In an isolated atom, the nucleus is at the center. But in an accelerated atom it's generally not. Most, if not all, of this is because acceleration is generally caused by EM forces. When you throw a baseball the electric fields in your hand press on the electric fields of the ball.
The induced...
I've waited for someone who knows more to answer. No luck.
Does the nucleus move? Yes, but it drags the electron with it since it outmasses it. Mostly the coordinate system is chosen with the nucleus at the origin and nucleus motion/tunneling is ignored. It would need to be considered for...
Gary, this isn't really quantum physics. But here's a link to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avogadro_constant
It gives the historical perspective as well as showing some experiments.
Let me try rephrasing the question. It's my understanding the Hermitian nature of the phase space arises from the conservation of energy through the Noether theorem.
That theorem applies to non-dissipative spaces. Yet during the absorption (or emission) of a photon energy is not being...
So this guy walks on to a physics forum and asks a question that shows a lack of understanding of the field. I offer a way of thinking about the problem that follows the historical development of the field. You get on my case because one of my intermediate steps wasn't mathematically rigorous to...
Historically the uncertainty principal arose like other theories. Observations were made. An hypothesis was proposed. It failed some tests. The old hypothesis was rejected and a new one was proposed. Hence it seems appropriate to say "the uncertainty principle arises from our lack of measuring...
If psi^2 represents the probability distribution of the location, could psi and psi* represent two locations for the same object. For example a point mass could conceivably have a slightly separate location for its momentum moment and its gravitational moment.
Basically I'm trying to...
Perhaps you didn't express yourself well. You seem to have said that the uncertainty principle arises as a rule from the opinion of a majority of scientists, not from measurement and observation.
The wave function is complex. I was taught that its square (probability) was actually psi times it's conjugate. Does this relationship always hold or was this only for bound and free particles?
In other words is it possible for psi and psi* to change phases during orbital state transitions?
Accelerating charge creates EM radiation. If electrons orbited the nucleus atoms would need to radiate continuously. Measurements show that they don't. Therefore electrons don't orbit.
They seem to move by applying the uncertainty principle to choose a new location at random. This is...
Insight, at least the type scientists seek involves the generation of a new idea. This idea cannot have a name since it's the first time it has been thought. Therefore the normal stream of consciousness can't apply.
The brain seems to abhor this state and quickly finds words to fill the...
If there is relative, non-uniform motion between the electron and the nucleus, how does it avoid forming an accelerating dipole? If there is an accelerating dipole, won't it generate a time varying EM field?
I always thought the answer was that the electron was not "moving" (in a classic...
Thank you both for taking the time to answer.
Chopin, I'll look into time dependent perturbation theory. Thanks for the visualization link as well. I suspect it will provide hours of fun deciding what all the colors and axis mean.
I didn't hear about them (except muons changing the interatomic distances in room temperature fusion). I assumed they exist from the math.
The orbital derivation I saw started by assuming a static situation to make the math easier (and because atoms are static as a rule). But if one is...
No responses?
Is my understanding flawed? Was this a stupid question? Is this a bad way to look at electron orbitals? Is this in the wrong forum?
Any feedback would be appreciated.