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Transcript
QM-STM Script Page 1/13
Quantum Mechanics and the STM Show Script!
Version for High School Students
[Enter QM-STM Group]
Honcho: Hi! We are a group of undergraduate students from MSU who have been working since
2006 with Dr. Tessmer and Science Theater to prepare a 45-minute crash-course into the
wonderful and strange world of quantum physics.
Ask: What’s that?
Honcho: Quantum mechanics is an important set of scientific ideas that completely changed the
way we think about the world around us, especially at the atomic and subatomic levels.
P1: Quantum is the Latin word for how much "how much", and it refers to the smallest possible
discrete unit of something. When I say discrete, I mean that those units can’t be broken up into
anything smaller. You probably already know that matter comes in discrete units. The big idea
of quantum mechanics is that many other physical quantities such as the energy of light, also
come in quanta.
Honcho: This may not seem like a drastic idea, but think about it—it’s like the difference
between going up a ramp and going up a flight of steps. (CLICK) (If a chalk board is available,
draw a ramp and a flight of steps.) If you were climbing a ramp, you could pick any height you
wanted to be at and just stand there, with steps, you only have certain choices. (Gesture at
drawing.)
P1: For the things quantum mechanics deals with, these steps are so close together, we don’t
even notice that there are steps there at all. However, when we study things that are very small,
the steps become extremely important. In other words, quantum physics explains that the atomic
world is nothing like the world we know.
P2: Please keep in mind that many aspects of quantum mechanics can be hard to grasp and seem
to contradict common sense. We’ll try to explain things as clearly as we can, but please feel free
to ask questions at any time. If you’re wondering about something, other people probably are
too.
Honcho: We have an exciting theater-style show for you today. We have with us a special kind
of microscope called a Scanning Tunneling Microscope, or STM, which uses the principle so
quantum mechanics to look at things that are extremely small, such as atoms. We will start out
with an introduction to quantum mechanics, followed by a demonstration and explanation of how
the STM works, and will wrap things up with a presentation of other applications of quantum
mechanics in nanotechnology.
P2: Great! Let’s get started by introducing ourselves!
[everybody gives a brief introduction of themselves, i.e., “Hi, I’m Katie, a senior at Michigan
State University studying physics and professional writing.]
Ask: On with the show!
[Einstein leaves the room. Ask sits at the desks among students. STM and Applications Group
members move away. Honcho moves to front of the classroom.]
Honcho: Good morning/afternoon students!
(If pathetic/no response, repeat, “Good morning/afternoon students!” and gestures for response).
(extra inflection with italics, like it’s the coolest thing ever): We are gathered here today to
witness the wonders of the scanning tunneling microscope. But first, we’re going to learn a bit
about quantum mechanics. We’ll start off with a little something called the photo-electric effect.
And who better to tell us about it than the man who explained it, Albert Einstein! (CLICK)
[Enter Einstein, obviously]
Einstein: The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
Honcho: So, Einstein, what is the photo-electric effect?
Einstein: Remember how we said earlier that light was made of discrete units? Well, those
units can be thought of as particles, and we call those light particles photons. (CLICK)
The photoelectric effect is the phenomena we see when a photon with enough energy strikes a
surface and frees an electron from one of the atoms in the material.
Ask: I thought light was a wave.
Einstein: It is.
Ask: But you just said it was a particle.
Honcho: Hey, that’s Einstein. You don’t argue with Einstein.
Ask: But he’s contradicting himself!
Einstein: It’s both. (CLICK) It can create diffraction patterns like a wave, but it can also
collide with electrons, like a particle. (Ball demonstration). This red ball represents a lower
energy photon. When it strikes the electron, the electron remains fixed in place. The red ball
doesn’t have enough energy to free it. Here, I have this blue ball to represent a high energy
photon. It strikes this green ball, which represents an electron, and gives up some of its energy
so that the electron is knocked out of position, like so. Now, I can show you the photoelectric
effect with real photons and electrons.
STM Intro 2
QM-STM Script Page 3/13
(Einstein moves to the UV wave generator demonstration.)
I have a UV wave generator that generates ultraviolet light both long and short wavelengths. I
will shine both wavelengths at this charged metal plate. Charging the plate means that I’m
putting some extra electrons on it, which can be freed if they are hit with a photon with enough
energy. If that happens, the moving electrons will create an electric current, and the voltage will
drop on this voltmeter.
I will begin with the longer wavelength. (Show) Now for the shorter. (Show) As you can see,
only the shorter wavelength induced a current even though I didn’t change how bright the light
was.
Up until my time, light was widely accepted as being a wave, but this experiment showed that
light also exhibited particle-like properties. Can anyone tell me why? Remember, even though I
used the same intensity of light, only the shorter wavelength induced a current. (Blank Stares)
Your deafening silence was very common when I first made this discovery.
Here’s a clue: The photons of shorter wavelength light have more energy than those of light
with a longer wavelength. If you think of the demonstration I did with the hacky sacks earlier,
the light with the longer wavelength is like the red ball, which didn’t have enough energy to free
the electron, and the shorter wavelength is like the blue ball, which sent the electron flying across
the room.
The moral of the story is; it doesn’t matter how intense the light is, but what wavelength of light
you have, since each particle (photon) of blue, short wavelength light has greater energy that the
red, long wavelength light particles. That’s the photoelectric effect.
Honcho: Thank you, Einstein, for that demonstration of the photoelectric effect. Now, we can
get into quantum physics!
Einstein (betrayed!): You used me as a set-up for quantum physics?
Honcho: I don’t know if used is the right term…
Einstein (storming out): “The more success quantum mechanics has, the sillier it looks.” “God
does not play dice with the universe!” (simply leaves the room, preferably slamming a door.)
Honcho (solemnly): There goes a great man. Probably mistaken about quantum mechanics, but
great nonetheless. [takes a moment] Now, onto the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle! And
here’s your host, Dr. Heisenberg himself. (CLICK)
[Ask gets up from seat and comes to the front of the class and takes a small bow…]
Honcho: Did you even try to look like Dr. Heisenberg?
Ask (shifty eyes): Maybe…do you even know what Dr. Heisenberg looked like?
Honcho: Well, I’m not really certain, but I think he looked a little something like...this? (Hits
mouse for powerpoint slide displaying Dr. Heisenberg!) (CLICK)
Ask (glances at screen): Aren’t you being a little dramatic?
Honcho: They don’t call us Science Theater for nothing.
Ask: Okay, so I don’t look like Dr. Heisenberg. But I can tell you about his principle. (Ask
moves over to pendulum contraption which Honcho is holding up.) Let’s say this ball on the end
of this pendulum is an electron. We know from classical mechanics that a pendulum has a welldefined momentum at any given time. (Set it swinging). As a Styrofoam ball, we can also find
its position. However, as an electron, the position impossible to find. Can you hit the lights?
[One of the cast members not on stage plunges room into darkness]
Ask: Now, this is more like quantum mechanics. We can find the position of the ball by shining
a light on it (shine flashlight) but remember, electrons can gain momentum from photons. So
finding the electron really turns out to be like this (turn on hair dryer too, chase ball around for a
few seconds, then turns off the fan). Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is much like this. If you
know how a particle is moving, you don’t know exactly where it is. And if you know where it is,
you can’t know exactly how it is moving.
[One of the cast members turns the lights back on.]
Honcho: Thank you Fake Dr. Heisenberg for that excellent demonstration of the uncertainty
principle. (Ask returns to seat) Next up is Dr. Schrödinger to tell us about his cat. (CLICK)
(Enter Non-Schrödinger)
Non-Schrödinger (shakes head): It’s no use. I don’t look anything like him.
Honcho: Well, then here’s _________ to tell us about the quantum paradox of Schrödinger’s
cat.
Non-Schrödinger: Erwin Schrödinger worked out the Schrödinger equation. Scientists can
solve the equation when they need to figure out the probability that a particle is in a certain place
at a certain time.
You have probably all heard the question, “If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around, does
it make a sound?” More specifically, would someone being there to observe, or hear the tree
falling down change whether or not it makes noise?
(Take some responses, but eventually get to this point): You would normally think, “No, the tree
will fall the same way, and make the same noise, whether or not someone happens to hear it.
Observing the event won’t change it.” Things aren’t quite the same in quantum mechanics.
STM Intro 4
QM-STM Script Page 5/13
Schrödinger used a similar thought puzzle involving a cat to demonstrate this.
In the Schrödinger’s cat paradox, we imagine placing a cat in a box. Inside this box, there is a
radioactive atom that has a fifty percent chance of decaying within an hour. If the atom decays, a
detector will set off a device that shatters a vial of poison, killing the cat. Now, let’s say we put
the cat in a box and an hour has passed. How many of you think the cat is alive? (wait for raised
hands) How many of you think the cat is dead?
You’re all right. The cat is both completely dead and completely alive.
Ask: That doesn’t make any sense. You can’t be alive and dead at the same time!
Non-Schrödinger: That’s what makes it a paradox. Besides, this isn’t really about a cat.
Schrödinger was just using the cat as an analogy for a phenomenon that happens in the world of
particles. It really means that a quantum particle can be in multiple states at the same time.
Non-Schrödinger: Now, can I get a student volunteer to participate in our Schrödinger’s
Student demonstration? (CLICK)
(Ask raises hand)
Non-Schrödinger (roll eyes, glare, something): A real student.
Honcho: Hold on there. I can’t have you poisoning students. Science Theater has a certain
amount of liability, you know…
Non-Schrödinger: Don’t worry about it. We have another substance placed in the box. Any
volunteers?
You! Come on up. What’s your name? Well _______, are you claustrophobic, because we
really are going to put you in a box?
(hopefully they’re not)
All right then. Since we don’t actually have any radioactive particles with complicated detector
devices, we’re going to use this coin (hold up large cat coin) instead. The coin has one side that
says “hat” and one side that says “no hat.” It has a 50% chance of landing with the “hat” side up
and a 50% chance of landing with “no hat” up, so it’s statistically similar to our particle which
has a 50% chance of decaying. Now, I’m going to give you the coin and have you go into the
box. You’ll need to flip the coin and do what the side that lands up says. Are you ready?
(If they say something about time, whisper that it won’t really be an hour)
All right, then, into the box! (Ask and Honcho close student into box and make sure they flip the
coin before putting the fabric over the top) And now, we wait.
(Ask and/or Honcho walk by holding the “One Hour Later” sign)
(look at watch, surprised): What do you know? An hour has passed. So, how many of you
think that ______ is going to have a hat on? And how many think that s/he won’t have a hat on?
(hopefully a bunch of students raise hands twice)
Excellent! So, are we ready to look in the box? This is the moment of truth…Can I get a drumroll please?
(Ask and Honcho to lift fabric and open box. S/he’s hatted! S/he’s not!)
Now, there is one little thing I didn’t tell you about Schrödinger’s cat. When you open the box
to look inside and see if the cat is dead or alive, you seal its fate. Up until you open the box, it is
both alive and dead, but once you look inside, it is either alive or dead. The same principle holds
true for the quantum world. At a given time, a particle can be in several states—that is, it can be
in several different places or be moving in several different ways at once—however when you
attempt to measure its state, the superposition collapses and we are only able to observe one of
them. So, in a sense, it can be a very literal case of curiosity killed the cat.
Thank you, _______. You may return to your seat.
Honcho: Thank you, ________ for that demonstration on Schrödinger’s cat. Now, onto
electron tunneling. (CLICK)
Ask: Can I explain this one?
Honcho: Go right ahead!
Non-Schrödinger: Can I sit at a desk and ask irritating questions?
Honcho: No.
Ask (now at front of class): How many of you think you can stand on one side of a wall, and
appear on the other side.
Ask (if no one raises hand): You’re probably right. But, is anyone willing to try?
Ask (if smart-aleck raises hand): Excellent! Come on up to the front of the class!
Ask: What’s your name? So, ________, are you ready to try to tunnel through the wall? (wait
for a nod or a shrug.) Just kidding, our box is too valuable to risk you breaking it. Instead, we’ll
have you throw this ball at it and see if it tunnels. The thicker the wall, and the more massive the
particle, the less likely it is for tunneling to occur. So, as you can see, given the considerable
mass of the ball and thickness of the wall, the tunneling probably is very small. But, let’s go
ahead and see if the ball tunnels.
STM Intro 6
QM-STM Script Page 7/13
(Honcho asks student to throw the ball at the wall.)
Ask: Okay, so the ball didn’t make it through the wall. (CLICK) It’s extremely unlikely
anyway, given its mass and the thickness of the wall. However, if the wall was really thin
(Einstein and Ask fold out one wooden panel) and the ball was an electron (use smaller ball), it
has a better probability of making it through. Let’s try it again with a thinner wall and this small
ball which represents our electron.
(Honcho tells the student to throw ball over the wall.)
So the ball made it over the wall, BUT you gave the electron enough energy to get over the
barrier. In tunneling, the electron doesn’t have enough energy, but it appears on the other side
anyway. (CLICK) One more time. We’re going to demonstrate roughly how real quantum
tunneling occurs.
(Honcho tells student to fake throwing the ball, then Ask produces an identical ball on the other
side as student fakes throwing the ball.)
And there you have it, (CLICK) the same electron tunneling through a wall and appeared on the
other side. Thank you, ___________, let’s return to our seats.
Honcho: (CLICK) Ok! Now that we’ve been through the wave-particle duality, the uncertainty
principle, Schrödinger’s cat, and electron tunneling, it’s time to introduce the star of our show –
the Scanning Tunneling Microscope, a small wonder that combines the principles we just
discussed! And here are [says A’s name] and [says B’s name] to present the STM to you!
[The Intro Group all sit down. A and B from the STM Group take the stage.]
A: Everyone please give a hand for the last group. Now we have to take a few minutes for the
microscope to get ready, so before that we have a couple demonstrations for you.
B: The Scanning Tunneling Microscope was invented so that we could look at things that are on
the scale of atoms and molecules. You might be wondering why we need these special
microscopes, why we can’t just use a regular optical light microscope to look at atoms. With
modern technology, why can’t we just make light microscopes more and more powerful to see
things that are smaller and smaller?
The answer to that can be found in the fundamental properties of light. (CLICK) Remember
how we said that light is a wave? All waves have a wavelength which is a measure of how far
consecutive wave crests are from one another.
When we use light to look at something, we can’t see anything smaller than its wavelength,
which for visible light is between 400 and 700 nanometers. (A nanometer is a billionth of a
meter.) Atoms are much smaller than that—only a few tenths of a nanometer wide. To see
details as small as individual atoms, we need to use something other than light. Special
microscopes like the STM use electrons in various ways to do this. Here is a demonstration that
should help show this idea.
A: Can we get a volunteer please? (picks someone from the audience) Please come right up
here.
I have here a box, and inside of this box is a mystery object, which we are going to pretend is on
the scale of nanometers. A line of three atoms in a row would be about a nanometer long, so
we’re talking tiny. We want to look at this mystery object, so first we’re going to use a light
microscope, which we’ll represent with this oven mitt. (Fits the volunteer with the oven mitt and
explains the demonstration to him/her quietly.) The large size of the oven mitt represents the
relatively long wavelength of light. (to the volunteer) Now, reach inside the box—no peeking!—
and tell me about what you can feel.
(Demonstration proceeds; the object may be a Mickey Mouse doll, pinecone, or sponge of a
particular shape. Have the student try to tell you as much as they can about the object, which
won’t be very much.)
Ok. We couldn’t see much detail about our mystery object when we used a light microscope.
Now let’s try looking at it with an electron microscope. We’ll represent this by having our
volunteer, ____ reach back into the box, but without the glove this time. This will represent the
increased sensitivity of an electron microscope. Smaller fingers, which represent the smaller
wavelength of electrons as compared to light, can feel smaller features. Ready? Go.
(Demonstration proceeds. By conversing with the volunteer, we will hopefully get them to
reveal that the object is must easier to feel and identify now. Hopefully the volunteer identifies
the object, but if not, at least get them to confirm that they can feel much more detail without the
oven mitt on.)
A: Thank you, ________, for volunteering. You may return to your seat. Now we have a
demonstration on how the scanning tunneling microscope works. Let’s call it STM for short. To
visually demonstrate our next idea about the microscope, we are using something called a Tesla
Coil.
For safety purposes, we ask that if you have any metal devices such as pace makers or metal
plates, please do not sit in the first few rows. Also, if you have an older digital watch or cell
phone, the Tesla Coil may cause some damage to the electric circuits.
B: (Tesla Coil demonstration proceeds. The Tesla coil is loud, so it may be better to talk about
what you expect to see and explain it before you turn it on.) This is a Tesla coil. It uses coils of
wire to build up a high voltage at its tip, which can ionize air to make sparks—just like lightning.
The principles behind this are different than the quantum mechanical ones that the STM uses, but
some effects are similar, so we will use it as a visual to explain how the STM works. (CLICK)
Most basically, the STM consists of a very sharp metal tip which is scanned over the surface we
want to look at. It is close enough that electrons that are in the atoms of the sample can actually
tunnel into the tip. Here, instead of a wooden panel, the barrier that they are crossing is the gap
STM Intro 8
QM-STM Script Page 9/13
between the sample and the tip.
Here we have this large metal ball and here we have a sharp needle charged with electricity. The
metal ball is going to represent an atom, and the pointed needle is going to represent the tip of
the STM. When the atom passes to within about a half nanometer of the tip, tunneling occurs
and electricity flows. But the tunneling effect shuts off dramatically if the atom is just a little bit
farther, say a full nanometer. That effect is used to “feel” the position of the atoms. A computer
that is connected to the STM can detect changes in how many electrons are tunneling at a certain
location, and constructs a picture accordingly. It puts light colored spots where a lot of tunneling
occurs, and dark colored spots where few electrons are tunneling.
Now that we’re done with the demonstrations, it’s time for us so show you what the STM in
action.
A: Up on the screen I have the computer software we use to control the microscope. I’m going
to start it scanning and zoom in gradually.
(Lets the microscope scan through a couple times, use zoom feature to try and get a close up
view of a smooth spot on the graphite)
Remember, this microscope is extremely sensitive to how sharp the tip is, and how far away the
tip is from our sample. Because of this even small vibrations or imperfections can affect the
quality of our image. (If the image is fuzzy or atomic resolution can’t be achieved, explain that it
is a consequence of this.) It is so sensitive that even the sound of my voice…or of people
clapping can affect the image. Let’s do an experiment: on the count of three, everyone please
clap loudly, and watch what happens to the picture on the screen. Ready? One, two, three! As
you can see the there’s a large area where the scan is very noisy; that’s where you clapped. Just
the vibration from that noise caused the STM to vibrate and caused a problem.
That’s it for the STM, thanks for listening! Next up is ___ to talk to you more about technology
that is related to quantum mechanics. (CLICK)
After the STM demo, Person 2 walks on stage. Einstein lurks somewhere, inconspicuously
sipping a cup of water.
Honcho: Thank you ___ and ___ for that demonstration of the STM. Let’s quickly review what
we’ve learned so far. First Einstein told us about the-Confused: (running in, interrupting): Person 2, I have to tell you what I just saw on TV! It could
mean the difference between life and death.
Honcho: (incredulously): What did you see?!
Confused: I was watching this TV special about little machines that were made to clean up a lab.
Well, things got out of hand and they started to multiply and stopped following the coded
instructions and tried to TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!! That’s when I got scared and turned off
the TV.
Honcho: I think you were watching a movie. It was on last night. I saw it too.
Confused: (relieved): Phew! I thought it was real…but wait, the scientists kept talking about
something called nanotechnology. I’ve heard that word before and not just in movies.
Person 3 walks on the stage, reading a newspaper.
Reader: Nanotechnology? I was just reading about that.
Confused: Really? Can you tell me what nanotechnology is?
Reader: Well I could, but why have me do it, when we could bring in another noble prize
winning physicist to describe it? How about Richard Feynman?
Confused: Wait, did you just call a physicist a fine man?!
Reader: No, Feynman is his last name. (looks toward Einstein storming across stage)
Einstein (with inaudible grumbling): grumble. I think that one noble prize winner is enough for
this show. grumble. QUANTUM MECHANICS!
Einstein throws water on Person 3’s pants.
Reader: Phew…good thing these were stain proof!
Confused: How are they stain proof?
Reader: Through the wonders of nanotechnology! (Person 1 rolls eyes.) Well that’s what the
tag said when I bought the pants.
Confused: Well ok. But what is nanotechnology. Nano…I’ve heard that before. It means
something small doesn’t it?
Honcho: Yes, nano refers to a scale which is 1 billion times smaller than a meter. A strand of
hair is thousands of nanometers thick! (CLICK)
Just to give you an idea of how small a nanometer is, here we have a binder with its pages
covered in dots. (Show the million-dot book) There are one million dots in this book. A billion
is one thousand million—one thousand binders like this would contain a billion dots. If you
were to divide a millimeter, the smallest markings on a meter stick (show a meters stick) into one
million pieces, you would have a nanometer.
Confused: Wow. We’re talking about things at the level of atoms and molecules right? Isn’t that
where the things we just learned about quantum mechanics become really important?
Honcho: Exactly. ‘Person 3’, what does Richard Feynman have to do with that anyway?
STM Intro 10
QM-STM Script Page 11/13
Reader: He’s believed to be one of the first to address the possibility of the field of
nanotechnology. (CLICK) In 1959 he gave a speech about the subject and offered a challenge:
he would give $1000 to the first person to make a motor the size of a 1/64 inch cube and the
same prize to those could print a page of text on a scale that was 1/25000 smaller. The engine
was made almost immediately but it took until 1985 for the print to be made, using a
Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM).
Honcho: Did Richard Feynman coin the phrase nanotechnology?
Reader: No; (CLICK) that was done in 1986, just five years after the STM was invented by
Binnig and Rohrer. The term was used in the book Engines of Creation, by Eric Drexler.
Honcho: Everyday uses of nanotechnology have only been around for the last few years. That’s
not long when you compare it to other technology like light bulbs and airplanes which have both
been around for more than 100 years.
Reader: And you know, it’s getting to be a hot topic in legislation. (CLICK) I was just reading
in the paper about a ‘Genetics Bill of Rights’ that lobbyists are bringing to Congress.
Confused: So nanotechnology is something everyone can learn about?
Reader: Of course…but make sure you can tell fact from fiction…or movies.
Confused: OK, I should have known I was watching a movie. If nanotechnology is being used
right now, what disciplines are involved?
Reader: A variety! (CLICK) For example, some fields use materials called nanomaterials.
These are composed of nano-scale particles, designed to have specific properties. In medicine,
(CLICK) some researchers are creating artificial biological materials with nanotechnology. At
this moment research in nanotechnology is helping people to walk, see, and recover from
accidents.
Honcho: The STM is an example of nanotechnology too. It’s what can be called a nano-tool
because it can manipulate other objects on the nanometer scale. (CLICK) Engineers and
scientists alike are also working on the development of nano-devices, which are machines that
operate on the level of nanometers.
Reader: I can see some uses of nano-devices in medicine - possibly machines which can attack
cancer cells.
Confused: Now I’m beginning to understand that nanotechnology is not just for the future. It’s
used in objects we interact with every day. You said that computers and electronics use
nanotechnology? (CLICK)
Honcho: Yep, nanotechnology is definitely a big part in electronics equipment used today. In
fact, LCD screens that can be rolled up have already been developed. Of course, the microchips
used in computers and devices like cell phones rely heavily on this research as well.
Reader: And these nanomaterials…I imagine that they are being used in paints and cosmetics.
(CLICK) It’s even used in stain-proof pants!
Honcho: So you see, developments in nanotechnology affect everyone, not just scientists. No
matter what you decide to do when you’re older, it will undoubtedly be a part of you life—so
knowing a little of the science behind it is a really good thing!
Confused: (Looking at watch) I’ve learned so much about nanotechnology today but I’ve got to
be on my way. How can I learn more or even get involved with research using it?
Reader: Well, there are many disciplines which use it, from molecular biophysics to chemistry
to engineering. While in college, you can seek out research positions helping professors. This
way you can learn more about the work being done and get an idea of what research is like
before further pursing a career in the field.
Honcho: Like all parts of science, there will always be more to learn about nanotechnology,
even for the smartest scientists out there, so even if research isn’t for you, be sure to ask
questions whenever you are curious about something. (CLICK)
Confused: And with that suggestion, we end our show. Thank you all for coming and listening.
If you have any questions, you can ask them now. If not, you are free to come up here to look at
the STM and to chat with us or ask any other questions.
Last update: 9.18-09
STM Intro 12
QM-STM Script Page 13/13
Demonstrations and Supply List:
All Groups:
 Laptop (for various powerpoint components of each segment)
Intro Group:
 Einstein wig
 Blue ball (for Einstein’s photoelectric effect)
 Green ball (for Einstein’s photoelectric effect)
 Red ball (for Einstein’s photoelectric effect)
 photoelectric apparatus
 Pendulum Contraption (for Ask’s Uncertainty Principle)
 Flashlight/Fan Contraption (for Ask’s Uncertainty Principle)
 Wooden Box (Schrödinger’s Cat demonstration)
 Large Fabric (to cover over box for Former Einstein’s Schrödinger’s Cat demonstration)
 Stuffed toy cat (for Schrödinger’s Cat demo)
 Hat and coin (for Schrödinger’s Cat demo)
 “One Hour Later” Sign
 2 or 3 identical ping pong balls (for Ask’s Quantum Tunneling demonstration)
STM Group:
 Secret-viewing box apparatus (for electrical microscopes demonstration)
 Mystery object (block S)
 Oven mitt (for electrical microscopes demonstration)
 Tesla Coil with special round metal rod (for visual tunneling example demonstration)
 Model of atomic lattice
 Model of STM tip
 STM and STM’s laptop (for STM Demonstration)
Applications Group:
 Powerpoint slideshow of Applications of Nanotechnology
 Meter stick
 Million dot book
 Newspaper
 Cup of water