Saturday, February 16, 2013

if you were to magnify an atom until it was a mile across, the nucleus would be roughly an inch across, and the electrons would be even smaller

if you were to magnify an atom until it was a mile across, the nucleus would be roughly an inch across, and the electrons would be even smaller

A mental "planetary orbit" picture closest to the behavior of electrons in s orbitals, all of which have no angular momentum, might perhaps be that of the path of an atomic-sized black hole, or some other imaginary particle which is able to fall with increasing velocity from space directly through the Earth, without stopping or being affected by any force but gravity, and in this way falls through the core and out the other side in a straight line, and off again into space, while slowing from the backwards gravitational tug. If such a particle were gravitationally bound to the Earth it would not escape, but would pursue a series of passes in which it always slowed at some maximal distance into space, but had its maximal velocity at the Earth's center (this "orbit" would have an orbital eccentricity of 1.0). If such a particle also had a wave nature, it would have the highest probability of being located where its velocity and momentum were highest, which would be at the Earth's core. In addition, rather than be confined to an infinitely narrow "orbit" which is a straight line, it would pass through the Earth from all directions, and not have a preferred one. Thus, a "long exposure" photograph of its motion over a very long period of time, would show a sphere.
In order to be stopped, such a particle would need to interact with the Earth in some way other than gravity. In a similar way, all s electrons have a finite probability of being found inside the nucleus, and this allows s electrons to occasionally participate in strictly nuclear-electron interaction processes, such as electron capture and internal conversion.

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