Not by Design: The Origin of the Universe

Author:Victor J. Stenger [Stenger, Victor J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Published: 2010-05-14T05:00:00+00:00

Fig. 6.4. In order to “see” an object with particles, the object must have sufficient mass to scatter the incoming particles. Here ping pong balls are easily scattered by a billiard ball into the detector, symbolized by the eye. Incoming billiard balls, however, are not scattered by a ping pong ball and so are not “seen.”

This is no different from the case of looking at microbes under a microscope. Since visible light has a wavelength of about one micron (10-6 meter), we cannot really see microbes less than about 10 microns in size. To do that we must resort to X-ray or electron microscopes in which the wavelength is smaller. An atom is about 10,000 times smaller than the wavelength of visible light, so we can never hope to see an atom, or the electrons within, with visible light no matter how great we make the magnification of our microscopes. The atom is forever inaccessible to our eyes, but not to our brains, which can interpret the data from the instruments we build to aid our eyes. Let us still speak of “seeing” when we use these instruments.

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