Taming the Atom: The Emergence of the Visible Microworld

by HansChristianVonBaeyer (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1993

  $3.28

  While quantum theory of the internal structure of atoms remains a matter of theory, inaccessible to everyday experience, atoms themselves have become increasingly tangible and perceptible in recent years. The invention of the scanning tunnelling microscope has made it possible to photograph them and atomic traps are making it possible to isolate individual atoms, in ways that are vastly increasing our understanding of their behaviour. Much recent science writing has concentrated on the far reaches of theory - particle physics, quantum theory and cosmology - but this book shows how physics links into the world we inhabit and how electron clouds and probability waves add up to the physical, tangible world of objects.