First Time Electron Filmed: What's Going On?

[MonstersFromTheId]

This article, "Electron filmed in motion for the first time", in the MSNBC, technology and science section, left me a little suspicious --

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23336318/

I say "suspicious" because I've grown accustomed to overblown headlines like "Teleportation proved possible!" followed by predictions that I'll soon be "beaming" my way to work like Scotty, flying to work in a "Skycar", or live forever due to medical advances in nano-technology. What sells news isn't always very close to the truth.

First things first here, could someone please try to explain what it is I'm seeing in this film of "an electron in motion"?

What part of what I'm looking at is the electron? The concentric rings floating up and down? The bright spots that seem to appear and disappear?

Or is that an impossible question to answer without a LOT more info than this article provides?

 

[Volcano]

Only black screen. when will be sit opposite side? :)

 

[Andy Resnick]

It looks like "grantology". The actual science behind the movie is interesting: attosecond pulses, collision dynamics, etc. etc. etc. The claim of filming an electron is goofy. Never mind cloud chambers, I guess.

It took too long to get the movie, but I suspect the movie is a bunch of still images taken from consecutive events, stitched together. I saw an awesome movie of sonoluminescence/bubble collapse using that technique.

 

[joema]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080222095358.htm

"The filmed sequence shows the energy distribution of the electron and is therefore not a film in the usual sense."

Technical overview: http://www.atto.fysik.lth.se/

Lunds University press release: http://www.atto.fysik.lth.se/video/pressrelen.pdf

Research paper: http://www.atto.fysik.lth.se/publications/papers/MauritssonPRL2008.pdf

Article in Physical Review Letters: http://focus.aps.org/story/v21/st7

"experiment generated a "bullseye" pattern showing the locations in which electrons struck the detector plate."

 

[MonstersFromTheId]

Tx joema. Those articles were a huge help.