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"Scientists at Radboud University discovered a new mechanism for magnetic storage of information in the smallest unit of matter: a single atom." This press rel

"Scientists at Radboud University discovered a new mechanism for magnetic storage of information in the smallest unit of matter: a single atom." This press release is aimed at a fairly technically oriented audience, so I'm going to being very precise about why the leading statement in the press release is wrong. The electron is smaller, more fundamental, more fundamental as a unit, and more fundamental at a higher level of science (is in, electrons are even more fundamental to chemistry than atoms are to physics), than the atom.

Practicality 8y ago
First thought I had as well. Aren't quarks matter too?
- MrEldritch 8y ago
  Given that you'll never see a lone quark (they're physically forbidden - a naked quark is so energetically-unfavorable that attempting to create one would inherently require enough energy to create a second quark to go along with it), and two-quark mesons are both incredibly short-lived (a few nanoseconds at the longest) and act more like force carriers than anything else, then the three-quark baryons - of which protons and neutrons are the only ones that last long enough to care about from an engineering perspective - are the smallest (quark-based) units that could really be called "matter."
  - pharrington 8y ago
    Quarks are charged, and thus interact with photons. If reacting with photons is not what you meant by "Given that you'll never see a lone quark", but instead you mean something like, for example, `a single one can be formed as a first order byproduct of a physical interaction`, there is no coherent definition of matter that I am aware of where atoms are the smallest unit, but photons or electrons are not. edited: updated for precision
macintux 8y ago
There appears to be no universally agreed upon definition of matter. By at least one definition, an atom is indeed the smallest unit.
- pharrington 8y ago
  See my reply to MrEldritch.

Practicality 8y ago

First thought I had as well. Aren't quarks matter too?

MrEldritch 8y ago
Given that you'll never see a lone quark (they're physically forbidden - a naked quark is so energetically-unfavorable that attempting to create one would inherently require enough energy to create a second quark to go along with it), and two-quark mesons are both incredibly short-lived (a few nanoseconds at the longest) and act more like force carriers than anything else, then the three-quark baryons - of which protons and neutrons are the only ones that last long enough to care about from an engineering perspective - are the smallest (quark-based) units that could really be called "matter."
- pharrington 8y ago
  Quarks are charged, and thus interact with photons. If reacting with photons is not what you meant by "Given that you'll never see a lone quark", but instead you mean something like, for example, `a single one can be formed as a first order byproduct of a physical interaction`, there is no coherent definition of matter that I am aware of where atoms are the smallest unit, but photons or electrons are not. edited: updated for precision

macintux 8y ago

There appears to be no universally agreed upon definition of matter. By at least one definition, an atom is indeed the smallest unit.

pharrington 8y ago
See my reply to MrEldritch.