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Microscopy Approaches Fundamental Limits

If God can’t pin down tiny atoms, what hope do mere mortals have?

By Alex Stone
Jun 13, 2007 5:00 AMNov 12, 2019 6:19 AM

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The worst primary-school scolding I ever received was for ridiculing a classmate who asked, “What’s an atom?” To my third ­grader’s mind, the question betrayed a level of ignorance more befitting a preschooler, but the teacher disagreed and banned me from recess for a week. I had forgotten the incident until a few years ago, while sitting in on a quantum mechanics class taught by a Nobel Prize–winning physicist. Midway through a brutally abstract lecture on the hydrogen atom, a plucky sophomore raised his hand and asked the very same question. To the astonishment of all, our speaker fell silent. He stared out the window for what seemed like an eternity before answering, “I don’t know.”

Platinum<a href="http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/the-secret-life-of-atoms#correction">*</a> atoms measuring four-billionths of an inch across | Image courtesy of S.J. Pennycook, A.R. Lupini, G.M.Veith, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
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