Has the atom been directly observed?

[whitewolfdemon99]

No the atom has never been directly observed because even in a solid the atoms move so fast that the electron microscope(the only thing you can see an atom with) can not look at it long enough for it to observe it suffiecently. We would have to make an object reach absolute zero to observe atoms clearly but that is impossible because their is always a path for heat to follow into the object. Even in empty space it is impossible because heat is transferred by means of a radiation(movement of energy without matter),convection(currents), and contraction(contact) waves.

[Eudes IV]

Miss Boom

I believe the Scanning Tunneling Microscope is the closest anyone's come to 'seeing' the atom.

The rest of it has been directly detected but I don't think it's actually been observed in the visual sense.

I believe the AFM's (Atomic Force Microscope) resolution is higher than the STM's one (not absolutely sure though).

But indeed, I think it's the closest. I'm sure you've already seen this :


It's made with something like 36 atoms of xenon ! But actually, it's not a real image of the atoms, if my memories are good, it's just the cartography of a surface.

Anyways, if you're interested in this kind of things, you should check the wikipedia pages for STM, AFM and Don Eigler (the person who made this IBM thing)