See a single atom in this magnificent photograph

[CesnaPilot]

I get it, it makes you think about the very fundamentals behind photography. But they did it.

[DixonHill]

We need a new word to describe images that are merely graphs of photons… but what would we call it?

[anon75430791]

You say that sarcastically, but little did you suspect I had a topically relevant video clip handy.

[Michael_R_Smith]

@sme

So by your analogy, this is like a picture of the sun that makes it look a thousand times bigger than the entire solar system.

I can take a picture of a star with my phone. The star will be visible in the picture even though it occupies a fraction of a pixel. But I still have a picture of a star.

[Michael_R_Smith]

@Bunbain

simply doesn’t stand if the atom cannot be perceived without the aid of photography equipment.

I don’t think we even know that. The human eye is extremely sensitive, sometimes to individual photons.

[PhasmaFelis]

@sme

You can take pictures of atoms by bouncing electrons off them, but not with visible light.

Good thing no one claimed to be bouncing photons off of it, then. It’s being made to emit photons.

[Bunbain]

On one hand, the article itself states the results are not entirely conclusive. On the other, the famous atom may be emitting a great number of photons.

An earthworm can sense light, but does it “see” in the conventional sense?

Let us suppose that the point of atomic light was unambiguously visible to anyone not legally blind. The next natural question to ask is “what does it look like?” Well, it looks like a point of light, of course, which isn’t very much information. Being able to describe features of an object from a distance is fundamental to the concept of sight.

Are we saying that a strontium atom is blue?

[just_ok]

They’ve had pictures of a quark for quite some time now.

[Sigmund]

@pesco

See the tiny dot in the center of the photo above?

You mean the dead pixel? What about it?

[anon24181555]