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Author Topic:   No Witnesses
foreveryoung
Member (Idle past 582 days)
Posts: 921
Joined: 12-26-2011


Message 61 of 215 (655209)
03-08-2012 4:46 PM
Reply to: Message 60 by Taq
03-08-2012 4:26 PM


Re: Denier of science?? I don't think so...
So, it impossible to generate the heat the sun does with the use of fusion?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 60 by Taq, posted 03-08-2012 4:26 PM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 62 by Taq, posted 03-08-2012 6:00 PM foreveryoung has replied
 Message 63 by Rahvin, posted 03-08-2012 6:03 PM foreveryoung has replied
 Message 66 by NoNukes, posted 03-08-2012 7:43 PM foreveryoung has not replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


(1)
Message 62 of 215 (655214)
03-08-2012 6:00 PM
Reply to: Message 61 by foreveryoung
03-08-2012 4:46 PM


Re: Denier of science?? I don't think so...
So, it impossible to generate the heat the sun does with the use of fusion?
Your question is a bit confusing. I will assume that you meant to say "without the use of fusion".
From my understanding, it is impossible for hydrogen to NOT fuse at the center of the Sun given the temperatures and pressures. There is also the fact that we observe neutrinos escaping the Sun which strongly evidences fusion reactions.
To bring this back on topic, we don't have to directly witness the fusion reactions in the middle of the Sun to know that they are happening. We can use observations to infer that fusion reactions are occuring.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 61 by foreveryoung, posted 03-08-2012 4:46 PM foreveryoung has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 64 by foreveryoung, posted 03-08-2012 7:22 PM Taq has not replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 63 of 215 (655215)
03-08-2012 6:03 PM
Reply to: Message 61 by foreveryoung
03-08-2012 4:46 PM


Re: Denier of science?? I don't think so...
So, it impossible to generate the heat the sun does with the use of fusion?
...
Im not entirely sure what you're asking.
But star-magnitude heat can come from several sources. Nuclear fusion is one; others include nuclear fission (which also does happen in stars), antimatter annihilation, even lightning (for a brief fraction of a second).
Stars are primarily fusion reactions, but the intense heat and pressure along with the fact that fusion creates heavier elements also result in fission. Friction isn't so much of an issue - the magnitude of energy released by fusion and fission dwarfs that of friction.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.
- Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers

This message is a reply to:
 Message 61 by foreveryoung, posted 03-08-2012 4:46 PM foreveryoung has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 65 by foreveryoung, posted 03-08-2012 7:24 PM Rahvin has not replied
 Message 76 by NoNukes, posted 03-11-2012 7:53 PM Rahvin has not replied

  
foreveryoung
Member (Idle past 582 days)
Posts: 921
Joined: 12-26-2011


Message 64 of 215 (655221)
03-08-2012 7:22 PM
Reply to: Message 62 by Taq
03-08-2012 6:00 PM


Re: Denier of science?? I don't think so...
I meant without. But I am actually on topic. It was stated that you don't have to directly observe fusion at the center of the sun to know it is occurring. The idea is that we can infer based on the evidence. It is actually the neutrino emission that is the dead ringer for fusion. Without that, I don't know that we can know that fusion is going on for sure by inference. I was trying to show that there are other possibilities besides the one that was said to be "obvious" by inference. I was trying to figure out if it was possible for a star with the mass and size of our sun to generate the heat it does without the help of fusion. I am not sure my question has been adequately answered. The point I am make that has to do with the topic here is that there are often other possibilities that can be inferred from the evidence when it is impossible to take direct measurements. Just because a conclusion can be reached by inference, doesn't mean it is the correct inference.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 62 by Taq, posted 03-08-2012 6:00 PM Taq has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 67 by Rahvin, posted 03-08-2012 8:08 PM foreveryoung has not replied
 Message 68 by NoNukes, posted 03-08-2012 10:15 PM foreveryoung has not replied

  
foreveryoung
Member (Idle past 582 days)
Posts: 921
Joined: 12-26-2011


Message 65 of 215 (655222)
03-08-2012 7:24 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by Rahvin
03-08-2012 6:03 PM


Re: Denier of science?? I don't think so...
This was what I was looking for.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by Rahvin, posted 03-08-2012 6:03 PM Rahvin has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 66 of 215 (655224)
03-08-2012 7:43 PM
Reply to: Message 61 by foreveryoung
03-08-2012 4:46 PM


Re: Denier of science?? I don't think so...
I am posting just to clarify all of the answers already given and to possibly head off an upcoming goofy post.
By definition, all main sequence stars generate heat by fusion. Brown dwarf stars are too small to fuse, and I don't believe that any of the brown dwarfs are visible to the naked eye. Brown dwarfs are less than 0.1 times the mass of the sun.
White dwarfs are former main sequence stars that have lived out their life as main sequence stars and are "coasting" (not generating any new energy).
Other than large proto-stars, which are "stars" that have not yet collapsed far enough to generate fusion heat and reach the main sequence, no star can generate as much heat as our sun does through gravitational collapse without fusion. Any proto star that manages such a feat will soon become a real star.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. William Lloyd Garrison

This message is a reply to:
 Message 61 by foreveryoung, posted 03-08-2012 4:46 PM foreveryoung has not replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(3)
Message 67 of 215 (655230)
03-08-2012 8:08 PM
Reply to: Message 64 by foreveryoung
03-08-2012 7:22 PM


Re: Denier of science?? I don't think so...
The point I am make that has to do with the topic here is that there are often other possibilities that can be inferred from the evidence when it is impossible to take direct measurements. Just because a conclusion can be reached by inference, doesn't mean it is the correct inference.
This is very true...and it's exactly why science involves attempting to falsify hypotheses.
Let's carry on with the Sun example. We know how hot the sun is because we can directly measure it. We know of at least a few candidates for generating that much heat. How do we tell what really drives the Sun?
Falsification. Don;t look for confirmation, look for evidence that contradicts each individual hypothesis so that you can narrow down the field until you have one candidate that's more likely than any others.
Friction can't generate enough energy to duplicate what we observe in the Sun.
We can tell the chemical makeup of a star by analyzing the spectrum of its light, and we can see that our Sun (as well as other stars) are primarily Hydrogen, Helium, etc, with much smaller amounts of heavier elements. We also see that younger stars contain more of the lighter elements, while older stars contain heavier. Hydrogen and Helium are not fissionable elements - they don't tend to spontaneously split the way that, as an example, Uranium-235 does. Fission is unlikely to by more than a small contributor to the energy observed.
Lightning is an atmospheric phenomenon, not a stellar phenomenon...but even if we assume an analogue in a star, the lightning bolt would need to be a constant arc rather than a quick discharge in order to continuously generate that much heat. We have never observed any electrical discharge that can just go on for billions of years like that, so pseudo-lightning is likely out.
Antimatter annihilation would generate too much energy by multiple orders of magnitude. The Sun wouldn;t look like it does at all - in fact (and I haven't done the math), I would wager that antimatter annihilation would overpower the gravity that holds the Sun together and look more like an immediate supernova rather than a star, ripping apart the Sun and most of the solar system.
But fusion does happen when Hydrogen or Helium are exposed to sufficient heat and pressure. We know those elements are abundant in the Sun, along with the products of their fusion. We see telltale neutrino emissions characteristic of fusion reactions. Most importantly, we don't see any evidence that would falsify the hypothesis the way we do for the other ideas.
The idea here, foreveryoung, is that while a given set of evidence can fit multiple potential explanations, further investigation tends to falsify most of them.
Let's imagine that there's been a murder. There's a bloody knife, and a single black hair. Who did the murder?
It could have been Bob - he has black hair. But so do Susan, and Greg, and Nancy and a few thousand other people in the city...and the real killer could even have been from out of town! The evidence supports many different possible explanations.
So how do we figure out the facts? We look to the evidence. Who has an alibi for the time of the murder? Who was near the scene at the time? Does anyone have a reason to kill the victim? Can we test the hair to see if it's natural vs dyed? Maybe we can get DNA evidence? Are there fingerprints in the house? Did the hair actually come from the victim, not the killer? All of these would be indirect evidence, but combined we can use them to narrow down our list of suspects from "anyone with black hair" to possibly just the killer.
When the evidence equally (really equally, as in the world would look the same to us in either case, not just that there's some evidence that supports A a little, and some other evidence that supports B a bit) supports multiple hypotheses, it means you need more evidence (or at least more consideration) to find the real answer.
Most people don't look for falsification, they look for confirmation. You look at the evidence, come up with an initial idea, and then set out to try to see if further evidence confirms your idea, rather than coming up with multiple possibilities and then trying to falsify each one to see which is left standing. Confirmation is a trap - humans have this thing called "confirmation bias," where we unconsciously tend to count confirmation of what we already think as more meaningful than evidence that doesn't support our pet hypotheses. In this way, we can often convince ourselves that we're on the right track...and then find out later we were completely wrong.
To prevent this, once you have several hypotheses supported by the evidence, look at each hypothesis again. Imagine what you should not see if each hypothesis were true. Re-examine your evidence, and see if your observations falsify any of those hypotheses. After all, the evidence will never falsify the real answer - and the only one left after you've falsified the others will almost certainly be accurate.
BTW - there's an exercise you can do to very clearly illustrate confirmation bias. It's actually pretty interesting and entertaining, or at least I found it to be. It's best done through PMs, so if you're interested, feel free to PM me.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.
- Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers

This message is a reply to:
 Message 64 by foreveryoung, posted 03-08-2012 7:22 PM foreveryoung has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 68 of 215 (655251)
03-08-2012 10:15 PM
Reply to: Message 64 by foreveryoung
03-08-2012 7:22 PM


Re: Denier of science?? I don't think so...
The idea is that we can infer based on the evidence. It is actually the neutrino emission that is the dead ringer for fusion. Without that, I don't know that we can know that fusion is going on for sure by inference. I was trying to show that there are other possibilities besides the one that was said to be "obvious" by inference.
You've picked a particularly bad example, possibly because you don't have the correct understanding of the evidence for fusion.
Even without the neutrinos, it was possible to rule out every other known process as being responsible for creating the amount of energy at the rate supplied by the sun for the amount of time we know that the sun has provided said energy, i.e. about 4.x billion years. The neutrino issue involved only being able to detect 1/3 of the number of neutrinos that were expected from fusion. In short, the inability to detect the expected number of neutrinos was the only piece of evidence contradicting fusion, but the evidence was surely sufficient to rule out other explanation.
Finding an explanation for the failure to detect all of the emitted neutrinos confirmed that fusion is the answer.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. William Lloyd Garrison

This message is a reply to:
 Message 64 by foreveryoung, posted 03-08-2012 7:22 PM foreveryoung has not replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 69 of 215 (655420)
03-10-2012 6:01 AM
Reply to: Message 58 by NoNukes
03-05-2012 7:03 AM


NoNukes responds to me:
quote:
I'm not a denier of science.
I didn't say you were (at least, not yet). Read my post again. There's a part where I talk about "we who understand." Consider who "we" might be.
quote:
I'm commenting only on the meaning of the word witness, which implies using direct evidence and minimal use (read that as essentially no use) use inference to reach a conclusion.
And I'm saying we have done that. I have given you some references and shown you how to do an experiment where you can "witness" it for yourself.
You say you don't deny science and yet you say that evolution hasn't been witnessed. My response was for you to go to the science library and read the journals so that you can convince yourself that your claim is false. We have seen evolution happen. Right in front of our eyes. Both in the lab under controlled conditions and in the field.
So you are now faced with a choice: Do you do the work required to verify that? Do you go and read the references? Or do you deny it?
quote:
In my opinion, and I invite you to argue otherwise, none of the examples in your discussion involve observations that would meet the definition of witnessing macroevolution.
"Macroevolution" means evolutionary processes at the species level and above. Ergo, speciation is, by definition, "macroevolution."
Since we have seen speciation happen right in front of our eyes both in the lab and in the field, that means we have directly witnessed "macroevolution."
I have given you references.
Why are you denying it?
quote:
"Macroevolution", which I'll loosely identify as an evolutionary process producing a critter that is a different "kind" than its ancestors is not a process that can be witnessed.
Why not? All you have to do is sit and wait. When you can directly observe every single generation between the origin species and the child species, how is that not precisely what it is you claim cannot be seen?
quote:
Instead it is necessary to collect evidence from which macroevolution can be conclusively demonstrated. The experiments you describe seem to me of exactly that type.
How is speciation not "macroevolution"? And if we observe speciation, how is that not direct observation of it?
It's like you're saying that 1 exists, 2 exists, addition exists and works, and equality is real, but none of that means 1 + 1 = 2.
quote:
In short, I believe our disagreement is about the definition of witness and not about the science at all.
Perhaps, but you keep shifting the goalposts. You claimed it had never been seen and then when you were presented with the very thing you claimed didn't exist, you changed your argument.
What would it take for you to say that it had been? Your claim that it cannot be seen is to deny science. You seem to be saying that unless we can literally view the atoms bonding (which we have), then we haven't actually "seen" anything.
And that's a crock.

Rrhain

Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 58 by NoNukes, posted 03-05-2012 7:03 AM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 70 by NoNukes, posted 03-10-2012 6:28 AM Rrhain has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 70 of 215 (655422)
03-10-2012 6:28 AM
Reply to: Message 69 by Rrhain
03-10-2012 6:01 AM


Sigh...
Why not? All you have to do is sit and wait. When you can directly observe every single generation between the origin species and the child species, how is that not precisely what it is you claim cannot be seen?
Because I cannot wait that long to observe macroevolution. Only the most foolish of the fools denies that bacteria can evolve. But when a creationists denies macroevolution, he is denying that birds and dinosaurs have a common ancestor. The creation is being slightly less foolish than a king fool.
Perhaps, but you keep shifting the goalposts. You claimed it had never been seen and then when you were presented with the very thing you claimed didn't exist, you changed your argument.
I respectfully disagree. I've never changed my argument. It appears to me that you started in on me without really understanding what my argument was.
I think we've flogged this dispute as much as possible. We've reached the point where we are adding gratuitous insults to our posts, and usually that's the point where an argument among reasonable people is becoming non-productive.
I have not shifted the goalposts. I've been consistent about what I mean by "witness", "observe", and "macroevolution" throughout this discussion and in every other discussion I've participated in.
Speciation is not the same thing as "macroevolution" unless we agree that such is the case for our discussion. And since we are talking about macroevolution as creationists might see it, then speciation would be an inappropriate definition for this discussion.
There has been an entire thread here devoted to the definition of macroevolution, and I'll simply refer you to that.
NoNukes out.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. William Lloyd Garrison

This message is a reply to:
 Message 69 by Rrhain, posted 03-10-2012 6:01 AM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 71 by Rrhain, posted 03-10-2012 8:05 AM NoNukes has replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 71 of 215 (655425)
03-10-2012 8:05 AM
Reply to: Message 70 by NoNukes
03-10-2012 6:28 AM


NoNukes responds to me:
quote:
quote:
Why not? All you have to do is sit and wait. When you can directly observe every single generation between the origin species and the child species, how is that not precisely what it is you claim cannot be seen?
Because I cannot wait that long to observe macroevolution.
Yes, you can! Did you not read any of the references I provided to you? Why on earth do you think we do research on organisms like Drosophilia and E. coli? Because they reproduce at such fast rates that we don't have to wait too long. Yes, some experiments may take decades to resolve, but don't confuse your impatience for a universal trait.
quote:
Only the most foolish of the fools denies that bacteria can evolve.
Into new species, yes. That's macroevolution by definition. We've seen it happen. There's an ongoing experiment that has been running for decades on bacteria, just to see what they do.
What makes you think that we don't have time?
quote:
I've been consistent about what I mean by "witness", "observe", and "macroevolution" throughout this discussion and in every other discussion I've participated in.
Then explain it again. What would it take for you to say we've "witnessed" speciation (which is, by definition, "macroevolution")? If seeing every single generation between the parent species and the child species isn't sufficient, what is?
There's an example I often use to try and explain to creationists why their vision of an ostrich being hatched from an alligator egg is a gross caricature of evolution and it seems it applies here:
You and I are standing on a giant blowup of the visible spectrum, each nanometer of wavelength hundreds of feet apart. We're standing at 500 nm. Same color, right? It's green.
You take one step toward red and I take one step toward violet. Would either one of us be able to tell the difference between the two colors we're now standing on? They're different, yes, but they are so close together so as to be indistinguishable to the human eye. In fact, we could both walk in our given directions for quite some distance without being able to discern a change.
But if we keep walking, eventually I'm going to be standing in a color we can definitely call "blue" and you'll be somewhere in "yellow." No one step is sufficient for us to call it a change but the collection of steps absolutely resulted in a shift. And since we directly observed each step, we can rightly say that we've "witnessed" it.
So I am asking you directly for at least the third time: What more do you need? When we have directly observed and examined every single generation between parent and child species, how is that not direct observation of "macroevolution"? Exactly what is it you are looking for?
quote:
And since we are talking about macroevolution as creationists might see it, then speciation would be an inappropriate definition for this discussion.
But a creationist will never accept it. They stick to their term of "kind." It used to be that a "kind" was "species," but then we directly witnessed speciation. In fact, we've seen the creation of new genera, new families, and even a new order or two. You will note that the latest creationist claim has to do with the Pre-Cambrian and the creation of the various phyla. They know that a phylum is so far up the taxonomic tree that we'll never see the creation of a new one in our lifetimes.
So as to your demand about "macroevolution as creationists might see it," that's a moving target. They won't say anything other than "kind" and are adamant about not defining what a "kind" is. "Macroevolution" means simply evolutionary processes at or above the species level.
We've directly observed that.
Why would you have us deny that?

Rrhain

Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 70 by NoNukes, posted 03-10-2012 6:28 AM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 72 by NoNukes, posted 03-10-2012 8:51 AM Rrhain has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 72 of 215 (655428)
03-10-2012 8:51 AM
Reply to: Message 71 by Rrhain
03-10-2012 8:05 AM


What makes you think that we don't have time?
I've been completely clear about my answer. You are insisting on a definition of macroevolution that nobody else in this thread is using.
And I completely deny that I have ever made a different argument and then shifted the goal posts.
I find it interesting that you claim that we have "viewed" atoms binding. My own vision isn't able to perceive E&M radiation with wavelenghts on the order of Angstroms, so I don't claim to have "viewed" or directly observed events require an ability to see things so small. Yet I don't dispute that atoms bond.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. William Lloyd Garrison

This message is a reply to:
 Message 71 by Rrhain, posted 03-10-2012 8:05 AM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 73 by Rrhain, posted 03-11-2012 5:30 AM NoNukes has replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 73 of 215 (655522)
03-11-2012 5:30 AM
Reply to: Message 72 by NoNukes
03-10-2012 8:51 AM


NoNukes responds to me:
quote:
You are insisting on a definition of macroevolution that nobody else in this thread is using.
I use the actual definition of the word. What other definition possibly makes sense? If "black" gets to mean "white," then you can claim anything you want.
quote:
I find it interesting that you claim that we have "viewed" atoms binding. My own vision isn't able to perceive E&M radiation with wavelenghts on the order of Angstroms, so I don't claim to have "viewed" or directly observed events require an ability to see things so small.
It's called a scanning-tunneling microscrope. With it, we can not only image individual atoms, we can pick them up and place them. Surely you've seen the famous micrograph of the IBM logo, yes? It's from more than 20 years ago. This is not new. Or does mechanical assistance not count for "viewed"? What does that mean for people who wear glasses? Are they not actually "viewing" anything?
You keep moving the goalposts.

Rrhain

Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 72 by NoNukes, posted 03-10-2012 8:51 AM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 74 by NoNukes, posted 03-11-2012 9:12 AM Rrhain has replied
 Message 75 by Dr Adequate, posted 03-11-2012 4:57 PM Rrhain has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 74 of 215 (655527)
03-11-2012 9:12 AM
Reply to: Message 73 by Rrhain
03-11-2012 5:30 AM


Or does mechanical assistance not count for "viewed"?
Viewing is done optically. Using aids such as a microscope, telescope or glasses would be viewing. Using an electron microscope would not be viewing.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. William Lloyd Garrison

This message is a reply to:
 Message 73 by Rrhain, posted 03-11-2012 5:30 AM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 77 by Rrhain, posted 03-15-2012 3:59 AM NoNukes has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 75 of 215 (655592)
03-11-2012 4:57 PM
Reply to: Message 73 by Rrhain
03-11-2012 5:30 AM


It's called a scanning-tunneling microscrope. With it, we can not only image individual atoms, we can pick them up and place them. Surely you've seen the famous micrograph of the IBM logo, yes? It's from more than 20 years ago. This is not new. Or does mechanical assistance not count for "viewed"? What does that mean for people who wear glasses? Are they not actually "viewing" anything?
It's a fine point, but I think NoNukes is right. The STM is an instrument which produces a picture as its read-out rather than, for example, a column of numbers*. That the picture resembles what we like to think we would see if we could see atoms doesn't mean that we are actually seeing atoms. What we're seeing is the picture produced by the STM. We then interpret it (correctly) as telling us about the positions of atoms. But just because the data is presented for us in an intuitively accessible visual form doesn't mean that we are really seeing the atoms any more than someone looking at a street map is really seeing the streets.
* I believe that its raw data is in fact columns of numbers, and that the image is prepared by a computer.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 73 by Rrhain, posted 03-11-2012 5:30 AM Rrhain has not replied

  
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