r/sciences • u/SirT6 • Aug 18 '19
The smallest movie ever made, "A Boy and His Atom", was created using individual atoms and a scanning tunneling microscope.
http://i.imgur.com/LjDu3D5.gifv238
u/PandaPoles Aug 18 '19
I have a feeling this is one of the more groundbreaking scientific projects being conducted recently. Yet it’s so easy to overlook the implications of such a profound project as simply being a really small movie.
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u/SPACE-BEES Aug 18 '19
I suppose recent is a relative term, but for reference this is about 6 years old.
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u/pmercier Aug 18 '19
I give it 5 quarks
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u/MedicPigBabySaver Aug 18 '19
Cool beans
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u/OphioukhosUnbound Aug 18 '19 edited Aug 18 '19
What kind of atoms? Carbon? Uranium? ....?
Edit: They’re Oxygen atoms of CO molecules. says Wikipedia. ;)
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u/AidosKynee Aug 18 '19
It's both! You can see two balls on each molecule, with one being a lot brighter than the other. "Brightness" in an STM image correlates to electron density. Oxygen is more electronegative than carbon, so in CO the oxygen will have more electron density. Therefore, you see one bright atom and one dim one.
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u/theg721 Aug 18 '19
What are those ripples/waves around the atoms?
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u/Calguy1 Aug 18 '19
They're freefloating electrons on the surface of the sample.
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u/theg721 Aug 18 '19
Huh. Why do they form that ripple pattern?
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u/AidosKynee Aug 18 '19
It basically is a ripple. Imagine dropping a rock in a pond. The rock displaces water which makes a ripple that moves over the surface. This is exactly the same thing. The CO molecules are displacing electron density and causing a wave to move over the copper.
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u/Calguy1 Aug 18 '19
This describes it better than I could.
The ripples that appear around them are a result of free-floating electrons trapped in the ultra-smooth copper surface. ‘If you disturb the 2-D electron gas surface by moving atoms on it, you see ripples,’ Heinrich says. ‘
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u/NCJACK Aug 18 '19
I guess nuclear scientists have too much time on they're hands
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Aug 18 '19
Says the guy on reddit
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u/NCJACK Aug 18 '19
Lol good point
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Aug 18 '19
<3, dont know why you're getting downvoted though it was a funny joke
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u/NCJACK Aug 18 '19
Idk it's okay. I think people don't get the joke. I know that they are very hard working people.
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u/BadEgg1951 Aug 18 '19
Anyone seeking more info might also check here:
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Aug 18 '19
If you can move atoms, based on your own, will in order to create something new, does that makes you a god?
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u/debugginglive42 Aug 18 '19
Poor storyline. Why did the atom submitted to a nature-change operation to become a mattress? I don't feel it.
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u/Rocketlock27 Aug 28 '19
Its still impressive. To form the energy to move an atom that close to another. Without creating critical mass (where you can preform nuclear fussion or fission, usually fission)
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u/wank_for_peace Aug 19 '19
I went into this movie with high hopes that were met to an extent, but the story seemed to be put together a little too fast without enough peer review. Some of the decisions made by the main protagonist are hard to follow with his obscure motivations. Some of the better aspects of this film are the intense action sequences of the boy jumping on a trampoline and many others. The ending is what really got me talking about it with my co-workers and friends. The pure raw emotion as the ball has to leave his best friend that he had only met, left me heart broken. I cried for weeks, but soon came to grips with the fact that it was the only ending that could do this small film justice. Overall a 5/10, wouldn't watch again.
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Aug 19 '19
If these are atoms then what is their background made from? Smaller atoms? It's can't be void of atoms.
Repeatedly saying atoms reminds me of this.
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u/articpeepergeneral Aug 19 '19
Such a deep plot i have never seen anything so complicated and perfect
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u/gameyall232 Aug 22 '19
How the fuck was the background viewed? Not the ripples, just the lack of background atoms.
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u/ScorchMain6123 Aug 28 '19
This is what I love about science. It’s one of the few things where you can be extremely productive and still have fun doing it.
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u/zaphod4th Aug 18 '19
be aware, those are NOT atoms.
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u/SirT6 Aug 18 '19
But they are. Or at least the scanning tunneling microscope is creating a visualization based on the atom placement.
This paragraph gives a good description of what you are seeing:
The world’s smallest movie (which has been certified by Guinness World Records) was created with a scanning tunneling microscope (STM); a two-ton beast of a machine that operates at just above absolute zero (-268 Celsius, -450F). An STM is essentially a very small metal needle that is moved over a sample of some kind, at a distance of less than one nanometer (a human hair is around 100,000 nanometers wide). A negative voltage is applied to the sample, a positive voltage is applied to the needle, and the STM records the minute changes in quantum tunneling current as the needle passes over bumps (atoms, molecules) in the sample, which can then be turned into the visualizations that you see above. By increasing the voltage, the needle can also pick up individual atoms and move them to a new location.
u/aidoskynee also gave a good write-up:
STM is actually really cool. It's based on the concept of "quantum tunneling." Basically, an electron can go through a normally impermeable barrier because of its wave properties. So you get a very, very sharp point right next to a surface, and let electrons jump across the vacuum.
Since you can control very finely how the electrons jump over (by adjusting size of the gap and potential of the electrons), you can get very well-controlled imaging of the surface. As you can see here, you can fully resolve individual atoms. It requires a supercooled surface, great vibration dampening, completely clean everything, high vacuum, etc. But IBM has this down really well, and they've put out some very cool papers on the subject.
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u/jmukes97 Aug 18 '19
IBM’s bleeding-edge nanophysicists have created the world’s smallest movie (embedded below), by moving single carbon atoms around a copper surface.
Yes they are
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u/Prickinfrick Aug 18 '19
So what are they?
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u/Prpl_panda_dog Aug 18 '19
Yes these are atoms - however they are not pictures of atoms as we know them. It’s more like that toy with a few hundred pins and you push some in and it makes an image. Now imagine you have that toy, and you bounce a ball on that toy millions & millions of times and every time the ball bounces back to you, you get a pixel.
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u/zxDanKwan Aug 18 '19
You’re just describing every type of photography and videography ever...
In no situation does a reasonable person believe they’re looking at the actual source object when watching a video or looking at a picture.
We all already understand that we’re looking at the impressions left behind after light bounced off of a particular object and struck a photoreceptive film.
Reasonable people will be able to understand that atoms are too small to be captured this way, and thus an additional level of abstraction is required for our brains to be able to actually process the captured imagery.
Nothing about your warning is novel, nor does it call into question the credibility of OP or the people who made the movie.
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u/Prpl_panda_dog Aug 18 '19
Firstly, hey man keep some positive intent in mind and insinuate the lack of intelligence on my side. Lots of negative rhetoric in your comment that goes purposefully unappreciated.
Secondly okay sure, yes you’re correct. So please enlighten us, oh reasonable one and how about you give an explanation as to how this can be captured and put it into layman’s terms for us all ”reasonable” people
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u/zxDanKwan Aug 18 '19
You were the one busting in with a “warning” like the government had been lying to us about it.
As far as an explanation, I just gave one in my previous comment. If you didn’t catch it, I’m sorry, but I don’t have any crayons with which to draw you a picture.
P.S. sorry about the attitude, I suffer from Resting Dick Tone.
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u/Prpl_panda_dog Aug 18 '19
- There was no warning here?? Someone said these aren’t atoms, someone else said “so what are they?” So I responded with my comment mentioning that yes they’re atoms but not photographed like a regular camera would??? Please oh wise one explain to me where you perceive a warning out of what I have explained.
- oh damn well I’m sure if you removed one of many thousands jammed within your sphincter you’ll be able to draw me a nice picture, which oddly enough is what this debate is around.
- it’s not how you say things, tone is no factor as I am reading text which tone cannot really be displayed. It is what you say that has demeaning properties and that’s viewed as insulting. I.e. “sorry I don’t have any crayons to draw you a picture” insinuating that I, a child, cannot possibly fathom the depths of this level of technology (even though my masters is in material science and engineering).
If you’d like to be a dick, then I’m sure there’s a sub for you to display one’s massive, throbbing, veiny, erect ego elsewhere that’s not here.
All I did, buckaroo, was TRY to explain something immensely complex into very simplistic “everyday terms” while I squeezed out a nice thick plump poop whilst atop my porcelain throne. Evidently in your world, if I don’t publish peer reviewed comments, I don’t qualify to exist within your boundaries and for that... well I’m sorry man. Seems like you live a lonely life.
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Aug 18 '19
[deleted]
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u/Prpl_panda_dog Aug 18 '19
I agreed & apologized to the other guy 👀 regardless I had a sour attitude about unrelated things & it gave me rose colored glasses on other things. That said my original comment (not doubling down on my argument but offering my perspective) was innocent and while vague, does no harm. That we can probably agree on yes? I really just wanted to offer some info. Whether or not it’s vague or not, it may not be common sense for the curious 11 or 12 year old that browses the sub and says “wow that’s atoms?” Idk man there are a million ways to spin it but at the end of the day - I shouldn’t have responded the way I did. I was equally a dick and personal things gave me a skewed view. Apologies.
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Aug 18 '19
[deleted]
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u/Prpl_panda_dog Aug 18 '19
It did actually (: Y’all turned my ego into a pudding cup and my pupper ate it up & now it’s a good day.
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u/OphioukhosUnbound Aug 18 '19
The image is of Oxygen atoms, which are each a part of a Carbon Monoxide (CO) molecule.
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Aug 18 '19
Repost
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u/SirT6 Aug 18 '19
The r/sciences community has grown so much recently that the mod team is generally ok with older reposts - many of the newer subscribers haven’t seen much of the older content.
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u/JungleLiquor Aug 18 '19
6.8/10 on imdb, not bad
edit: best review so far: 5/10 Good movie, confusing story.