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Surely you're happy, Mr Feynman!

Nature Nanotechnology volume 4, pages 786–788 (2009)Cite this article

In 1959 Richard Feynman called for researchers to improve the resolution of the electron microscope, and they have — but resolution is only part of the story.

Seeing atoms with advanced electron microscopes would, Feynman added, be a necessary complement to the manipulation of atoms that was one of the talk's broader themes. Indeed, the microscopy section of 'plenty of room' is a microcosm of the entire lecture. As with the rest of the talk, Feynman's observations on electron microscopes are prescient but incomplete (see Thesis articles on pages 783 and 785 of this issue). His observations have become modern-day rallying cries for different areas of electron microscopy, but they seem to have had little direct impact on the field. And underlying much of what he said was a reductionist or physics-centric attitude that rankles some scientists outside the physics community1,2.

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  1. Michael Segal is an Associate Editor for Nature Nanotechnology.,

    Michael Segal

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Segal, M. Surely you're happy, Mr Feynman!. Nature Nanotech 4, 786–788 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2009.360

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