How Can a Single Atom Be Seen?

Imagine you have a tiny ball that is so small, you can't see it even with the strongest magnifying glass. To make this tiny ball visible, scientists use a special tool called an electron microscope, which uses beams of tiny particles instead of light to create images of things as small as one atom.

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  1. Using a scanning tunneling microscope, scientists can see individual atoms like they are tiny blocks in a LEGO set.
  2. A single atom is so small that you might need to use an electron microscope, not just any regular one, but a special kind called the scanning tunneling microscope.
  3. Imagine trying to read a book with letters as small as a single atom, that’s what scientists do every day.

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