Question: How would you be able to see the shape of the an electron when it is too small to be seen through a microscope?

Jony Hudson answered on 14 Nov 2011:

That’s a really good question!

You’re right we can’t see the electron through a microscope (the reason for that is because the electron is smaller than the light that we use to see!). But just because we can’t see it, doesn’t mean we can’t figure out what’s going on.

To understand how we do it you need to know a fact about electrons. That is that they spin constantly, like a gyroscope or a spinning top. Whatever you do, you can never stop them spinning.

Now, you can imagine that – just like a spinning top – if the electron is perfectly round then it will spin perfectly smoothly. But if the electron isn’t round, then it will start to wobble as it spins.

We look at the electrons inside a molecule. If the electrons are wobbling, then the molecule will wobble too.

So that’s what we actually look for – a wobbling molecule – and we can do that using lasers. If the molecule is wobbling then it means that the electron is wobbling. And if the electron is wobbling it means that it isn’t round.

Phew! Long answer, but a great question, so thought I should give the full story.