Number 170 (Story #3), March 28, 1994 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein HIGH-SPEED STM can reveal the incessant motion of atoms across a silicon surface. Not yet as fast as a movie and looking more like a jerky time-lapse study of commuters on the go, picture sequences recorded by scanning tunneling microscopes at a rate of several frames per second for area views, or up to 1000 per second for single rows of atoms, show how atoms touch down and lift off of terraced surfaces under the influence of thermal agitation. At the meeting, Ellen Williams of the University of Maryland referred to these images as "a stunning visualization of the ideas of statistical mechanics."