Q & A: Has anyone seen a subatomic particle with their naked eyes?

I would like to know if subatomic particles (hadrons & leptons) have already been seen with a naked eye?
- Zandi (age 19)
University of the Western Cape, South Africa

Hi Zandi,

Good question! Subatomic particles, the hadrons and leptons you ask about, are so small they are difficult to detect individually, and elaborate apparatuses are designed for detecting the presence of and measuring the properties of individual particles. Here is a web page describing a fairly typical, large detector for subatomic particles. These detectors are designed to measure the effects of particles when they pass. They may leave a trail of ionized gas, for instance, or a flash of light when they collide with leaded glass. People have seen with their eyes these flashes of light and sparks one can make with the ion trails. An older technique is to expose a liquid just about ready to boil to high-energy particles, and then to take a picture as the bubbles left in the path of the particle start to expand. Here is a web site describing one particularly large bubble chamber, along with a photograph of bubble trails left by subatomic particles.

Electrons are the most common lepton, and protons and neutrons are the most common hadrons (see our description of hadrons. Everything we look at is made up of these things, and so we are looking at them all the time, it's just a question of whether we've seen only one of them at a time. To "see" something with a naked eye you need to shine light on it and observe the photons with the eye (and then one can argue that all you're "seeing" is the photons, a secondary consequence of the electron being there.) Electrons don't weigh very much, so when you shine light on one it will bounce away unless it is held down somehow.

So the answer is no, not to my knowledge, has anyone shined light on just one of these particles and then unambiguously observed the light with their eyes and determined that it came from only one electron or proton. The smallest I remember seeing a picture of is that of a single sodium atom sitting in an atomic trap, fluorescing laser light.

Tom

(published on 10/22/2007)

well I was looking for the answer to this same question for when out side in daylight.. if you look into the sky and focus there are many hundreds of thousands of little tiny particles .. which look to me like energy.. and like someone stated already they do bounce and jump and move around in all kinds of directions.. but if you focus you should see them.. at least I do.. I just need to know what they are.. and why they are there
- Onyx (age 18)
Detroit,MI, USA

Seeing individual subatomic particles is very difficult and I think the effect you are seeing in daylight must be due to something else. Perhaps it is neuronal activity in your eye.   Researchers have seen individual particles but in order to do that you must be in a very dark room and the particles must interact with a special  florescent  screen.  I myself once spent an hour in a dark room with a Cobalt 60 source and a scintillator but never saw a darn thing. 
I was stupid, I could have fried my eyeballs.

LeeH

(published on 03/28/09)

I have been able to see a kind of 'heavy rain' of particles with trajectories that look just like the tracks in the old cloud chambers, since I was a child, long before I knew what atoms and radiation were. I see them day and night,and they come from all directions but generally have a main flow which seems to have some relation to where the sun is and which latitude I'm at. Occasionally, I see a collision event and particles canon off each other in parabolic curves or tight spirals. The particles vary in size and speed. I've searched the web in vain since the internet evolved, to find some explanation. Any further ideas about what's happening?
- Ron Branscombe
Tallinn, Estonia

This is a new one for me.  I have never experienced this phenomenon and have no explanation for it.  Perhaps if others have, they will write in.

LeeH 

(published on 08/01/09)

I do rarely see shining particles, that appear like transparent matter with fine grey shell or line around them . They appear like glowing and floating in air . I had the experience today and it lastedcfor 4 to 6 sec and i saw about 5 of such particles. Curios about what these r. I have heard people who massitate see these and consider them as energy particles in cosmos . I dont know much about it
- Anmol (age 31)
Nottingham UK

Join the club. We're posting several of these to see if anybody knows how our eyes and brains create this effect.

Mike W.

(published on 04/26/13)

Well I have a question with an explanation. For about 13 years I have been able to view an interplay of tiny light photon particles that appear and disappear at a very fast rate...of course. Viewing them with the back drop of the blue sky brings out these particles to my naked eye. I am curious if anybody out there can join in on this conversation?
- Joseph (age 33)
Menifee, ca, USA

We're also posting this to help find out more about what seems to be a common phenomenon.

Mike W.

(published on 04/28/13)

do to an eye injury at age 7 I had pool chemicals place inside both eyes I lost my vision for 6 months now when I sleep at night I see tiny round circles moving from left to right up and down in perfect formation moving all around including into my own body what is this thank you leslie
- leslie (age 32)
ks

We don't know but are posting this along with several related questions to try to dfind out from our readers.

Mike W.

(published on 04/28/13)

I want to disagree with your answers on this page: http://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=1198 you are writing off peoples experiences as a neurological eye disorder. I can explain. I too, since my early 20's have been able (at will) to relax my thoughts and mind... let myself into a light hypnotic state and focus on the space between me and wherever. The MAIN THING is that you are NOT focusing on a physical thing... you are focusing on the air. slowly, or quickly, (depending on how well you can let go of your mind), you see millions or billions of white lines (dots).. imagine a constant falling rain. This is NOT within the eye. it is in the distance. all around you, as far as you can see.. even more exciting is that there is no need to stop here! you can keep focusing on this white rain and you realise that you can control the direction it moves! you can make these entire walls of falling rain suddenly go away from you or towards you... everywhere you want. it has led me to think it must be some sort of energy... or universal fabric (which I dont know the name of). but please dont just tell people who are at the surface of this that they have a disorder! go try it yourself. sometimes I find reliable results on a clear day looking in the distance air... (not too bright... but nice and clear) it all depends on how good you are at detaching yourself from your thoughts. you may see 'hints' of this white energy rain. but stay with it, and it gets more and more physical and more obvious to see. the more you go with it, the more you see ;)
- Marc (age 39)
London, UK

I don't think we called this a disorder. Our eye-brain system is very complex and does all sorts of interesting things. We don't think that there is some stuff out in the air that can only be detected this way and not by any sorts of sensitive instruments, including cameras.

Mike W.

(published on 05/05/13)

I had the same exact question in my mind as to "can a naked human eye see atomic particles?" I totally agree with Marc (age 39) london UK. I see the same thing same way-white dots moving only visible in the clear blue sky sitting under a shady area. And its absolutely true that it seems like a light hypnotic state. I thought I was dreaming but I wasn't. You definitely have to focus your eye. I would really like to know more about it. I thought I was the only one experiencing this phenomenon. Has there been any scientific research on it? Perhaps this has been experienced by past scientists, physicists . And they have documented it in a written form like a book or research paper or something. I really want to know what these "dot like moving particles" actually are?
- sheren (age 26)
ny

I think I have an explanation for at least some of the effects that our readers are pointing out: floaters.This well-documented effect occurs when small particles floating in the eye are detected by the retina, usually when illuminated against a clear backdrop (like the sky on a clear day).

These floaters are easiest to see if you are gazing into empty space with your eyes unfocused. At least for me, this requires a bit of relaxed concentration, and a clear blue sky helps make them visible. They tend to slowly sink within the eye, in a sort of light rain. In addition, when I flick my eyes lightly, all the floaters move in the direction of the flick, with a small time delay.

These effects certainly give the impression of an invisible rain of particles controlled only by your mind. However, floaters are basically harmless, intriguing, and useless irregularities in the eye.

Interestingly, I'm pretty sure you can observe white-light diffraction around the edges of the floaters. This is why their edges aren't sharply defined, but instead fuzzy, tiny, alternating light and dark bands.

Hopefully this explanation resonates with at least some of our readers.
Let us know!
David

(published on 05/18/13)

This is not a necessarily a question, unless I am wrong, but instead a response to a question about whether or not one can detect subatomic particles with the naked eye. I believe that astronauts can "see" occassional flashing dots when in orbit around the earth. They believe this is caused by the retinal response to cosmic rays, or helium nuclei. People don’t report seeing things like this on the ground because cosmic ray collisions with the atmosphere create showers of other particles that won’t excite the rods and cones of the eye the same way. This phenomenon is also common in CCD photometry in astronomy, which is a similar, although much more unwanted effect. I DO REALIZE that this isn’t specifically a SUBATOMIC PARTICLE interaction with the eye, but I thought that it was at least an INTERESTING ASIDE to the question that was asked. =)
- Jeff (age 26)
University of Kansas

Well, the helium nuclei probably would interact with the spacecraft shell, the air inside the nucleus, and other stuff before getting to the retina. If it has enough energy, there will be a whole shower of hadrons (pions, protons, and other stuff) created by the collision of the cosmic-ray with the material. This normally happens in the upper atmosphere as high-energy protons and other particles hit molecules in the air. Most of the hadronic stuff decays down to muons which can be detected at sea level. Quite a few of the muons decay on their way down so the flux is a lot less on the ground than high up in the atmosphere. You might imagine that people even on the ground can see such flashes of light as muons interact with their retinas (although muons have a much smaller interaction probability than other particles, like protons or pions).

There could also be other things going on, such as cosmic ray interactions with not just the retina but possibly neurons involved in visual processing. In our high-energy physics experiments we put sensitive amplifiers and digitizing electronics on the ends of the sense wires of our detectors. Sometimes we get showers of particles from the accelerator that strike the electronics and then you get signals from the electronics even if the detector is not sensitive (like when the high voltage is switched off). You might imagine that random flashes of light perceived by astronauts might be cosmic-ray interactions with any piece of the visual processing chain, including the brain. This is one reason why these flashes were initially some concern, because exposure of astronauts brains to high-energy penetrating radiation in the form of hadron showers was not investigated at the time and could lead to unknown damage.

Tom

(republished on 07/21/06)