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Why is this "one-dimensional" rather than just a tube of 1-atom thick gas? Is a string of pearls "one-dimensional"?

It's very cool that they pulled off working at an atomic scale like this, and amazing that they visualized it.

In the jargon (at least in "low energy" physics and related fields), 'one-dimensional' often means that only one spatial dimension is relevant to the behavior of the system rather than that the system is only one-dimensional in terms of spatial extent. In that sense, a string of perls could be considered one dimensional if you care only about the motion of the perls along the string but not the motion of the string itself, even if the string is curved in 3D space, or the pearls are 3D objects.

This is also true of higher dimensions. For example there are some '2D' materials that are several atoms thick, but as far as the behavior of electrons is concerned the 'out of plane' direction is not important.

Great reply thank you

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