But its not showing things directly, is it? Its interpreting a frequency and converting that to an image. Is it really that different to a music visualiser?
Of course your eye is a sensor. As are all your senses. The difference is that the input it receives is unmediated by external sensors and software. Visualising atoms or DNA is fine, but it is an inferior source of information. By a long way.
Imagine you were born deaf and couldn't hear music. But that someone showed you a music visualiser.
Do you think if you were watching the output of that visualiser you would now know the music in some meaningful way?
Would it be possible for you to try at least to contribute to the discussion? This out of hand dismissal seems to be a bit of an issue for you, maybe try harder?
How is it inferior? We can't see in for e.g. the IR spectrum. But we can turn an IR image into a false-colour image that our eye and brain can make great use of. Using your eyes to directly see in IR will inherently be inferior to processing the results from a sensor into a form that we can see.
You seem really hung up on some pedantry about "see" and "seeing". Why? This may seem like some kind of strong criticism to you, but it just seems as though you are unaware of these technologies and haven't really thought through what constitutes a measurement or observation.
There are an incredible number of recurrent top-down connections in your vision processing areas. You do not really see what's there in any meaningful way. What you see is heavily conditioned on what other modules of your brain "expect" to see.
Consider foveated vision. The idea that you can actually see what is going on on your desk all at the same time is an illusion.
Directly as in: you do it yourself, without going through a bunch of intermediaries who will dazzle you with their pretty pictures, you yourself are the one observing the results.
Of course a STM does not work with visible light so it's pretty damn obvious that any measurements will use some other mechanism, and will have to have their measurements converted into an image that we can see. But that does not mean we are not observing. As opposed to reading about someone else's observations.
I take it you also believe that quasars have not been observed and ditto for the dark side of the moon?
I don't understand the downvotes. That's an honest fundamental question.
It's not "showing things directly" because it can't. The limit of what you can see with light is proportional to the wavelength of the light (this is called the diffraction limit). For visible light and lens-based optics that's around 1/2 micron.
The distance between the atoms in that graphite is ~3 angstroms, that about 2000 times smaller than the diffraction limit for visible light.
You CAN get atomic resolution with a transmission electron microscope. Instead of light it uses electrons and has a far finer diffraction limit that visible light. Instead of lenses it uses electrostatic deflection.
Because the comment is factually wrong. Because it tries to argue something in bad faith.
> That's an honest fundamental question.
But it wasn't a question, it was a statement, and a faulty one at that.
Best case interpretation would require substituting 'current' for 'frequency' and even then it would be inaccurate because the current is a proxy for the Z-distance to the tip which is then used to convert to a 3D map, which in turn can be visualized.
It is fairly obvious that this is an indirect process so clear the word 'directly' wasn't about 'seeing atoms' but all about the fact that you can make the observations yourself.
Whether you are measuring a current or looking through an eyepiece both are observations. And looking at the resulting image is also an observation.
As opposed to reading about STMs and looking at pretty pictures online or in books.
It's a shallow comment masquerading as an insightful one, the worst way to derail any conversation.
The reason for the downvotes.... won't be popular to hear, but here it is.
This forum apparently values the scientific outlook, which is purported to be a skeptical one. Do not commit to accepting whatever-it-is without evidence, right?
But that unpopular, question opinions are so downvoted (which has the effect that replies cannot be posted until the next day when no one is watching) speaks volumes about how skeptical people really are. How much application of the scientific method do people actually use in their lives?
What we really have in science, and society in general, is an echo chamber where lots of lip service is given to the scientific method but no one actually implements it personally. Then when someone like me comes along and critically reviews the presentation, it leaves people feeling uncomfortable as they realise just how much they have taken on trust.
So, the answer is to downvote. Its not pretty but everyone can get back into the comfortable echo chamber. And in preventing unpopular skeptical opinions (ie maintaining the echo chamber) is what HN is here to facilitate.
So ... how about some self-reflection in your bubble of self-righteousness?
And actually answer to the answer of jacquesm?
"But it wasn't a question, it was a statement, and a faulty one at that
Best case interpretation would require substituting 'current' for 'frequency' and even then it would be inaccurate because the current is a proxy for the Z-distance to the tip which is then used to convert to a 3D map, which in turn can be visualized.
"
So it seems you were just wrong in your statement and therefore downvoted.
In general, I would agree that the downvoting habit here is sometimes over the line. Like I would not have downvoted your original question, even though it did contained a false statement. But how you react to an answer actually explaining the reasoning - does not speak for you in this case.
The GP's "statement" contained three relevant sentences, two ending with question-marks. I learned from both your answer and its parent, furthering conversation, for me at least.
Read the rest of their comments and see if you still feel that way. As well as the novelty account made for the express purpose of further derailing the conversation.
But its not showing things directly, is it? Its interpreting a frequency and converting that to an image. Is it really that different to a music visualiser?
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