The usual misleading sensationalistic title. It isn’t the “shape of the electron” at all. A less misleading – but still not quite correct – explanation is that they have determined the statistical distribution of electron quantum states in a material. Very roughly speaking, it tells us where we’re more or less likely to find an electron in the material, and in what kind of state. Somewhat very distantly like a population density graph on a geographical map. Determining such a population density doesn’t mean “revealing the shape of a person”.
The paper can also be found on arXiv. What they determine is the so-called quantum geometric tensor. I find the paper’s abstract also misleading:
The Quantum Geometric Tensor (QGT) is a central physical object…
but it’s a statistical object more than a “physical” one.
It’s a very neat and important study, and I don’t understand the need to be so misleading about it :(
Science journalism doesn’t require science degrees… but it really should.
Thank you!
Not gonna lie, I was hoping there’d be an image of the shape…
“shape” here is a meaningless concept and the article title is tiring bullshit clickbait, as per usual. The real thing is that they were able to better predict where elections may be found, and in what state, or (as another comment very nicely put it) they managed to mmsoet of make a population density map for electrons
Thanks, saved me the click
that is not the shape of my electron
