The Universe is Like a Windows Media Player Visualization

February 26, 2008 7:21 AM

The observable universe just got a bit smaller. Johan Mauritsson and his colleagues at Lund University in Sweden have released what appears to be a video of an electron oscillating on a wave of light.
posted by tehloki (52 comments total)

Video wouldn't play for me, but this appears to be a YouTube version.

Having read the article 3 times and not understood the original meaning behind the journalism babble, I think the net effect here is that we all just got goatsed.
posted by DU at 7:29 AM on February 26

(Rather, I understand what the journalist is saying, but they can't really be saying that because Heisenberg.)
posted by DU at 7:33 AM on February 26

.... so that blue thing, that's the electron right? And it's going up and down because it's riding on said wave of light, correct?
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 7:34 AM on February 26

I don't really understand what I just saw (or read!), but I get the feeling it's really important.
posted by the_very_hungry_caterpillar at 7:38 AM on February 26

I think this is fake or very poorly explained.
posted by Ironmouth at 7:39 AM on February 26

I am not sure CitrusFreak, but no matter what we are looking at it is BLOWING MY freakin' MIND!
posted by munchingzombie at 7:40 AM on February 26

That there's some Science. Or something.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 7:42 AM on February 26

It's a good thing they put that spacey music on there so I know I'm seeing something wonderful and breathtaking, instead of just a bad computer graphics assignment.
posted by chococat at 7:45 AM on February 26 [2 favorites]

That spacey music is pretty awesome, though. Way better than *ping!* The Electron and YOU.
posted by fusinski at 7:47 AM on February 26 [1 favorite]

Much better explanation here.

Turns out they are imaging the quantum state of the electron, not taking a movie of it moving around like some race car. The picture shows all the places the electron is hitting the detector.

key paragraph:

The researchers synchronized the pulse train with the oscillations of a relatively weak infrared laser, so that their cloud of helium atoms received a strong, ionizing "kick" at a precise time during each laser cycle. Each attosecond pulse released a few electrons, some of which were thrown back against their atoms before being pushed sideways and detected.

Accumulating data from many ionization events, the team created clean images of the quantum state of electrons ionized at a single moment in the laser oscillation cycle. The images are the first of their kind that show such controlled electron-atom scattering. The team calls their system a stroboscope, after another device that uses periodic flashes of light to capture a still image of a hummingbird's wings, for example.

Each experiment generated a "bullseye" pattern showing the locations in which electrons struck the detector plate. To demonstrate that each image represented precisely one moment during the laser cycle--rather than a range of ionization times--the team shifted the timing of the attosecond pulses with respect to the laser field cycle. If electrons were ionized at a time when the laser field gave them an extra boost upward, the pattern shifted upward; if the ionizing pulse came a half-cycle later, the bullseye shifted downward. This pattern shifting wouldn't have been possible with longer-lasting ionization periods.

The article fails to explain why an electron gives off cheesy Yanni-like music when put through the detector.
posted by Ironmouth at 7:49 AM on February 26 [6 favorites]

totally photoshopped
posted by From Bklyn at 7:49 AM on February 26

The length of the film Mauritsson and his colleagues made corresponds to a single oscillation of a wave of light . The speed of the event has been slowed down for human eyes.

Typical patronizing scientists, always dumbing down for their audience.
posted by Rumple at 7:53 AM on February 26 [2 favorites]

I agree with caterpillar. This is obviously very important but I have no idea why.
posted by Avenger at 8:02 AM on February 26

I can't get my mind around an attosecond being to a second as a second is to the age of the universe. *head explodes*
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 8:04 AM on February 26 [6 favorites]

That music is really scientfic.

Scientifical. Sciencey. Whatever.
posted by ikkyu2 at 8:04 AM on February 26

The observable universe just got a bit smaller

If we are seeing these for the first time, didn't it just get bigger?
posted by StickyCarpet at 8:07 AM on February 26

I think I died against that in Dungeon Master.
posted by parmanparman at 8:12 AM on February 26 [1 favorite]

Read the article, watched the clip four times and I'm still far from understanding what is going on.
posted by francesca too at 8:13 AM on February 26

I am pretty well versed in this area and will try to explain this in a way that makes it a little more intelligible to the layman. The thing that you have to realize is that before this experiment, it was believed that the ionization of an electron making waves through the laser field cycle would result in a scattering of the zero-field particles. This video, and the data that it represents, proves that team shifted attosecond pulses can hyper-inflate the perceptible field of light in a way that phase-shifts the surrounding waves of Klepman particles in the elnonispheric conditions. I think that you can see that this has profound implications to our understanding of how electrons interact with light in wave bending laser shifting attofields. So, it is pretty exciting stuff.
posted by ND¢ at 8:15 AM on February 26 [15 favorites]

I think NDcent has a very liberal definition of the term "layman".
posted by tehloki at 8:19 AM on February 26 [8 favorites]

ND¢, I don't know what kind of laymen you hang out with, but I think they're keeping a deep knowledge of physics secret from you.

"This video, and the data that it represents, proves that team shifted attosecond pulses can hyper-inflate the perceptible field of light in a way that phase-shifts the surrounding waves of Klepman particles in the elnonispheric conditions."

Oh yeah -- my brother totally overheard that exact same thing at Starbucks from this smoking hot Turkish girl who puts salt in her coffee.
posted by CheeseburgerBrown at 8:24 AM on February 26 [4 favorites]

Sorry. I am just passionate about this stuff, and so I get caught up in technical speak sometimes. Imagine if you will that a laser field cycle is the sheet on your bed. You and three of your friends each hold a corner of the sheet and pull it taught. The zero-field particles are the dust motes floating around the blanket and the hyper accelerated light wave electrons are the light waves coming from the lamps in your bedroom, but these lamps would be moving around your room at the speed of light! So not only would you be interacting with the laser field cycle, but each attosecond would cause particles of light to interact with the field shifted nonotrons within each of the "dust motes" or zero-field particles, so your interaction, as the forces pulling the blanket, would be affecting not only the blanket and the dust motes, but would actually be affecting the speed of the light traveling through the room. It is quite amazing.
posted by ND¢ at 8:27 AM on February 26 [6 favorites]

This electron... it oscillates?
posted by starman at 8:29 AM on February 26 [2 favorites]

You can pull a sheet to the light, but you can't make it taught.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:34 AM on February 26 [6 favorites]

Wow, around the 20 second mark in the video, one can see the faint ghost of a little girl in the background.
posted by Dr. Curare at 8:45 AM on February 26

Right on, StickyCarpet -- I almost posted the same point. (Thank g*d for preview)
posted by AwkwardPause at 8:51 AM on February 26

Dude. I bet the Higgs boson looks like my screensaver.
posted by naju at 8:58 AM on February 26

Wave bending laser shifting attofields.

Welcome to the next generation of technical terms ripe for science fiction. "Ensign, red alert! Engage the attofields!"
posted by StrikeTheViol at 9:03 AM on February 26 [1 favorite]

Follow the bouncing blue ball and sing along!
posted by The Light Fantastic at 9:09 AM on February 26

Dear Single Guys,

Next time you're picking up a girl at a bar, mention this story and tell her you can explain it pretty easily if she's willing to bring two friends to your house to see the dust motes on your bedsheet. Two hot friends.

Yeeeaaaah, boyieeeeeee.
posted by ben242 at 9:13 AM on February 26

A friend in my Warcraft guild points out that it's not music, it's the actual sound of the electron. And it turns out electrons sound exactly like the Naaru. Which makes sense, when you think about it.
posted by Nelson at 9:19 AM on February 26

Nelson, I not only think your friend thought about it way too much, I also think I've spent far too much time on World of Warcraft because I both understood and agreed with the reference.

I need to get out more.
posted by FormlessOne at 10:39 AM on February 26

have released what appears to be a video of an electron oscillating on a wave of light.

That may be what it 'appears to be' but what it actually is, is very small aliens having crazy borderline-illegal sex.

Beyond that, I'd rather not get any more specific.
posted by quin at 10:55 AM on February 26

ND,

I was wondering what an "attofield" is, so I tried to google it, find it in Wiklepedia, physics web sites, etc., and I couldn't find it anwhere.

Just what is an attofield? Where you refering to the pulses of light that were some attoseconds long?

And I didn't really follow your second example regarding the bedsheet. What, in plain English, are you trying to get at? How in the hell do you affect the speed of light in your bedroom with a sheet?

I'm sorry I'm slow about these things!
posted by JKevinKing at 10:58 AM on February 26

I think they just found the sampo.
posted by languagehat at 11:13 AM on February 26

JKevinKing, ND¢ was making fun of the way some scientist-types "explain" things without conveying any information. I couldn't tell if I thought the joke was funny, b/c I wasn't sure how many people would get it, and I was dismayed to see noone pushing him for details. I'm glad to see that at least one person who didn't get the joke actually asked good questions rather than just shrugging their shoulders, believing the world was incomprehensible.

(c.f reverse Sokal, ala Bogdanoff brothers.)

I have to say ND¢, the genius bit was the "clarifying" metaphor involving the sheet, starting intelligibly but wandering rapidly into the incomprehensible. Excellent recognition of conversational patterns. So much so that it reminds me (uncomfortably!) of failed attempts to describe my research to non-experts.
posted by johnjoe at 11:13 AM on February 26

JKevinKing, ND¢ thinks he's funny.
posted by fatllama at 11:14 AM on February 26

“Previously it was impossible to photograph electrons because of their extreme speediness,”
Damn you and your technical jargon! How much fast particles did the electron contain?

(Intriguing, thanks Ironmouth and ND¢)
posted by Smedleyman at 11:24 AM on February 26

Yeah sorry JKevinKing. I was an English major and took Biology 101, which I made a D in, to satisfy my college's requirement that I take at least one science. I didn't look at any of the links in the FPP and I don't even know what type of science is being described here (physics?). I just wanted to try spouting off about the subject and see if people would think that I was making sense. I pulled all the terms that I didn't make up (like attofields and Klepman particles) from Ironmouth's comment. Sorry to pull your leg.
posted by ND¢ at 11:30 AM on February 26 [2 favorites]

ND¢: Imagine if you will that a laser field cycle is the sheet on your bed. You and three of your friends each hold a corner of the sheet and pull it taught.

LOL YOU MISSPELLED "TAUT" YOU ARE SO STUPID LOLOLOLOLOOL

Okay I'm just making myself feel better for not knowing what the hell you're talking about.
posted by loiseau at 11:34 AM on February 26

It's SCIENCE!
posted by slogger at 11:38 AM on February 26

I meant Ironmouth's comment.
posted by ND¢ at 11:39 AM on February 26

I am pretty well versed in this area and will try to explain this in a way that makes it a little more intelligible to the layman. [speaks in tongues] I think that you can see that this has profound implications to our understanding of how electrons interact with light in wave bending laser shifting attofields.

Bravo, sir.
posted by moonbiter at 11:46 AM on February 26

Also "elnonispheric" I made up the hell out of that one. I thought that would get me caught.
posted by ND¢ at 11:56 AM on February 26

NDc, that was funny.
posted by dr. moot at 11:56 AM on February 26

Oh "nonotrons" too. I don't think those are real.
posted by ND¢ at 12:01 PM on February 26

They're real and they're spectacular.
posted by Skorgu at 12:08 PM on February 26 [3 favorites]

Nice ND¢. as I read it I imagined it all being rattled off by Howard Ramis.
posted by b1ff at 12:10 PM on February 26

"This video, and the data that it represents, proves that team shifted attosecond pulses can hyper-inflate the perceptible field of light in a way that phase-shifts the surrounding waves of Klepman particles in the elnonispheric conditions."

Oh yeah -- my brother totally overheard that exact same thing at Starbucks from this smoking hot Turkish girl who puts salt in her coffee.

Turkish or not; sugar, salt or plain coffee; that kind of eavesdropped comment would automatically make the girl in question smokin' hot, at least for me.

Your teamshifted attosecond pulses may hyperinflate varyingly.
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:49 PM on February 26

ND¢ totally deserves a sidebar. And I deserve a sidecar. Maybe after work.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 9:11 AM on February 27

I thought the joke was "For my non-physics geek Mefite friends, here's a simplified explanation: [INSERT ABSURDLY TECHNICAL YET FACTUALLY CORRECT TREATISE]". So yeah, I totally fell for it.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 10:13 AM on February 27

Metafilter: a very liberal definition of the term 'layman'
posted by Mitheral at 5:50 PM on February 27 [2 favorites]