/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.7039836]

If a human was scaled down to the size of a bacterium would their eyes be able to see atoms?

[Anonymous No.7039838]

there's trillions of atoms in a single cell so no

would be pretty neat though

[Anonymous No.7039863]

dude, bacteriorhodopsin and human visual pigment are most similar biomolecules. if we can't see atoms, than they don't see them neither.

[Anonymous No.7039864]

A single cone cell is 10 times larger than the average bacteria. I don't really understand the nature of the question.

If we zoomed in and amplified the light signal by the approximate ratio between a bacteria and a person then an atom would be about the size of a bacteria.

[Anonymous No.7039869]

What's really cool is you can see atoms at your current size

[Anonymous No.7039874]

>>7039836

Depends what "scaled down" means. Like, are all the atoms in their body smaller somehow?

Anyway, it would be hard to work out a scenario where the answer is yes. Light itself is too "big" (in wavelength) to produce images of atoms.

>>7039838

There's trillion of cells in a human, so that means nothing.

[Anonymous No.7039892]

there wouldn't be enough atoms to make up eyes

[Anonymous No.7041151]

>>7039874
>Anyway, it would be hard to work out a scenario where the answer is yes.
Metamaterials m8. We might be able to get some spooky superlens shit whereby we can, in a sense, see atoms and molecules

[Anonymous No.7041747]

>>7039874
>There's trillion of cells in a human, so that means nothing.

it kind of does, though. it would mean that the bacterium would have to be able to see parts that are one trillionth its size.

[Anonymous No.7041764]

>>7039892

This anon gets it, also a human get scaled down that small they would probably lose all capability of intelligent and most likely basic observation.