Can optical tweezers move a atom and could a optical tweezers be made as small as a cell or smaller?

[ADVANCE]

ya......and I did say sorry for asking once again, and asked so because it seemed like that in the writting...

 

Now when you say the even smaller photons would knock it out of place...what out of place the atom or its electron?

Edited May 5, 2014 by ADVANCE

[swansont]

I know what I said was possibly confusing so to make my other questions simpler I mean:

 

What I mean in this...see below-------Just a question though, when John said:

"purposely ignoring about trying to shoot out just a 1-width line of photons?"

We are intentionally ignoring something which can not exist, other than to tell you it's impossible (because of the laws of diffraction) because it can't exist.

Are you saying you's arrre saying that even if tried to be focused the photons would shoot out like a wide spray-defraction...and that a single photon way smaller than an atom is there? Sorry to ask again but it just sounds like that when I read that.

-------Is see at the end there I'm asking because if your saying its defracting out then are you saying there is in the defraction smaller than an atom photons?

Light coming out of any kind of aperture, such as a "line of atoms" will diffract, i.e. spread out.

 

Light that is focused cannot be focused to an arbitrarily small spot.

 

In the context of this discussion, photons are not smaller than atoms.

 

And my last question above there was this if you missed it.

Are you saying the top atoms at the top may even release photons from absorbing some energy from the ones coming up the tube? Like I mean your not saying that......but also maybe saying-including that partely to the defraction...

I don't understand the question. You say you have a line of atoms. What "top atoms at the top" can there be? What tube? This might be easier if you had a consistent description of your system.

[ADVANCE]

 

Light coming out of any kind of aperture, such as a "line of atoms" will diffract, i.e. spread out.

 

Light that is focused cannot be focused to an arbitrarily small spot.

 

In the context of this discussion, photons are not smaller than atoms.

 

 

I don't understand the question. You say you have a line of atoms. What "top atoms at the top" can there be? What tube? This might be easier if you had a consistent description of your system.

Anything I said about that was either a wire loop, up & then down and the photon-shooting area is at top, and atoms surrounding -that- with a hole at the top...with my one question I asked I meant would some of the defraction maybe come from as the photons bounce upward in the surrounding tube their energy might go into the atoms and come out near at the top and cause disturbance to the, percision.

 

Also wait if we are talking about the lowest energy radio waves with a low frequency and high wavelength, and if you look at my question below to john's reply that was my last reply above, I'm asking what now strange stuff could even smaller radio wave photons do to an atom....but don't they have the lowest energy? Or is the strange stuff simply because they are heading really straight / condensed at the atom more?

-----ya......and I did say sorry for asking once again, and asked so because it seemed like that in the writting...

Now when you say the even smaller photons would knock it out of place...what out of place the atom or its electron?

 

Andd also, as a side question, when you look for ex. at gamma ray and radio waves, both opposite, if you drew their height~their width in a 2 sided tunnel on the tabble, are they the (same) in there........... or does the one of them go really uppp high & down lowww....and other one goes more condensed straight? Actually I remember someone saying the smallest photon, radio I'm assuming, has, a smaller up-down width size, right? or are all photon types the same?

Edited May 6, 2014 by ADVANCE

[swansont]

Photons have a wavelength, inversely proportional to their energy. Radio waves are typically measured in meters. The antennas that generate them are of order that size — they need to be a reasonable fraction of a wavelength (best if it's some nice fraction, like a quarter or half wave) in order to interact with any reasonable efficiency. Small wavelength photons have a large energy, as we've discussed earlier. They ones that are the size of atoms have way more energy than it would take to strip electrons from the atom, and the recoil from that interaction will tend to knock the atom around.

[John Cuthber]

ya......and I did say sorry for asking once again, and asked so because it seemed like that in the writting...

 

Now when you say the even smaller photons would knock it out of place...what out of place the atom or its electron?

Both and at roughly a hundred times the speed of sound.

 

This is a non-starter as a means to move things around with precision.

 

You seem to have missed a very fundamental point here.

The smaller a photon is, the more punch it packs.

 

Photons roughly the size of atoms are Xray photons. Radio frequency photons are typically in the range from the size of your hand to the size of the town you live in.

[ADVANCE]

Oh so the photons we would even be interested in then would be the small width ones - gamma ray, xray, at that end...and I thought by small we were talking about small with no energy, radio waves, oops lol. Rather small photons has the most energy, and are on the gamma ray side.

 

So even if perfectly a single xray/gamma ray photon hit the atom and electron/s flew off, wouldn't the atom go moving in one direction in vacuum though? This still has potential... Swansont have you read this, the first post, just wondering? Link removed Besides it still having potential, as basically a question, 2cd question is any ideas how we can make the blueprints in the link work?

Edited May 7, 2014 by hypervalent_iodine

[John Cuthber]

"So even if perfectly a single xray/gamma ray photon hit the atom and electron/s flew off, wouldn't the atom go moving in one direction in vacuum though?"

Probably not.

It would be much more likely to knock some electrons off the atom and the ionised atom and the electrons would fly off in different directions.

It's like trying to steer an apple with a shotgun.

 

Re the question in the other thread

you say

"Hi, I am 18 and although I know a lot about physics and stuff I am probably missing lots of knowledge and probably even simple things in physics. My idea from what I know follows physics and I think it could work maybe, I first realized it when I was 14 and still I have no proof it can't be made/work,"

Well, I have bad news, the proof it can't be made/work is the uncertainty principle.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

Edited May 6, 2014 by John Cuthber

[Delta1212]

Trying to precisely arrange atoms using photons with that much energy would be akin to maneuvering colored billiard balls on a table into the shape of the Mona Lisa by shooting them with a handgun.

[ADVANCE]

Did you come up with the uncertainty principal or get it from my sentance lol?? I said it myself but didn't take that as a reason because it doesn't stand by itself, but with the new as I notified just above it makes more sense I guess..........any other way though we can achieve the plan, because building a god send nanobot which will then duplicate to ~infintety~ correct? -Is not only far off maybe, but more limited on amazing things....because if we can build something that rather uses levitation to move an atom, the evolution of it would be so fast and it would do great things, for ex. unlike a nano bot (maybe) they could levitate air away, and open up every atom of a cell and record, & every cell of organs, and record, and can instantly build them and add them on to us and could also manipulate them on computer to be eternal, and create those....so if we can find a thing to then duplicate that uses levitation means to move an atom.......... So any ideas? Any way of using gravitons, electrons, photons, from something built atomic orrr not...??

Edited May 6, 2014 by ADVANCE

[John Cuthber]

Delta,

feel free to check my maths butI don't think a hand gun is quite the right analogy here.

The mass of a billiard ball is roughly that of the bullet and the speed of the bullet is roughly the speed of sound.

So the energy of the bullet is roughly enough to double the temperature of the ball.

(to very rough approximations the speed of molecules is about the speed of sound at that temperature. They start off with energy due to being warm (not at absolute zero) and they get about as much energy again from the bullet).

 

However, as mentioned, the photon energy is about 10,000 eV compared to the thermal energy of about 0.02 eV.

So you are adding about a million times more energy than is initially present.

 

I think that puts it into the range of trying to play billiards using nuclear weapons, rather than handguns.

 

Advance,

re. "Did you come up with the uncertainty principal or get it from my sentance lol?"
Nope

This guy did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg

It might be better if you learned about it.

It will save you a lot of time asking about things that are known to be impossible.

[ADVANCE]

Just writing to say I edited my last reply and now read it~

 

Nooo I know that lol, I meant did you hear about it from my sentance though, and that it could be partely the answer to this not working, but only put it together cause I said it...?

Edited May 6, 2014 by ADVANCE

[Delta1212]

Delta,

feel free to check my maths butI don't think a hand gun is quite the right analogy here.

The mass of a billiard ball is roughly that of the bullet and the speed of the bullet is roughly the speed of sound.

So the energy of the bullet is roughly enough to double the temperature of the ball.

(to very rough approximations the speed of molecules is about the speed of sound at that temperature. They start off with energy due to being warm (not at absolute zero) and they get about as much energy again from the bullet).

 

However, as mentioned, the photon energy is about 10,000 eV compared to the thermal energy of about 0.02 eV.

So you are adding about a million times more energy than is initially present.

 

I think that puts it into the range of trying to play billiards using nuclear weapons, rather than handguns.

 

Well, nuclear weapons get closer to the energy range but swing in the other direction on size. You can't localize the explosion very precisely in comparison to the size of a billiard ball.

 

I suppose what you'd need for a more accurate analogy would be a bullet that hits with the force of a nuclear blast.

 

Maybe a bazooka would have been a better analogy just for illustrative purposes.

[Orodruin]

Well, nuclear weapons get closer to the energy range but swing in the other direction on size. You can't localize the explosion very precisely in comparison to the size of a billiard ball.

 

I suppose what you'd need for a more accurate analogy would be a bullet that hits with the force of a nuclear blast.

 

Maybe a bazooka would have been a better analogy just for illustrative purposes.

 

Well ... pure plutonium-239 would have a critical radius of just under 10 cm. It is a bigger than a billiard ball but not several orders of magnitude.

[swansont]

 

So even if perfectly a single xray/gamma ray photon hit the atom and electron/s flew off, wouldn't the atom go moving in one direction in vacuum though? This still has potential...

 

Photons with an energy of 1-2 eV (i.e. visible or NIR light) will make most atoms recoil at around 1 cm/sec, give or take, depending on the mass, for an excitation or de-excitation. That's how you do laser cooling. A photon with 1 keV of energy has 1000 times the momentum. You no longer have the absorption, since the photon is so energetic, but it would tend to be a lot larger.

 

So you're still in a regime where you want to use photons that are much larger than atoms, and no, you can't get the precision to manipulate them the way you want to.

[ADVANCE]

I meant john-Did you come up with the uncertainty principal -is partely the reason- meaning not you made it...or get it from my sentance-in my other thread lol?? I said it myself but didn't take that as a reason because it doesn't stand by itself, but with the new as I notified just above it makes more sense I guess..........

And again just to put it here on the 4th page...Any other way though we can achieve the plan, because building a god send nanobot which will then duplicate to ~infintety~ correct? -Is not only far off maybe, but more limited on amazing things....because if we can build something that rather uses levitation to move an atom, the evolution of it would be so fast and it would do great things, for ex. unlike a nanobot (at least I don't think nanobots could do it) they could levitate air away, and open up apart every atom of a cell and record, & every cell of organs, and record, and can instantly build them and add them on to us and could also manipulate them on computer to be eternal, and create those....so if we can find a thing to then duplicate that uses levitation means to move an atom..........that would be very excellent... So any ideas? Any way of using gravitons, electrons, photons, from something built atomic orrr not...?

 

hypervalent_iodine why did you just give me a warning point on this thread for spamming???? This reply above is to just re-paste it with some changes, and to still put at the end what else can we try~ and that finday a way of levitating an atom would be superior to using atoms to move an atom for as stated above why.

 

Just to put here, for newcomers or refrance, the whole fast-paced plan which stands on this one problem of levitating an atom is said by me here link removed - stop doing this

[swansont]

 

hypervalent_iodine why did you just give me a warning point on this thread for spamming???? This reply above is to just re-paste it with some changes, and to still put at the end what else can we try~ and that finday a way of levitating an atom would be superior to using atoms to move an atom for as stated above why.

 

 

It's because what you did is against the rules. You're advertising your speculations discussion in a different thread. That's a no-no.

[ADVANCE]

 

It's because what you did is against the rules. You're advertising your speculations discussion in a different thread. That's a no-no.

Well cause I thought that that thread and this one as you can see are well definitely talking about the same thing now...and that the other one had the opening paragraph how the whole plan would work if we could levitate a atom somewhat fast with percision...

Um, swansont you didn't answer the question in the middle in all the writing above...anyone have any other ideas how to levitate an atom with percion???

Edited May 7, 2014 by ADVANCE

[John Cuthber]

 

Um, swansont you didn't answer the question in the middle in all the writing above...anyone have any other ideas how to levitate an atom with percion???

The question was already answered.

It's impossible.

That's what the uncertainty principle says.

The best you can do is (roughly) the wavelength of visible light- about half a micron.

[ADVANCE]

you mean the best we can do is levitate using photons bigger stuff like cells or pencel (erasers)?

[John Cuthber]

Why not look at what the uncertainty principle actually says and then, rather than repeatedly asking us pointless questions, you can work out the answers for yourself.

(and, yes, the question's pointless, because it has already been answered).

[ADVANCE]

But can we levitate bigger stuff with photons with percision? what's the smallest? a cell? maybe molecules luckily, you would hope at least...or pencil erasers? ------What's the smallest we can levitate with percision using photons?

 

I meant in that big paragraph any other ways-any ideas how to levitate an atom with percision ---- gravitons? electrons? any way with photons? neutrinos? leptons?

 

John as I said at the top of that big paragraph did, you get the idea of the problem being the uncertainty principal from my other thread lol? cause I did say it myself in my other thread when I was counting off possible problems.

 

And lastly wanna ask does anybody have any references to anybody ever actually trying to shoot a xray or gamma ray photon at a atom with thee photon either probably being bigger, same size or smaller than the atom, any actual tests-references to any if any?

 

That's pretty much it, that's the only questions I have left then.

Edited May 8, 2014 by ADVANCE

[John Cuthber]

Google compton scattering.

[ADVANCE]

What about it? That doesn't answer or help any of the left over questions above...(´┏o┓｀

Edited May 8, 2014 by ADVANCE

[John Cuthber]

You ask "John as I said at the top of that big paragraph did, you get the idea of the problem being the uncertainty principal from my other thread"

and I had already said that the idea came from some German bloke but you asked the same question again. Did you think the answer might have changed somehow?

 

 

You ask

"does anybody have any references to anybody ever actually trying to shoot a xray or gamma ray photon at a atom"

I suggest you look at Compton scattering.

The first hit is the wiki page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compton_scattering

which says

"Compton scattering is an inelastic scattering of a photon by a free charged particle, usually an electron. It results in a decrease in energy (increase in wavelength) of the photon (which may be an X-ray or gamma ray photon), called the Compton effect."

and

 

"Compton scattering usually refers to the interaction involving only the electrons of an atom."

and you say "That doesn't answer or help any of the left over questions above"

 

If pointing you to a page that directly answers the question doesn't help, what are you hoping for?

[ADVANCE]

You must have not read something above or miss read it...I meant did you >understand the uncertainty principal must be somewhat the reason here to being the problem...from only reading my other thread lol? Because I said it there a few days ago.

 

No that isn't making sense at all, -the compton scattering....it doesn't even relate to (all) 3 questions left....if it is an answer....then just say in english as normally would to the question. Also If your saying it as a reference like I asked above, Im talking about a test where a single or couple of xray or gammaray photons where shot at it mostly at one-side of the single atom, either with the atom floating in vacuum or at the corner of a larger mass. The two other questions are not about this though I'm sure...never the less, all 3 need their respective own answer in english...

Edited May 8, 2014 by ADVANCE