889
What could probably happen....
(feddit.org)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
889 points (97.4% liked)
Comic Strips
18540 readers
1366 users here now
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
The rules are simple:
- The post can be a single image, an image gallery, or a link to a specific comic hosted on another site (the author's website, for instance).
- The comic must be a complete story.
- If it is an external link, it must be to a specific story, not to the root of the site.
- You may post comics from others or your own.
- If you are posting a comic of your own, a maximum of one per week is allowed (I know, your comics are great, but this rule helps avoid spam).
- The comic can be in any language, but if it's not in English, OP must include an English translation in the post's 'body' field (note: you don't need to select a specific language when posting a comic).
- Politeness.
- Adult content is not allowed. This community aims to be fun for people of all ages.
Web of links
- [email protected]: "I use Arch btw"
- [email protected]: memes (you don't say!)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
The energy from nuclear reactions can be astonishingly large (compared to, say, chemical reactions).
But atoms are really, really, really small.
people with good vision can probably see a single gold atom, I seem to remember that one useless fact about the smallest things we can see
Nope. Atoms are WAY too small to see, even with the most powerful optical microscopes.
You may be thinking of a human egg cell, which can be seen with the naked eye.
A chicken egg cell can also be seen with the naked eye
What about a turkey egg?
Ostrich egg
Vegreville egg
Fabergé egg
No, they're too small to resolve. You can see small things if they're bright enough: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2161094-a-single-atom-is-visible-to-the-naked-eye-in-this-stunning-photo/
Not even close, a gold atom is about 140 pm, while the diffraction limit for optical microscopes is around 200 nm, so 1000 Times bigger. And this does not mean that you could see a 200 nm object, only that you can differentiate 2 objects that are at least 200 nm apart. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction-limited_system So no it is not possible to see atoms with visible light photons.
Parent didn't say resolve, they said see
you can't resolve stars but you can most certainly see them.
Light up a single atom enough and you can see it (unclear if this works with a dark adjusted naked eye or if a long exposure is required): https://www.newscientist.com/article/2161094-a-single-atom-is-visible-to-the-naked-eye-in-this-stunning-photo/
You might mean a sheet of gold that is one atom thick, which would be visible and this would be true for most materials, but some are hard or impossible to produce.
I'm trying to remember exactly but I think it was that if you can isolate a gold atom, you can bounce a laser on it and see the reflection with your eyes. Something about the reflection of gold and that being one of its interesting properties. Could be just my imagination though
A single atom of gold is far too small for any photon in the visible spectrum to interact with.
A single atom of gold is 0.2 nanometres (a nanometre is an incredibly small thing and a gold atom isn't even half of 1% of that), meanwhile the wavelength of blue light (The smallest wavelength of visible light) is a hulking 380 nanometres. No matter how much you zoom in you would never see anything a single atom is just too small to interact with light.
That's incorrect
single atoms can, and do, interact with optical photons.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.19671 https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13716
And the entire field of super resolution microscopy relies on small things (e.g., molecules) interacting with light.
The width of human hair is the tiniest distance that people can notice
No shot.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2161094-a-single-atom-is-visible-to-the-naked-eye-in-this-stunning-photo/
Sorry you're getting down voted
lots of replies from folks unclear on what the diffraction limit means, atomic resonances, etc.: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2161094-a-single-atom-is-visible-to-the-naked-eye-in-this-stunning-photo/
this is what I was remembering!
thank you