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Dane B
super member
Reged: 02/23/08
Posts: 120
Loc: Seattle, Wa
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Re: What drives an atom?
07/11/08 06:17 PM
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That's not a silly question at all!
I once asked a physical chemist a similar question - "what prevents an electron from falling into the nucleus". Because I had only minimal education in quantum mechanics he couldn't give me a direct answer, but what I took away from the conversation is that the question is flawed. While we can measure properties of the electron and get either a position or a velocity or an uncertain combination of both, the wavefunction that actually describes the properties of the electron do not yield specific locations or velocities and so it is incorrect to think of an electron as moving along a definite path.
Perhaps it is incorrect to think of the electron as moving at all. It exists in a superposition of states, and upon measuring we get information about one of those states, but that doesn't describe the electron in general.
Hopefully someone here can provide a more definitive answer...
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Without judgement what would we do? We would be forced to look at ourselves...
-Death
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