Atoms and Programming: Exploring the Unknown

[BlackVenom]

In my computer science class my prof rambled off into examples, one of which was atoms. He said that atoms were just a model for something that we really can't understand yet. Is this correct or is he under some kind of influence or a complete idiot (likely, he teaches programming 'backwards').

 

[fss]

Perhaps a bit more context would be helpful? "Just a model" seems a bit of an understatement to me. Depending on one's definition of "understand"- nothing can be "understood" ...

 

[jtbell]

It's quite possible for someone to be an expert in one field and an idiot in another field.

 

[DaveC426913]

It is a matter of perspective and as such he is not wrong.

fss is correct when he says it's a matter of what one means by "understand".

We don't yet understand the underlying forces and components that make up the things that make up an atom. They are not well-behaved little billiard balls.
They smear out when we look at them funny or when we don't look at them at all, or when we simply cool them...
They flip over because of something we do on this side of the Thames, even though they're clear on the other side...
They are comprised of things whose behaviour whne we're not looking we cannot know, the best we can do is build a probablility cloud...

 

[ViewsofMars]

A U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by the University of California –Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on August 4, 2010 had a news release that I thought was interesting. For the First Time Ever, Scientists Watch an Atom’s Electrons Moving in Real Time :

An international team of scientists led by groups from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) in Garching, Germany, and from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley has used ultrashort flashes of laser light to directly observe the movement of an atom’s outer electrons for the first time.

Through a process called attosecond absorption spectroscopy, researchers were able to time the oscillations between simultaneously produced quantum states of valence electrons with great precision. These oscillations drive electron motion.

“With a simple system of krypton atoms, we demonstrated, for the first time, that we can measure transient absorption dynamics with attosecond pulses,” says Stephen Leone of Berkeley Lab’s Chemical Sciences Division, who is also a professor of chemistry and physics at UC Berkeley. “This revealed details of a type of electronic motion – coherent superposition – that can control properties in many systems.”

Leone cites recent work by the Graham Fleming group at Berkeley on the crucial role of coherent dynamics in photosynthesis as an example of its importance, noting that “the method developed by our team for exploring coherent dynamics has never before been available to researchers. It’s truly general and can be applied to attosecond electronic dynamics problems in the physics and chemistry of liquids, solids, biological systems, everything.”

The team’s demonstration of attosecond absorption spectroscopy began by first ionizing krypton atoms, removing one or more outer valence electrons with pulses of near-infrared laser light that were typically measured on timescales of a few femtoseconds (a femtosecond is 10^-15 second, a quadrillionth of a second). Then, with far shorter pulses of extreme ultraviolet light on the 100-attosecond timescale (an attosecond is 10^-18 second, a quintillionth of a second), they were able to precisely measure the effects on the valence electron orbitals.

The results of the pioneering measurements performed at MPQ by the Leone and Krausz groups and their colleagues are reported in the August 5 issue of the journal Nature.
Please read on . . .
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2010/08/04/electrons-moving/
Also review http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-08/dbnl-ftf080410.php

[PLAIN]http://newscenter.lbl.gov/wp-content/uploads/classical-and-quantum.jpg
A classical diagram of a krypton atom (background) shows its 36 electrons arranged in shells. Researchers have measured oscillations of quantum states (foreground) in the outer orbitals of an ionized krypton atom, oscillations that drive electron motion.

 

[Fizex]

Atoms are definitely real. What we know about how they work is another story. There are different models of how an atom should look and behave but that doesn't mean an atom is a lie. The teacher is assigning his own interpretation of what an atom is and that could be false.

Side note: In the sense that an atom is an indivisible unit, that would probably be a lepton or quark right now but it is convenient to keep calling bundled neutrons, protons, and elections an atom.

 

[BlackVenom]

Is reading ^

Thanks for the input.

Perhaps a bit more context would be helpful? "Just a model" seems a bit of an understatement to me. Depending on one's definition of "understand"- nothing can be "understood" ...

I'm guessing he meant absolute definitive knowledge of such a thing.

It's quite possible for someone to be an expert in one field and an idiot in another field.

He may just be an idiot, I wouldn't call him a master of anything.

 

[Dr Lots-o'watts]

It's a model and everyone is invited to find a better one. Until then, the current model is the practical "truth".

 

[ViewsofMars]

Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility has valuable information that I wanted to share. I suggest thoroughly exploring this wonderful website. It is a Science Education - Teacher Resource and a Student Zone.

What is an atom? What are atoms made of?

Atoms are the basic building blocks of ordinary matter. Atoms can join together to form molecules, which in turn form most of the objects around you.

Atoms are composed of particles called protons, electrons and neutrons. Protons carry a positive electrical charge, electrons carry a negative electrical charge and neutrons carry no electrical charge at all. The protons and neutrons cluster together in the central part of the atom, called the nucleus, and the electrons 'orbit' the nucleus. A particular atom will have the same number of protons and electrons and most atoms have at least as many neutrons as protons.

Protons and neutrons are both composed of other particles called quarks and gluons. Protons contain two 'up' quarks and one 'down' quark while neutrons contain one 'up' quark and two 'down' quarks. The gluons are responsible for binding the quarks to one another.
Please read on . . .
http://education.jlab.org/qa/atom.html

Also, "How do I make a model of an atom?" http://education.jlab.org/qa/atom_model.html

 

[alxm]

Well, that attitude was common about 130 years ago (E.g. Ernst Mach), although not among chemists who'd almost universally accepted the atomic theory by the 1840's.

The definite death-knell to anti-atomism was Jean Perrin's series of measurements (circa 1910) of Avogadro's number, using a wide range of methods. I posted the beautiful summary of his results in https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2092534&postcount=25". Of course, today it's far, far less disputable, since the 'discontinuous nature of matter' if you like, is measured hundreds if not thousands of times a day by crystallographers. Just to begin with.

Atoms are as real as anything we know of.

 

[DaveC426913]

Well, that attitude was common about 130 years ago (E.g. Ernst Mach), although not among chemists who'd almost universally accepted the atomic theory by the 1840's.

The definite death-knell to anti-atomism was Jean Perrin's series of measurements (circa 1910) of Avogadro's number, using a wide range of methods. I posted the beautiful summary of his results in https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2092534&postcount=25". Of course, today it's far, far less disputable, since the 'discontinuous nature of matter' if you like, is measured hundreds if not thousands of times a day by crystallographers. Just to begin with.

Atoms are as real as anything we know of.

I don't think he's suggesting our atomic model is wrong.

He's dispelling the too-common notion that atoms are hard little billiard balls bouncing around.

 

[cp-svalbard]

A U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by the University of California –Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on August 4, 2010 had a news release that I thought was interesting. For the First Time Ever, Scientists Watch an Atom’s Electrons Moving in Real Time :



[PLAIN]http://newscenter.lbl.gov/wp-content/uploads/classical-and-quantum.jpg
A classical diagram of a krypton atom (background) shows its 36 electrons arranged in shells. Researchers have measured oscillations of quantum states (foreground) in the outer orbitals of an ionized krypton atom, oscillations that drive electron motion.

What is determined from the use of instruments is true relative only to the instrument you're using and to where that instrument is located in space-time. Thus there is no real vantage point from which real reality can be seen. I.e. an atom

So the act of measuring the atom defines not what the the atom is but only the instrument used to make the observation.

 

[Drakkith]

What is determined from the use of instruments is true relative only to the instrument you're using and to where that instrument is located in space-time. Thus there is no real vantage point from which real reality can be seen. I.e. an atom

So the act of measuring the atom defines not what the the atom is but only the instrument used to make the observation.

To me, that's like saying we can't view "Real" reality because we cannot see or touch objects, only see reflected light or feel the electromagnetic force pushing against us. After all, our senses are only instruments correct?

 

[russ_watters]

Just because we don't know everything there is to know, that doesn't mean we don't know anything: we know a lot and atoms are certainly real. "Just a model" (like "just a theory") is an understatement to the point of mischaracterization.

 

[Dr Lots-o'watts]

It's a model, but it's not "just" a model.

A construction project can be a birdhouse or a hydroelectric dam.

The atomic model is world wonder of a dam, and it has taken at least as many years and hard working people to build it, and it is just as useful.

 

[DaveC426913]

Just because we don't know everything there is to know, that doesn't mean we don't know anything: we know a lot and atoms are certainly real.

All true. And not in contention by anyone.

"Just a model" (like "just a theory") is an understatement to the point of mischaracterization.

We do not know that was the intent of the prof's comments. Not only did the OP paraphrase the prof, so we don't know what he actually said, but we are now in danger of second-hand assigning this prof our preconceived ideas of what he might have meant, and then turning around and judging him on it.

We are obliged to give the absent party the benefit of the doubt.

 

[ViewsofMars]

Observation: I am really real! I call that the reality check. Gee whiz, I wish a certain individual would have reviewed my last two postings. Oh, continuing onward . . .

What are atoms?

Atoms are the basic building blocks of matter that make up everyday objects. A desk, the air, even you are made up of atoms!

There are 90 naturally occurring kinds of atoms. Scientists in labs have been able to make about 25 more.
http://education.jlab.org/atomtour/

The American Physical Society - Physics Central:

Seeing Atoms

Suppose you tried to use the world’s strongest optical microscope to see an atom. What would happen? You would probably reflect light from the atoms into your microscope. Light has wave properties, so imagine waves of light shining on an atom. The wavelength of visible light is about ten thousand times the length of a typical atom.

To help think about this, let’s switch to thinking about water waves rolling in on a beach. If you stand in the water, the waves roll past you, unaffected. Hardly any wave energy is reflected. That’s because the size of your body is so much less than the wavelength of the water waves. The waves move by as if you were not there, so reflection of water waves will not reveal the presence of a person in the water.

The wavelength of visible light is about 10-6 m (the same as 103 nm), as shown in the drawing . The size of a typical atom is about 10-10 m, which is 10,000 times smaller than the wavelength of light. Since an atom is so much smaller than the wavelength of visible light, it’s much to small to change the way light is reflected, so observing an atom with an optical microscope will not work.

How about radiation like light but with a shorter wavelength? X-ray wavelengths are about the same size as atoms, but reflecting x-rays from matter forms a complex pattern of spots that depends on the arrangement of the atoms. Analysis of these patterns reveals a lot of important information about crystals, but the x-ray images do not show individual atoms.
http://www.physicscentral.org/explore/action/atom-1.cfm

Another great article from June 30, 2010:
Unpeeling atoms and molecules from the inside out
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-06/dnal-uaa063010.php

This woman(aka me) has won because I have done the research! Let's see what man decides to do battle with me. Denying me the right exist. LOL! I have to paint my fingernails red now.

 

[DaveC426913]

Gee whiz, I wish a certain individual would have reviewed my last two postings.

I don't think anyone knows what you're talking about.



You know, everyone seems to be behaving as if the prof said "atoms aren't real".

He didn't, at least according to the OP's paraphrase.

 

[ViewsofMars]

I don't think anyone knows what you're talking about.

Well Dave who was responding to my contribution? It was cp-svalbard when he wrote:

What is determined from the use of instruments is true relative only to the instrument you're using and to where that instrument is located in space-time. Thus there is no real vantage point from which real reality can be seen. I.e. an atom

So the act of measuring the atom defines not what the the atom is but only the instrument used to make the observation.

I replied to the person in my last post on this page.

You know, everyone seems to be behaving as if the prof said "atoms aren't real".

Please don't be including me in the everyone. I've already contributed on both pages to this topic that they are real. Anyone that can read what I have presented knows that much.

He didn't, at least according to the OP's paraphrase.

Who is the he that you are referring too?

 

[cp-svalbard]

Just because we don't know everything there is to know, that doesn't mean we don't know anything: we know a lot and atoms are certainly real. "Just a model" (like "just a theory") is an understatement to the point of mischaracterization.

What we say we know about an atom doesn't tell us anything about what an atom is, it only defines how our consciousness defines "reality."

 

[russ_watters]

All true. And not in contention by anyone.

We do not know that was the intent of the prof's comments. Not only did the OP paraphrase the prof, so we don't know what he actually said, but we are now in danger of second-hand assigning this prof our preconceived ideas of what he might have meant, and then turning around and judging him on it.

We are obliged to give the absent party the benefit of the doubt.

Well based on the title of the thread, it sounds like the prof said we don't know if atoms are real. That's a relatively clear claim.

There is no need for the qualifications, Dave - everyone knows we're hearing this second-hand and all of our responses can only be as good as the characterization of the OP. But by "giving the absent party the benefit of the doubt", as you call it, you are not giving the OP the benefit of the doubt.

 

[russ_watters]

What we say we know about an atom doesn't tell us anything about what an atom is...

That's absurd. What something "is" is a collection of all its identifiable properties.

...it only defines how our consciousness defines "reality."

That's gibberish.

 

[DaveC426913]

Please don't be including me in the everyone. I've already contributed on both pages to this topic that they are real. Anyone that can read what I have presented knows that much.

Yes you. You're going on about atoms being real, the implication is that someone was saying otherwise.

Who is the he that you are referring too?

The prof.

 

[DaveC426913]

Well based on the title of the thread, it sounds like the prof said we don't know if atoms are real. That's a relatively clear claim.

There is no suggestion that the prof said that. That is the OP's question about what the prof said.

There is no need for the qualifications, Dave - everyone knows we're hearing this second-hand and all of our responses can only be as good as the characterization of the OP.

I'm not convinced "everyone knows"; I'm not convinced everyone even read the OP.

But by "giving the absent party the benefit of the doubt", as you call it, you are not giving the OP the benefit of the doubt.

The prof (allegedly) said "atoms are a model for something we don't fully understand".
The OP is the one asking if they're real.

 

[ViewsofMars]

You know, everyone seems to be behaving as if the prof said "atoms aren't real".

Please don't be including me in the everyone. I've already contributed on both pages to this topic that they are real. Anyone that can read what I have presented knows that much.

Yes you. You're going on about atoms being real, the implication is that someone was saying otherwise.

Dave, I was strictly replying to the thread title:re: Are atoms real? I haven’t made a comment about the professor so please don't falsely accuse me of something I didn't intend. (Please note that I never directly replied to the OP.) And, I’ve made it clear in my previous post that I was replying to cp-svalbard.

 

[DaveC426913]

Dave, I was strictly replying to the thread title: Are atoms real? I haven’t made a comment about the professor so please don't falsely accuse me of something I didn't intend.

Which is why I said I'm not convinced that everyone actually read the OP.

I think that any response to a thread can be rightfully assumed to be ... a response to the thread.

Or do you routinely respond to only the title of threads regardless of the body?

 

[ViewsofMars]

Or do you routinely respond to only the title of threads regardless of the body?

I respond to the topic (Re: Are atoms real?) when it involves hearsay evidence as such was the case in the OPs post.The advantage of doing it my way has benefits such as exposing the public viewing audience to reputable websites with valuable information about atoms.

By the way Dave, I'm not the only one that has responded to the topic.

Well, that attitude was common about 130 years ago (E.g. Ernst Mach), although not among chemists who'd almost universally accepted the atomic theory by the 1840's.

The definite death-knell to anti-atomism was Jean Perrin's series of measurements (circa 1910) of Avogadro's number, using a wide range of methods. I posted the beautiful summary of his results in https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2092534&postcount=25". Of course, today it's far, far less disputable, since the 'discontinuous nature of matter' if you like, is measured hundreds if not thousands of times a day by crystallographers. Just to begin with.

Atoms are as real as anything we know of.

Very nice.

 

[BlackVenom]

Lol. I have my answer. Thanks for the input!

 

[alxm]

I don't think he's suggesting our atomic model is wrong.

He's dispelling the too-common notion that atoms are hard little billiard balls bouncing around.

If he means that, then saying "atoms are a model for something we don't really understand" is a lousy way of putting it. It's akin to stating "the round Earth is just a model for something we don't really understand", because we have yet to determine its exact curvature and all deviations from it.

The fact is that the thing atoms were intended to model - i.e. the fundamental interactions of matter at the chemical scale, are fully understood now. The fact that we do not fully understand everything at the subatomic scale doesn't change that. Nor does the fact that the planet is more of an oblate spheroid than a sphere change the fact that the world is round - because that statement was never intended as an absolute statement on the exact curvature of the earth, but just the fact that it could be circumnavigated, etc.

There's no justification for dismissing something as "just a model" when that model has been entirely successful at explaining everything the model was intended to explain.

For instance, the fact that atoms turned out to be non-indivisible did not invalidate atomic theory one bit, because it's not a chemical phenomenon. Theories have ranges of validities, and you can't proclaim that it's "just a model" for not explaining a phenomenon never intended to be within the range of validity of the theory.

 

[jgm340]

Well, I'm going to throw in my two cents anyway:

Imagine we replace "atoms" with "Newton's Laws". Does that change how you feel about the situation?

We know for a fact that Newton's Laws do NOT hold. They are experimentally verified to be false (albeit only very slightly for most practical purposes). A hundred years ago, however, it would have been absurd to even question their existence in nature!

The point is that our conceptual understanding of the way things work is NEVER going to let us know how things ACTUALLY work. Our models are just increasingly accurate approximations, but it would be absurd to claim that a model *actually* exists in nature.

When it comes to "atoms", the idea is that matter comes in discrete quanta. We have an entire model built around that idea, and we have experimental evidence to support the fact that reality agrees with this model. However, this is NOT the same as saying that we know that such quanta ("atoms") exist. It's a fine line, and an important one (at least to philosophically-minded people).

 

[alxm]

However, this is NOT the same as saying that we know that such quanta ("atoms") exist. It's a fine line, and an important one (at least to philosophically-minded people).

You haven't made any argument towards why they would exist any less than anything else.

 

[DaveC426913]

There's no justification for dismissing something as "just a model"

We do not know that "just a model" was intended as a dismissal per se. That's your interpretation (of a secondhand paraphrasing).

Giving both the OP and the prof he's paraphrasing the benefit of the doubt, I think he may simply be saying it's a model because we don't fully understand everything about it yet.

 

[faizan ali]

atoms are reals. and it has also many particles.

 

[jgm340]

You haven't made any argument towards why they would exist any less than anything else.

OK, I see what you're getting at. I assume you are making this argument:

"If you doubt so much the existence of atoms, shouldn't you also hold the same level of doubt in the existence of your mother, or of the Earth, or of any macroscopic object? Haven't we observed atoms just as much as we have observed anything else?"​

But you see, I am not doubting the existence of an atom at all! Neither am I doubting the existence of your mother!

My claim is not that your mother does not exist, but that my conception of your mother is NOT your mother. My theories about your mother, no matter how accurate they may be, are not your mother.

Whenever I make a claim about your mother, it is a claim about what I perceive to be your mother. I see an innocent housewife. I see a female. I see a kind person. Science is like saying, "I think I know what your mother is. From this, I deduce she knows how to knit. Let's test it. Aha! I was right/wrong!" With this method, I can get very good at predicting properties of your mother.

In order to properly claim that my perception of your mother actually exists in reality, however I must be able to describe every single aspect of your mother. I must be able to say, "This exact person exists in reality exactly as I imagine her". This claim, however, is impossible. Despite all my intuitive understanding of who your mother is, I cannot claim that my idea of her exists anywhere but in my head. Certainly there is someone who exists and has properties very close to what I imagine, but my imagination is not her.

EDIT: For further clarification, here's an example.

Let's look at various ways we could make the claim "atoms exist".

(a) I could also say, "There exist objects called atoms".
(b) I could say, "There exist tiny, indivisible things called 'atoms' that make up all matter".
(c) I could say, "There exist objects called 'atoms' which are made of electrons, protons, and neutrons. 'Atoms' have charges which are necessarily integer multiples of the elementary unit of charge."

It would be absurd for someone to make claim (a), because there's no way to know whether or not the statement is true or false! There's simply not enough information about what the word 'atom' means. (b) is a bit better, but it still leaves a lot of ambiguity. How small are these things? What does "indivisible" mean?

Science makes increasingly more 'specific' claims along the lines of (a), (b), (c), (d), ... and so on. At the heart, however, science is based on observation. So, no scientist would ever make a claim such as (a), because it doesn't say anything about observations in the world (which is what science is all about)! The way that a scientific claim becomes more 'specific' is also different from claims like the a,b,c listed above. A scientific claim becomes more specific only by agreeing better with observation.

When science makes a claim such as "Atoms exist", it's really just short-hand for, "When we do this, this happens (and we have the data to prove it)." The 'existence' of the atom is nothing more than the level of accuracy to which the predictions of the model match observation.

Hmm... perhaps I can think of a better example...

 

[Rebound]

I contend the person the OP refers to is poorly acquainted with the scientific method and should just avoid making such statements as he did. Additionally, the following pretty much puts paid to the idea that atoms are not in and of them selves physical objects: http://www.physorg.com/news205161948.html. "In a major physics breakthrough, University of Otago scientists have developed a technique to consistently isolate and capture a fast-moving neutral atom - and have also seen and photographed this atom for the first time."