Hans Christian von Baeyer Taming the Atom

Annotation

While the quantum theory of the internal structure of atoms remains a matter of theory, inaccessible to everyday experience, atoms themselves have become increasingly tangible and perceptible in recent years. The invention of the scanning-tunnelling microscope has made it possible to photograph them, and atomic traps are making it possible to isolate individual atoms in ways that are vastly increasing our understanding of their behaviour. Much recent science writing has concentrated on the far reaches of theory - particle physics, quantum theory and cosmology. In this book Von Baeyer shows how this links into the world we inhabit and how electron clouds and probability waves add up to the physical, tangible world of objects.