News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Picture of a Single Atom Wins Science Photo Contest. Parent comment

Re:Picture of a Single Atom Wins Science Photo Contest by StavrosK on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @06:33AM (#16366354)
It doesn't really mean anything to day "you aren't looking at it, you're looking at the reflected photons". You're always looking at reflected photons of everything.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Picture of a Single Atom Wins Science Photo Contest by kgwgk on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @01:24PM (#16369423)
Actually “reflected” doesn´t mean much for photons: they are absorbed and re-emitted.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Picture of a Single Atom Wins Science Photo Contest by StavrosK on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @01:54PM (#16369684)
Isn't that what "reflected" means?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Picture of a Single Atom Wins Science Photo Contest by kgwgk on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @02:30PM (#16369970)
Not exactly.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflection_(physics)

For most of the history of the word “reflect”, its meaning was definitely not “absorb and re-emit photons of the same frequency”.

[ Parent | on HN ]