alk about taking a tough shot. Physicists have, for the first time, been able to image the quantum workings of electrons in hydrogen atoms, an advance that could open the door to a deeper understanding of the quantum world.
Snapping a picture of the inside of an atom—the electrons, the protons, the neutrons—is no easy task. Quantum mechanics makes it virtually impossible to pin down these subatomic particles. Instead of having the ability to describe where a particle is, quantum theory provides a description of its whereabouts called a wave function. Wave functions work like sound waves, except that whereas the mathematical description of a sound wave defines the motion of molecules in air at a particular place, a wave function describes the probability of finding the particle.
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