Is it possilble for an atom to be in two places at the same time?
914809
Not for an atom but it is for an electron.
926717
Surprisingly it is. See the both enclosed aticles about the theory and experiments done to prove it. In reality human mankind will not have the ability to do it for a long time.\n\nVery simplified it would work like this:\n\nIn an atom always 2 electrons on the same circle are linked. One has to have a up-spin, the other has to have a down-spin. But you do not know which one has it. Kick the elctrons out of the circle and send them into two directions. \n\nWhen you know measure the spin of one you know exactly the spin of the other one. If you would be able to manipulate one the information would be transfered immediatly to the other on. This has been done in laboratories.\n\nEInstein predicted this but nobody really believed it would work, the science community is still under a certain shock.\n\nThe challenge is to do this with all the electrons of you body.\n\nBut ther is a practible application for this. The speed of comuter today is "slow" because information is transfered in form of electrons which move in metals inside the chips, the next step would be to transport the information by light whcih is significant faster and the next step would be a "quantum-computer" where the information is transfered in the above menioned form. This would reduce the time to calculate any problem in an unbelievable way and calculations which are not possible today could be done.
79068
Your question implies that an atom has a position when it is not being measured; the correct answer is that it does not even HAVE a position when it is not being observed.  This was shown by J.S. Bell who proved that "hidden variable" theories (that is, for example, those that claim an atom has a position when not being observed, but that we simply can't know what it is -- thus the hidden) can not adequately explain quantum mechanics.\n\nWhat it does have, however, is a probability distribution (called a "wavefunction" in QM jargon) which will tell you the probability of detecting an atom at a certain location when you make a measurement.  [To be precise, the absolute-square of the wavefunction is the probability distribution, but don't worry about that.]\n\nWhen you make a measurement the wavefunction is said to "collapse" to that point so that subsequent measurements made immeditially afterward will yield the same result; that is, the probability of finding it at the same location again approaches 100% while the probability of finding it elsewhere approaches 0%.  This distribution, however, will eventually spread out again.\n\nI hope that helps.
879527
Inter-atomic fields exist between atoms , and the space between atoms (empty space) is filled with inter-atomic field.\n\nInter-atomic field of body can be repulsive to the inter-atomic field of the chair. Hence we don't fall through the chair
597088
at the atomic level, there is indeed randomness. you can predict the probabillity that things will occur, but cannot know for sure unless you make a measurement, which messes up the experiment because you "contaminated" the experiment with whatever you used to measure it. for instance, if you shine a flashlight at a double slit, half the light will go through 1 slit and half will go through another. however, if you turn down the output of the flashlight to 1 photon at a time, then the same thing happens. you cannot predict which one it will go through, it is completely random.\n\noh, and quantum theorry has been proven correct, better than any other theory out there - like newtonian physics, which have been shown to be approximations of the more accurate quantum theory.
15904
Probably not.  There are several problems\n\n1) because of the Heizenberg(sp?) uncertainty principle to learn of the exact direction of an atom one would change it's original direction.\n\n2) even if we could know a priori all that information it would require a simulation machine the size of the universe to calculate everything exactly.\n\n3)  I think there are still events of randomness at the atomic level that cannot be predicted.
389400
Remember that those lobes are not real physical structure, but rather a plot of the probablity (really probability density) of the electron's spacial component of its wave function.  The electron actually occupies both lobes simultaniously, so it has no problem going from one lobe to the other, as it is already in both places.
558518
The problem is that there are not two wavefunctions for entangled particles. There is only one, but that one wave function describes *both* of the particles. So the observation collapses that one wave function as fixes the state of the system. This is one difficulty of the 'particle' view of things. There is too much of a tendency to think of a two particle state as two one particle states. This is wrong.
620171
It is in thoery possible to convert all of the elemental particles into energy and transport that energy to a remote location. The energy could then in theory be reasembeled into particles. However in quantum mechanics there is the priciple of uncertainty. Both the position and momentum of any particle cannot be known with arbitrary certainty. This is not a result of precision measurement more that the particle itself cannot know. So what you put together at the other end will not be the same.
463572
The reality of the situation is the electron doesn't orbit around the nucleus like the earth orbits around the sun.  \n\nThe electron is in what is called the "electron cloud."  You can only say that the electron is at a certain place with a certain probability: not certainty.  \n\nTherefore, there is no way to visualize how the electron moves about the nucleus.
693887
Imagine you have have a source that emits pairs of electrons. Quantum Mechanics now states that one can not describe the behaviour of each electron separately, but only the pair as a whole. \nFor instance, if the spin of the first electron is pointing up, than the other must point down and vice versa.\n\nBut QM also states that the exact state of an electron (up or down) can only be known if we measure it and not before. But once we measure the spin if the first electron (say, it's up) than we know immediately the spin of the second one too, although it might be lightyears away. And if some distant observer measures that spin he will find that it is down. So somehow, the information of the fact that we performed a measurement on the first electron, has travelled to the second electron. And at a speed, faster than light.\n\nThis is the EPR paradox.\n \nBut the story is not complete yet.\nSpin must be measured relative to an axis, be it x, y or z.\nBell's equations described how a measured along one axis on the first electron is related to measurements along the two other axis performed on the second electron.\n\nSee here for a more complete explanation:\n  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_paradox
252207
It is possible that an atom or two might stay with us, but it is unlikely to occur in any sizeable quantity.  The seven year estimate is also just that- an estimate.
1039444
No, there would be no interference pattern if light were behaving strictly as a particle.  If light acted only as a particle, the pattern seen behind two slits would be the superposition of the patterns seen behind two single slits.  That is, if light acted only as a particle, then you should see the same pattern whether you let light pass through two slits for five minutes, or whether you opened only one slit for five minutes, then closed that slit and opened the other for five minutes.\n\nOpening one slit at a time produces no interference pattern, leaving both slits open produces an interference pattern.  This cannot be explained by assuming a strictly particle interpretation of light.\n\n==============\n\nComment on "Additional Details #1"\n\nParticles of light have never been observed to bounce from one another.  Quantum electrodynamics predicts that they should, but the effect is so slight, and the probability so low, that there has never to my knowledge been a successful measurement of photon-photon scattering in the laboratory.  If the interference patterns in a Young's two-slit apparatus were to be explained by particles of light bouncing off one another, it would imply that light scatters from light very, very easily.  Crossing two flashlight beams would produce a diffuse glow from the area of intersection, and the beams would not continue onward to the places they were pointed.  We don't see that happening.  Another example:  if somebody is driving toward you with their headlights on, you cannot reduce the amount of light hitting your eyes by shining your headlights at them and deflecting their beam.
880969
hey, when you have 2 electrons in the same orbital, you will always have one spinning up and one spinning down... its about balance, if both electrons were spinning the same direction, they could not stay in they're orbits...
937236
The electrons of an atom are arranged in shells. These shells can be completely filled or only partly. The  elements in the same period have the same number of completely filled or closed shells.
627239
first of all, two elements combine to form molecules...not new elements, unless you are talking fusion, and that will involve radiation, not voltage (electric potential).\n\nsecond of all, there is no question here, unless you are asking if what you wrote makes sense.  If that is the question, then no, it does not make perfect sense.
296043
Being or seeming to be everywhere at the same time