How come an electron doesn't fall into the nucleus? I did

It tries to. Just keeps missing.

>>8532339
>the electron is a wave
No. It's a particle but behaves like a wave.

>>8532373
I thought it was a wave but depending on the localization of the wave packet, you get either particle-like effects or wave-like effects

>>8532373
>he likes to play semantics
That entirely depends on your definition of "particle". It could mean like a classical particle. The electron is neither a classical particle nor a classical wave, it sometimes behaves like a classical particle and sometimes behave like a classical wave, it is better for us to avoid this endless discussion and join some physicists who calls it a "wavicle".

>>8532339
There is the process [math]pe \to n\nu_w[/math]. Trouble is, that the neutron is actually heavier than the proton and electron, so it's not exactly likely to happen. In a nucleus it's usually even further suppressed as the nucleons are fermions and can't just appear any way they like.

Anyway, you can't imagine particles to behave like little balls because they are not little balls. Particles are fields. And they behave as dictated by some equation like Schrödinger's in the simplest case. In the case of an atom, the solution looks like your pic. The electron is not some thing flying around with a specific location and velocity, it's just this cloud in space that has a certain time evolution. The less you think about it as a particle, the better, actually. I think forcing QFT to fit into the idea of little balls flying around and hitting each is one of the worst didactic moves of the last century. It makes things unintuitive and overly complicated.

>>8532404
If you don't mind me asking, what do you mean nucleons are fermions and can't just appear anyway they like?

>>8532442
I think he is talking about exclusion principle, fermions can't acquire any given state, they are limited due to Pauli's principle

>>8532442
It's pretty complicated to explain, but there's something called fermion statistics. It basically means that you can't have two neutrons or protons with the same state in the nucleus. The same goes for electrons which is the reason why atoms look the way they do, they arrange at different energy levels, instead of all staying in the ground state. In classical mechanics it's better known as the Pauli exclusion principle.

The reason for those statistics is pretty theoretical and has to do with fermions having half integer spin. It's hard to explain it in any intuitive way, but you can read more about it, look for spin statistics theorem.

It does

What do you think neutrons are ya chucklefuck.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_capture

cmon son

Essentially? Because that would violate the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. It doesn't fall in because then we'd be sure it was there (and if it has infinite uncertainty in momentum, it would escape, obviously).
Note that sometimes, as other anons are saying, a proton and an electron can combine into a neutron; this is a special process and does NOT come about in normal circumstances.

you dont need a quantum mechanics explanation.
why does the earth not fall into the sun? do you understand the answer to this question? the proton-electron answer is essentialy the same.

>>8532373
>abloo bloo i'll have you know i graduated top of my class in quantum physics and i have over 300 confirmed parallel universes

>>8532339
Because its not a planet and moon scaled down you mong.

>>8532339
because in quantum mechanical terms, an electron falling into the nucleus can be described as confining the electron to an area the size of the nucleus. If you look up particle in a box, this confinement (making the box smaller) increases the zero-point energy to orders of magnitude greater than the coulombic attraction between a proton and an electron.

Somewhat intuitively, the radius at which the coulombic attraction and ground state confinement energies are equal is the average distance of the electron from the nucleus (the Bohr radius)

File: image.jpg (120KB, 750x783px) Image search: [Google]

120KB, 750x783px

>>8533622
Bingo! This is the right answer.

It takes energy to confine waves into particles, depending on its mass. Massive things like protons and neutrons take a few million eV (unit of energy) to be confined into an area the size of a nucleus, but electrons are lighter and need BILLIONS of eV to be confined in the same way.

They get energy by getting closer to the nucleus from the "opposites attract" relation, but once they get closer they're more confined, requiring exponentially more energy.

Which grade are you, bro? Maybe you are just looking for a classical physics explanation, like orbital movement..

>>8532339
Not to be dismissive but it might help with things you can't observe not to ask "how can this be?"
At some point it's better to shut up and do the math.

>>8533732
That's just a bullshit explanation and confuses more than it helps.

>>8532590
This is oversimplifying it, it is known that an accelerating charge emits radiation, meaning that the electron would be constantly losing energy if it was just a charged dot orbiting round a centre, therefore causing it to eventually slow and fall in. That's where the classical model begins to break down because that's very much not what happens.

>>8533765

How about you back your claim before making a statement like that.

>>8533765
What part of that is bullshit exactly

>>8533765
Actually it makes perfect sense, that's why highly negative elements like Fluorine have much higher ionization energy than positive elements like Hydrogen

t. undergrad

>>8535480

The fact it's bullshit for a start. The hydrogen wavefunction has a radial component that's non-zero everywhere, so there's a small probability to find it within the radius of the nucleus.

>>8532373
explain tunneling then

>>8532339
the electron in orbit around a nucleus at all times while bound has a kinetic energy (positive) that doesnt have a specific direction radially outward, but if not counterbalanced would cause the electron to travel away from the proton AND a potential energy (negative) due to the coloumb force between the electron and proton (in let's say Hydrogen)

if you look it up the ground state energy for a hydrogen atom is like -13.6 eV. Notice that it's negative, because it is bound, ie E = K + U < 0, so K < U, meaning the thing pulling the electron towards the proton is stronger than the thing making the electron travelling outwards

im sure i misexplained something specific or at the least didnt explain something more technical, but i just learned this in my undergrad class DESU

>>8533732
>requiring exponentially more energy.
But then you would expect that adding enough energy to the system would cause the electron to fall into the nucleus, when in reality adding energy just ionizes the atom.

>>8535513
The wavefunction of the s orbitals is non zero at the nucleus, but the probability density is zero.

>>8535548
But that's wrong [eqn] \text { P } ( r \leq b ) = \frac { 1 } { \pi a^3 } \iiint e^{ - 2r/a } r^2 \sin ( \theta ) dr d \theta d \phi [/eqn] Which after working though the algebra gives [eqn] \text { P } ( r \leq b ) = 1- e^ { -2b / a } \left ( 1 + \frac { 2b } { a } + \frac { 2b^2 } { a ^2 } \right ) \approx \frac { 4 b^3 } { 3 a^3 } [/eqn] Which again is going to be non-zero everywhere (except at 0 obviously), but since the nucleus has a finite size, there's going to be a small chance to find it inside the radius of the nucleus.

>>8535586
>triple integral

nice meme

>>8535516
The reason you need quantum mechanics (and the Kinetic energy of the electron is not enough to keep the electron in orbit) is because the Coulomb force accelerates a charge, therefore creating synchrotron radiation, which decreases kinetic energy as it is converted into light.

>>8532523
Indeed. Same as earth not falling into the sun, it would lead to sadness and confusion in humankind. Without humans who's gonna worship the sun?