Microscopes of the future

[wjfox]

Let's assume the trend in microscopic power continues well into the future. Rather like Moore's Law, it seems to be fairly consistent and predictable.

The best possible resolution we have today is approaching 0.01 nanometres (10 picometres), which is fine enough to view individual atoms. We can see them in a recent blog post here.

Presumably new innovations will allow even smaller details to be resolved in the future. During the 22nd century, it should even be possible to view individual protons, which have a radius of 0.831 femtometres (fm), or 1.662 fm if we're going with diameter.

1.662 fm = 0.000001662 nm, achievable by around 2140, based on the graph below.

So my question is: what might that mean in terms of practical applications? Let's say we're able to view subatomic structures and physical phenomena on that scale. What would we do with such technology? What might we learn about protons? This could make an interesting entry on our timeline.

Quarks and electrons, which are three orders of magnitude smaller than protons, might be viewable around 2200.

[Jakob]

Well microscopy works by bouncing particles off an object, but if an object is too small, you can't bounce particles off it. And fundamental particles aren't really physical objects with a distinct location, so much as weird probabilistic energy field bullshit, so bouncing anything off them is problematic. This is another case where futurist's beloved exponential graphs don't make much sense. It's like observing the fact that there were 0 of me in 1998 and 1 of me in 1999, and then concluding that there would be 2 of me in 2000, 4 of me in 2001, 8 of me in 2002, and 8388608 of me in 2022.

[R8Z]

Well microscopy works by bouncing particles off an object, but if an object is too small, you can't bounce particles off it. And fundamental particles aren't really physical objects with a distinct location, so much as weird probabilistic energy field bullshit, so bouncing anything off them is problematic. This is another case where futurist's beloved exponential graphs don't make much sense. It's like observing the fact that there were 0 of me in 1998 and 1 of me in 1999, and then concluding that there would be 2 of me in 2000, 4 of me in 2001, 8 of me in 2002, and 8388608 of me in 2022.

On the surface this seems logical, but the chart itself already disproves your logic as it shows that we haven't being using simple "boucing" in the latest few developments. Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptychography

@wjfox is right and the chart is pointing in the right direction here, technology will improve and we surely will develop ways to detect somehow these subatomic particles given enough time, although it will reach these new levels by going around physical limitations, just like Moore's law has being doing as well.

[Tadasuke]

I do think wjfox's graph is ok, I don't see anything wrong with it. Just because you don't know how future technology will work doesn't mean it won't work.

Just like AMD EPYC 7773X or Nvidia Hopper H100 have 32 million times more transistors than Intel 4004 after 50 years, people will find a way to photograph subatomic particles, but it will take time. Probably just as much time as wjfox predicts.

[wjfox]

So then assuming it works, how could it be used?

What properties/interactions of protons that are currently unknown (or poorly understood) might be revealed? What sort of practical technologies might this lead to?

Physics and subatomic stuff isn't really my specialist subject.

[Jakob]

Okay well there's still the problem that at certain scales "stuff" as we know it doesn't really exist, so can't be imaged. We'll never know what a quark looks like, for instance, because it doesn't, and can't "look like" anything.

[wjfox]

Okay well there's still the problem that at certain scales "stuff" as we know it doesn't really exist, so can't be imaged. We'll never know what a quark looks like, for instance, because it doesn't, and can't "look like" anything.

This doesn't make sense to me. Sorry.

Doesn't "really" exist? Please clarify.

Either something exists, or it doesn't.

[Jakob]

Okay well there's still the problem that at certain scales "stuff" as we know it doesn't really exist, so can't be imaged. We'll never know what a quark looks like, for instance, because it doesn't, and can't "look like" anything.

This doesn't make sense to me. Sorry.

Doesn't "really" exist? Please clarify.

Either something exists, or it doesn't.

That works for macro-scale objects but things like electrons and quarks aren't tiny little physical balls that you can point to and say "it's over there", they're essentially probabilistic fluctuations in an energy field. Which you can simulate, sure, but can't really take a photo of.

[RupertR]

Well microscopy works by bouncing particles off an object, but if an object is too small, you can't bounce particles off it.

Well, you can but it will have a huge impact on what you are looking at, which would ruin the whole idea.
Bouncing or not, as I understand we must interact with an object we are trying to investigate, to detect it and it's characteristics. It' doesn't always mean that we need to send something at it, as photons in optical microscope or electrons in electron one, or sound waves in acoustic microscopes, we can detect particles that are emitted by the object. But it's still an interaction, and at this scale interaction changes a lot it the system we are looking at.

[Beene1967]

It seems to me that this is the best that man could create for science. When I was at school, I really liked chemistry lessons, because we often used a microscope in them. I had to spend a lot of time studying, so I used https://plainmath.net/post-secondary/ca ... d-analysis to keep up with such a critically important subject as mathematics. It took a lot of time to find the answer to the calculus problems, so I was glad to find step-by-step solutions to hundreds of college calculus problems.