Do Electrons Really Orbit Atom Nuclei?

[Eli]

IIRC, this theory is quite old and there were a lot of new advances since it was introduced(quantum mechanics and whatnot).

Is the system that simple in reality, or is it an easy to explain dumbed-down version? If so, what's really happening "down there"?

[Eli]

I refer to what I was tought :

Electrons circle the nucleus on some constant distances from it(energy levels and stuff) and there is a limited number of electrons on every level.

[Solly]

I don't do physics sorry.

[Dauphin]

Electrons circle the nucleus on some constant distances from it(energy levels and stuff) and there is a limited number of electrons on every level.

Electrons don't orbit as such, their probabilities wavefunctions are found where you can fit a total number of wavelengths for a given energy around the nucleus.

Thats better explained by a diagram. I'll see if I can find one.

[Az]

This is like the chicken and egg question.

what Big Crunch said is correct.

( The interesting stuff in that is the electrons in molecules. Wicked! An entire atom is located "somewhere in between" )

[Az]

This seems as an OK Image:


You see the "clouds"? the clouds are the areas where the electrons can be found, while the density of the cloud represents the chance it will be found there.

The pic on the left shows how an s-orbital looks like, while the two on the right are two of the 3 p-orbitals on that level. ( Notice that the two clouds in the p-orbitals are completely unconnected! the electron can be found in both clouds, but NEVER in between them. bizzare, isn't it? ).
Those clouds vary in shapes according to their quantum numbers. If you want to read about this more, there is plenty of material on the web.

Mind you, that this is correct for single atom states, normally possible only for inert gases.

[Az]

Also a good graph showing the probability function as a function of the distance from the nucleus of s-orbital electrons.


Notice how the functions are asimptotic for the R coordinate, meaning that, theoretically, an electron can be found just about everywhere.

[Dauphin]

[Az]

what's that?

[GePap]

Thank god I last had to learn physics 4 years ago. Even then, they still already thought that all you could diagram was areas of probability: they had nice color diagrams of them.

Color I say!

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Azazel


what's that?

Standing waves. I presume you asked before the edit.

[Az]

Colors are for Arts majors.

[Az]

Standing waves. I presume you asked before the edit.

I wondered why that sketch didn't come up the second time.


Ah, now I see the connection.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Azazel
Colors are for Arts majors.

Everyone loves ART!

COLOR!

[Solly]

I think Paiktis had a good point now.