0

Why don't electrons and protons collide?

Hydrogen atoms are often ionized. After ionization, it is divided into electrons and protons, which can merge into hydrogen atoms at any time.

Why don't electrons crash on protons?

According to Coulomb's law, when they are getting closer, they attract more and more. One of the most possible choices is to crash.

This is not a duplicated question. Because instead of talking about the structure of atoms (why electrons don't crash nuclei), we're talking about why they don't merge together because of the Coulomb attraction when electrons are close to protons.

Cang Ye
  • 365
  • 3
  • 11

1 Answers1

-2

If we discard the radiation problem(accelerated electron have to radiate and lose his energy), so electron does not crash on proton by the same reason the Earth does not crash on the Sun. And for the Earth, it does not crash on the Sun because it has an angular momentum and it always "slips past" the Sun.

Remark: Yes, of course classical physics can not explain stability of the atom, but the reason is not/(not so much) in Coulomb’s law but in the classical mechanics itself. I meant, that if the problem was only in Coulomb’s law then the same reasonings we could apply to the stability of the Solar system.