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Late to this...

Would it make sense to think of an electron as a layer of atmosphere around the nucleus with additional electrons simply increasing the density?

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Michael:

(my name is Dane by the way)

I see your point - if a photon is absorbed by an electron and that electron then emits another photon, that new photon does not carry information about the original position of the electron.

Perhaps I have misinterpreted my professor when studying this aspect of quantum mechanics, but I was given the impression that the position of electrons in orbitals could be located, and that when this was done repeatedly it formed the shape of the orbital in which the electron was originally located.

If this is not the case, and the position of an electron within an orbital cannot be located, I would appreciate a link so I can confirm this and learn more about it.

In the experiment UWastronomer mentioned it appears the experimenters believe it may be possible to locate an electron within an orbital. How do you reconcile this with your claim?

(oh, and UWastronomer, if you could give a link for us to read more about this experiment it would be appreciated!)

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Hello Dane

Somewhere at the beginning of this thread I indicated that I would rather believe that I do not understand the experiment than to suggest that they do not know they are doing.

I use the ground state of the electron in Hydrogen because it the only case where I have personally done the math. The higher states are the familiar ones taught to you in chemistry. Each of these possible energy states are allowed. Also super positions of these states are allowed. The energy states that look like particles are those that are made up of these combined states. In these high states we can locate an electron limited by the uncertainty principle. It may be the case that this is the type of state that they seek. This would be as meaningful as asking the position of a free electron in a metal. It can go where it will. One can talk about its position because if its complex high energy wave function.

You did not misunderstand your professor. I was taught the same thing when I was in high school. This is called the classical view of the atom and the electron. We now know that it is useful but not correct. Unfortunately unless one wants to confront Quantum, it is the best picture available.

You are correct. If you wish to know where in the orbit the ground state electron is located you will be disappointed. If your photon hits the electron and knocks it into a new higher energy orbit, there is no chance of getting a location from the photon that will be emitted when the electron drops back to the ground state.

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Michael

ATM: 6" F/9 Newtonian Travel Scope
ATM: 12.5" F/4.5 Real Soon Now...

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Why would we doubt the existence of the photon? We see!

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Of course to say it has not been solved is to presuppose that a solution exist which may not be the case.

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However incomprehensible such a solution may be, to propose that there IS no solution is even more incomprehensible. That would imply an irresolvable gap between the micro and macro worlds, a "two-worlds" hypothesis with no connection between them.

Finding a unity between relativity and quantum theory has been the biggest challenge in physics of our time. There are plenty of plausible potential solutions available -- simply no way at present to decide between them. I'm hoping that some experiment eventually becomes available that will start to weed out the unification candidates.

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"S.O.E." (Sauron's Other Eye) 16" Royce conical mirror: A permanent work in progress.
10" Homebuilt dob, old Coulter mirror


Next Project: The "Eye of Sauron" Observatory!

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So, if an electron has mass and it's "moving" about in this manner - it seems as if it's appearing and dissapearing in and out of existance at different locations, or tunneling through whatever you present in its way, is there still no energy consuption?

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I use the ground state of the electron in Hydrogen because it the only case where I have personally done the math. The higher states are the familiar ones taught to you in chemistry. Each of these possible energy states are allowed. Also super positions of these states are allowed. The energy states that look like particles are those that are made up of these combined states. In these high states we can locate an electron limited by the uncertainty principle. It may be the case that this is the type of state that they seek.

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Thank you Michael

I'm getting more interested as this thread continues.

Just to get back to my original question. Using an example used earlier, if a bar is inserted through the middle of an atom, and kept there, would sampling the location of the electron produce 50/50 results of it being on either side? I other words, there is no way to "trap" it on one side (the tunneling thing)?

So, if an electron has mass and it's "moving" about in this manner - it seems as if it's appearing and dissapearing in and out of existance at different locations, or tunneling through whatever you present in its way, is there still no energy consuption?

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Tagyon

Thank you for asking questions that push me to rethink my positions. If only I could derive my income from researching and responding to questions on this forum. Currently I must work this stuff in when I can.

The question of adding a 'bar' to the hydrogen atom. I interpret your 'bar' to be a plane that bisects the atom. The question then being to determine which side contains the electron at any given moment. Clearly if the plane is imaginary the problem has not changed at all. The electron is symmetrically distributed about the nucleus. This is all one can know.

If one says that the plane is made of some new material that is thin in comparison to the size of the proton. ( If I knew of such a material I would not be sitting here typing.) This material would be modeled as a potential field in the Schrodinger equation along with the electric field provided by the proton. This would give rise to a different solution for the electron which, by my speculation only, would not be spherically symmetrical. This new solution would allow you to determine the probability of observing the electron on either side of the barrier and allow you to determine how often it will tunnel to the other side(1)(2).

Your second question still clings to the notion that the electron is moving. In the ground state motion relative to the nucleus is not required. Your question as to where the energy is coming from is an insightful one. I have pondered this one for many years. I look at refrigerator magnets and ask the same question. I look at taking one's finger and touching the table. The table is willing to push against the finger for as long as you are willing to push. Where does the energy come from? A photon crosses the void between galaxies with no regard for how long it will take and never gets tired! What gives?

At this point I am not willing to even speculate on such questions.

Dave

Many years ago I had fantasies about being one of the guys who would lead the charge to find unification. Now I just sit on the side lines cheering them on. One of my goals for retirement is to refresh my math skills to the point that I can just understand what they are talking about.

1) The ammonia is a well know example of quantum tunneling. It has three Hydrogen atoms attached to a Nitrogen. The three form a tetrahedron with the N atom sticking out on one side. The N atom actually tunnels through the potentials of the three Hydrogen to stick out the other side several times per second.

2) Increasing the mass of the particle will exponentially reduce the probability of tunneling. An electron is more likely to tunnel through something than a person.

Increasing the energy of the barrier will exponentially reduce the probability of tunneling. You are more likely to tunnel through a paper wall than a fire door.


Increasing the width of the barrier will exponentially reduce the probability of tunneling. You are more likely to tunnel through your front door than through a mountain.

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Michael

ATM: 6" F/9 Newtonian Travel Scope
ATM: 12.5" F/4.5 Real Soon Now...

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Michael - I don't understand why you suggest electrons in higher energy orbitals can be located, but not in a 1s/ground state orbital.

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Each energy state has a specific amount of energy. Imagine all of those orbitals from chemistry. Each represents a different energy state for the electron. It is possible to find solutions for the electron that consist of 20% one state and 80% some other state. Combinations are allowed states. Clearly one can create states with high probabilities in one location and very low probabilities in other locations. The more states that are combined the greater the freedom to 'place' the electron where you wish. In the extreme case the electron is free to move anywhere such as inside of a metal. The outer electrons are not attached to their atoms. They float in a sea of electrons. These are the ones that make electrical current flow possible. Place a charge at one end and all of the electrons shift.

The math here is very similar to that used by audio engineers to create desired musical waveforms using only sine waves of different frequencies and amplitudes. This kind of wave form construction is rather common in electrical engineering. It is not the same. I only assert that the mathematical concepts are similar.

If you think about it if an electron is traveling across the room we consider it localized if we know its position within one millimeter. On the other hand asking which side of the nucleus it is on is demanding much greater precision. Most macro experiments are in fact on such a large scale that it is easy to ignore the uncertainty of position. If it hits my CCD imaging sensor I will say that I got it to within a few microns. But that is no where near the Heisenberg limit. Asking which side of the nucleus is inside of that limit*.

* I did not calculate it but I seem to remember it is true. If I delve into a little used cobweb filled part of my brain it may be the case that one can compute the radius at which the probability of observation is 50%. This should be the classical electron radius. This would be the uncertainty of position for the case of 50% chance of observation. This is a very small area compared to the size of a pixel in an image sensor. If that pixel comes on, I only know its position to within the size of the pixel. The smallest of the Astro cameras that I have seen would make this around 7 microns. There are a lot of atoms in 7 microns.

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Michael

ATM: 6" F/9 Newtonian Travel Scope
ATM: 12.5" F/4.5 Real Soon Now...

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Of course to say it has not been solved is to presuppose that a solution exist which may not be the case.

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However incomprehensible such a solution may be, to propose that there IS no solution is even more incomprehensible. That would imply an irresolvable gap between the micro and macro worlds, a "two-worlds" hypothesis with no connection between them.

Finding a unity between relativity and quantum theory has been the biggest challenge in physics of our time. There are plenty of plausible potential solutions available -- simply no way at present to decide between them. I'm hoping that some experiment eventually becomes available that will start to weed out the unification candidates.

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Please, anyone correct me if I am getting any point of this wrong. So here goes:

My basic understanding is that, due to the conditions that are well known under the interpretation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, or the Bohr's Copenhagen Interpretation, the position of an electron cannot be measured or observed because the measuring or observing instrument gets in the way (as has been so well described in this thread by the explanations of what happens when an "observing" photon bumps an electron into a higher energy state).

But while the electron cannot be located with certainty, its orbital status can be approximated through wave equations (most famously the Schroedinger Wave Equations). These equations, which are mathematically produced, create a "picture" not of the electron's postion but of the highest mathematical density/approximation of where it could be.

Thus, in a sense, we are never observing an electron at all, only our mathematical calculations. In other words, our "language" (in this case, the symbolic language of mathematics), always gets in the way, or "mediates" between us and reality.

This is why one of the philosophical conclusions of the Uncertainty Principle is that reality has "evaporated," or vanished (this is a very popular notion in philosophy and the Humanities, and is the basis of one of the most famous theories of postmodernity).

Now, I am not sympathetic with the postmodern "evaporation" interpretation, but it does place one heck of a barrier in the way of a solution so long as we are looking to the scientific method of prediction and observation (that is, if our "pictures" are really only pictures of our own calculations and not of an extra-mathematical reality). This is probably why string theory is still so disappointing: it is elegant language but non-observable.

So far. I'm not ruling anything out.

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My basic understanding is that, due to the conditions that are well known under the interpretation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, or the Bohr's Copenhagen Interpretation, the position of an electron cannot be measured or observed because the measuring or observing instrument gets in the way (as has been so well described in this thread by the explanations of what happens when an "observing" photon bumps an electron into a higher energy state).

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But while the electron cannot be located with certainty, its orbital status can be approximated through wave equations (most famously the Schroedinger Wave Equations). These equations, which are mathematically produced, create a "picture" not of the electron's position but of the highest mathematical density/approximation of where it could be.

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Thus, in a sense, we are never observing an electron at all, only our mathematical calculations. In other words, our "language" (in this case, the symbolic language of mathematics), always gets in the way, or "mediates" between us and reality.

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This is why one of the philosophical conclusions of the Uncertainty Principle is that reality has "evaporated," or vanished (this is a very popular notion in philosophy and the Humanities, and is the basis of one of the most famous theories of postmodernity).

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Now, I am not sympathetic with the postmodern "evaporation" interpretation, but it does place one heck of a barrier in the way of a solution so long as we are looking to the scientific method of prediction and observation (that is, if our "pictures" are really only pictures of our own calculations and not of an extra-mathematical reality). This is probably why string theory is still so disappointing: it is elegant language but non-observable

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I am an instrumentalist. This means that the models are useful for their predictive value but need not be the most accurate description of nature. The Determinist view the equations as an accurate description of nature. Determinist suffer many disappointments when a well believed theory is shown to be inaccurate. Instrumentalist simply value the old one, usually because it is simpler and value the new one because it works over a wider range of cases.

I come from the camp that feels that all models are wrong but some are useful.

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Michael

ATM: 6" F/9 Newtonian Travel Scope
ATM: 12.5" F/4.5 Real Soon Now...

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If I knew of such a material I would not be sitting here typing.

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You can try my bank balance? Seriously, what I'm after is weather there is really tunneling taking place, or it's just a question of where the electron is at any given time. Will it be possible to trap an electron on one side? Or will it ignore the barrier and pop to the other side.

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A photon crosses the void between galaxies with no regard for how long it will take and never gets tired! What gives?

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.....the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, or the Bohr's Copenhagen Interpretation, the position of an electron cannot be measured or observed because the measuring or observing instrument gets in the way....

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Photon also carry momentum.

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Black holes do not reach out and swallow light. It is the case that if a photon is inside of the event horizon it can not get out.

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