why do the electrons surrounding an atomic nucleus take on discrete

>>8036320
why would the electrons surrounding an atomic nucleus take on continuous energy levels?

>>8036320
Cause they're in a potential. Check out harmonic potential solutions.

it's from the relation between the wavelength and the energy of a particle.

electron -> standing wave around the nucleus


>is that kinda correct? it's been a few years since college.

>>8036331
why wouldn't they? an apple at a certain height above the earth takes on a continuous range of potential energy levels as it falls, why are electrons different?

>>8036341

what about quantum physics?

>>8036344
That's what the OP is asking. "Why is qm the way it is?"

>>8036341
Do atomic electrons oscillate between potentials?

File: Screenshot_2016-04-28-11-14-58-1.png (1MB, 1440x892px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 1440x892px

Sorry if my english is broken at all, froggy here.

They occupy potential spaces (orbitals). So theres an orbital in which an electron can move around. Its balanced between repulsion by other electrons, attraction by the protons and strong nuclear forces.

Pic related, the orbitals.

Heisenberg proved that its impossible to know both position and momentum of an electron. Schrodinger also disproved bohr's atomic structure by accounting for the electron's wave like properties.

Basically, at the end of the day, electrons act like waves being pulsated through specific orbitals as the valence shells fill. They do still take on particle properties as bonds are made, energy levels change and ionic states are changed (like in a redox reaction where ion state is changed).

Its tough because imagining a molecule, you have to consider its lewis structure (particle approach) and molecular geometry (wave approach) to study it.

>>8036320
We don't know, really. We're like the Mayans with their accurate predictions re: eclipses and the procession of celestial bodies. They had no idea why the calculations worked, only that they did.

>>8036396
The problem is that we figure out how one model works and why it works. Then, some faggot like bohr and Rydberg comes out and fucks it up. Then, we figure out whats happening and some asshole like Heisenberg and schrodinger fucks up the harmony with some new shit.

>>8036320
The modern reason is that there is a a separate thing from a particle called it's probability amplitude. This basically is the probability of finding a particle at some location in space and it can take on positive and negative values.

Since the probability amplitude is trapped around the nucleus of an atom, this positive and negative thing is stuck, and so the probability of where you can find the electron could be ends up interacting with itself. All of these possibilities end up cancelling themselves out because they have self-interference. The only ones that survive are the ones that end up lining up just right so that they form these standing waves, and standing waves, and so the discrete energy levels are these things that are left. So the reason we can count the energy states is cause waves have countably many nodes when they're bound in a potential energy well like an positive proton sucking a negative electron towards it.

>>8036392
Congratulations for not including an actual response to OPs question in your rambling.

>>8036392
Orbitals exist through all space, and describe possible locations that you can find an electron.

The orbitals you've shown are the solutions to the single electron Hydrogen atom and there is absolutely no repulsion by other electrons considered in these pictures, only the since center positively charged nucleus with a single electron. There is only the Coulomb potential between the electron and proton in these pictures and each of the particles' kinetic energies. That is literally how these pictures of the wave functions are derived. There is no strong nuclear force or other electrons considered. If you want to throw that in, you need much more theory. Particularly, if you want more electrons you need an additional quantum number describing the spin of the electrons and solving those wave functions for the orbitals has to be done numerically and/or with approximations with something such as Slater determinants to account for the Pauli exclusion principle.

Heisenberg didn't prove that it's impossible to know both the position and momentum of an electron, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is about the product of the standard deviations of the measurements of many systems prepared in exactly the same way always obeys an inequality, which is essentially the triangle inequality for Fourier transforms. Position and momentum are both represented by exactly the same amount of information in a wave function, and if you know the wave function's position wave function exactly you necessarily know the wave function's momentum wave function exactly. The wave function only tells you the probability outcome of repeating the same experiment multiple times.

In calculating wave functions we don't really have two electrons occupying one orbital, two anther orbital, etc. No, instead what happens in the calculations is you consider the effect of the electrons in every possible combination of occupying orbitals -- and how these possibilities interfere.

>>8036466
Sorry that you know nothing about the subject at hand, but yes, he actually did answer the question.