Negatively charged particle with spin 1/2. A component of mundane terrestrial matter, and part of all neutral atoms and molecules. It has a mass about 1/1800 that of a proton. Its antiparticle is the positron.
Questions tagged [electrons]
3440 questions
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Why don't electrons crash into the nuclei they "orbit"?
I'm having trouble understanding the simple "planetary" model of the atom that I'm being taught in my basic chemistry course.
In particular,
I can't see how a negatively charged electron can stay in "orbit" around a positively charged nucleus.…
orome
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209
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4 answers
Why doesn't matter pass through other matter if atoms are 99.999% empty space?
The ghostly passage of one body through another is obviously out of the question if the continuum assumption were valid, but we know that at the micro, nano, pico levels (and beyond) this is not even remotely the case. My understanding is that the…
Bryson S.
- 3,996
116
votes
4 answers
Why do electrons, according to my textbook, exist forever?
Does that mean that electrons are infinitely stable? The neutrinos of the three leptons are also listed as having a mean lifespan of infinity.
HyperLuminal
- 1,978
79
votes
11 answers
Why is the charge naming convention wrong?
I recently came to know about the Conventional Current vs. Electron Flow issue.
Doing some search I found that the reason for this is that Benjamin Franklin made a mistake when naming positive and negative charges.
There is even this little comic…
GetFree
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72
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7 answers
Why are protons heavier than electrons?
Our teacher told us that protons are nearly 1800 times heavier than electrons. Is there any known reason as to why this is so?
Or is this just an empirical value, one we do not know the reason to?
Shivay Vadhera
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71
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5 answers
Why do electron and proton have the same but opposite electric charge?
What is the explanation between equality of proton and electron charges (up to a sign)? This is connected to the gauge invariance and renormalization of charge is connected to the renormalization of photon field, but is this explanation enough? Do…
Newman
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63
votes
7 answers
Do electrons have shape?
According to the Wikipedia page on the electron:
The electron has no known substructure. Hence, it is defined or assumed to be a point particle with a point charge and no spatial extent.
Does point particle mean the particle should not have a…
Anil Bharadia
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55
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4 answers
Why do electrons occupy the space around nuclei, and not collide with them?
We all learn in grade school that electrons are negatively-charged particles that inhabit the space around the nucleus of an atom, that protons are positively-charged and are embedded within the nucleus along with neutrons, which have no charge. I…
voithos
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52
votes
4 answers
What is the mass density distribution of an electron?
I am wondering if the mass density profile $\rho(\vec{r})$ has been characterized for atomic particles such as quarks and electrons. I am currently taking an intro class in quantum mechanics, and I have run this question by several professors. It is…
clevy
- 623
50
votes
4 answers
How can an object absorb so many wavelengths, if their energies must match an energy level transition of an electron?
I believe I have a misunderstanding of some principles, but I have not, even through quite a bit of research, been able to understand this problem.
My current understanding of transmission, reflection and absorption is as follows:
transmission…
Ultralite
- 613
47
votes
6 answers
Do electrons really perform instantaneous quantum leaps?
This is not a duplicate, non of the answers gives a clear answer and most of the answers contradict.
There are so many questions about this and so many answers, but none of them says clearly if the electron's change of orbitals as per QM can be…
Árpád Szendrei
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44
votes
10 answers
Why can atoms only gain or lose electrons and not protons?
I know that an object can become net negative or net positive by losing or gaining electrons, and having more or fewer protons than electrons but why can't protons be transferred too?
user17886134
- 605
44
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8 answers
Why doesn't an electron ever hit (and stick on) a proton?
Imagine there is a proton confined in a box and we put an electron at 10 cm distance:
It gets an acceleration of thousands of meters/second^2 along a straight line joining the two CM's.
One would expect the electron to hit the positive particle in…
user104372
42
votes
4 answers
Why isn't the universe full of electrons?
The probability of an electron found outside the atom is never zero. Consider building an electron detector, it must receive permanent signals from all electrons in the universe, as they can exist everywhere. Of course the probability decreases with…
Anon
- 803
41
votes
4 answers
How fast do electrons travel in an atomic orbital?
I am wondering how fast electrons travel inside of atomic electron orbitals. Surely there is a range of speeds? Is there a minimum speed? I am not asking about electron movement through a conductor.
Fred
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