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Old 07.01.2008, 12:36 PM   #99
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob Instigator
Physicists create millimeter sized BOHR ATOM


 

Using laser beams and electric fields, Rice physicists coaxed a point-like, "localized" electron to orbit far from the nucleus of a potassium atom.

Niels Bohr, pre-emminent physicist, offered the first successful theoretical model of the atom in 1913, suggesting that electrons traveled in orbits around the atom's nucleus like planets orbiting a star.
This led to a much deeper understanding of the atom and it's properties and Niels Bohr was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1922 for blowing everyone's minds.

However, his notion of electrons traveling in discrete orbits was eventually displaced by quantum mechanics, which revealed that electrons don't have precise positions but are instead distributed in wave-like probability patterns.

In any large enough systm though, the quantum variables are "smoothed out" and the quantum effects can transition to a "classical mechanics model"

"Using highly excited Rydberg atoms and a series of pulsed electric fields, we were able to manipulate the electron motion and create circular, planet-like states."

the atoms are true atomic giants, with diameters approaching one millimeter.

"Our measurements show that the electrons remain localized for several orbits and behave much as classical particles,"


I just thought this was cool. It shows how both the quantum theory and the classical newtonian/einstenian theory describe the universe equally well, just from two different vantage points.

fucking sweet. thanks for this post.
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