be glad to know that "color" IS a
meaningful concept for atoms. Sodium atoms, for example, are yellow. :-)
(Shine a yellow light on them, they give back yellow photons; shine other
color lights on them, they don't reflect any back (or at least, at much
lower intensity.) That's "yellow" all right!)
Loren Haarsma --- whose thesis project included detecting radio waves
from a single trapped electron.
--------------
(In regards to my signature, Steve Clark shot back:)
> and what did you hear--classical? punk? Rush?
Very boring. All it said was,
"my charge-to-mass ratio is 1.758804786 x 10^11 C/kg"
and I first had to learn to speak its language. :-)
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"Don't you believe in science?" | Loren Haarsma
--007 (_The_Man_with_the_Golden_Gun_) | lhaarsma@opal.tufts.edu