Catch Me If You Can?
In the world we seem to be able to measure almost anything. We can measure
the distances of galaxies, and the distance to the moon accurately. Even very small
objects can be measured accurately. Light microscopes can magnify up to one
thousand times. Transmission electron microscopes can magnify an amazing one
hundred thousand times. The transmission electron microscope (TEM) operates on the
same principles as the light microscope but uses electrons instead of light. What you
can see with a light microscope is limited by the wavelength of light. TEMs use
electrons as a "light source" and their much lower wavelength makes it possible to get
a resolution a thousand times better than with a light microscope. These microscopes
can view details in living cells and even objects close to atomic level.
But what happens when you start to look closer. Why not a million times
magnification or one hundred million times magnification? Even with the tiny
wavelength of an electron compared to that of a light wave, it is still to large to view
such small scales. But what if one were to have the perfect microscope?
The world on very small scales, down to atomic level, gets very strange.
Particles can no longer be viewed as sphere like objects, but rather a wave. It is hard
to imagine a particle as a wave. This matter wave can be thought as a probability
wave governing its position at a given time. The electron could be here at one time or
there at another. It is more probable, for a hydrogen atom, for the electron to be in
orbit than to have left the atom. But it is not impossible for this to occur. One can
never know an electron’s exact position at one time but can give a probability of it
being in a region.
Just as it’s position cannot be exactly known, nor can its momentum. These
two are linked in a very unique way, as discovered by Werner Heisenberg in 1927.
The smaller you confine your region in space and start to pin point the electron, the
less you will know about it’s momentum. But if you know more about the electron’s
momentum you will know less about it’s position. These two uncertainties multiplied
together give a constant. This constant is extremely small. This means the uncertainty
principle governs the observable nature of atoms and subatomic particles while its
effect in the macroscopic world is negligible and can usually be ignored.
It is important to understand that this is part of the universe. It is not the fact
that by measuring the position affects the momentum in anyway. With Heisenberg’s
uncertainty principle, it can be shown that an electron in an atom will not exist inside
the nucleus. By shrinking the volume of where an electron can be found to the size of
the nucleus its energy exceeds a thousand times that of nuclear reactions. This makes
it impossible for the electron to exist other than in an orbit, and shows what a
remarkable principle this really is.
522 Words
Aiden Dunne
Dr.Bremmer