Single molecule's stunning image

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

This is very cool
image of a carbon nanotube

Isn't it beautiful I'm astonished that you can see the chemical bonds.

Tis my new desk top background!

OMG amazing!

I know its amazing to think they can see something that small. Stunning!

Isn't it weird though, to see something imaged that you learn about in school and have a theoretical picture in your head of what it might look like and there it is - imaged.
Would love to see more!

(not that I had heard of carbon nanotubes in school. I thought benzene was pretty cool then )

Wow, thats amazing! Who thinks up these things, it just baffles me.

RIght I need education

an atom is made up of molecules?

what's a carbon nanotube plese

Frankly not an expert at all but from what I can decipher on google and make out from the image a carbon nanotube seems to be a cylindrical tube made up of lots of 6 carbon rings.

Maybe someone else can shed more light on it.

Molecules are made up of atoms joined together with chemical bonds.

A carbon nanotube is really cool. They've been discovered relatively recently. If I remember correctly they are tubes of carbon with hydrogen atoms stuck on the sides.

They have the potential to be very useful in nano technology (science working at the molecular level) Nanotechnology can be a bit controversial but potential benefits are in computers and engineering and medicine.

hth

Altthough the article mentions carbon nanotubes, the image is not a nanotube. It's a pentacene molecule.

No, I've never heard of pentacene either.

aha! Shows how much I know I guess pentacene cos you can see 5 rings in the image?

Very beautiful but the words made absolutely no sense to me at all

I'm very shallow and thick.

(had just assumed a penatcene was a little short nanotube )

A pentacene is made of 5 carbon rings in a line. Basically what you can see on the image.

(and that means I think that nanotubes don't have hydrogen atoms in them. oh silly me.)

Who'd have thought, a chance to learn some chemistry at this time of the day in the school holidays