Is it the Nuclear "Strong Force" or Plancks Length or Strings or what "Exactly" keeps the electron from fallin

Question

So far, you ALL are batting ZERO LOL 8-)

Answer 1

There really is no good explanation about why the electron does not fall into the nucleus. It simply doesn't, and honestly, that is all there is to it. But I will take a stab at explaining it. You would expect the electron to fall into the nucleus due to the electrostatic attraction between the two particles due to the opposite electric charge. However, it is wrong to think of the electron as a "particle". It is really a "naked" electric charge, and is best described as a singularity, and as such, it has a zero radius, and I do mean zero. A physicist by the name of Schrodinger elucidated this issue. When an electron exists outside of a nucleus but within an atom, it is best visualized as a wave function, and a standing wave at that. That nonsense that they teach you in school about a "probability cloud" is really wrong and should not be taught, in my opinion. The electron wave wraps itself around the nucleus and simply vibrates there as a standing wave forever. Why doesn't the electron wave simply collapse into the nucleus? Because it simply doesn't, as I said earlier. The best answer to this question is that "outside the nucleus" is a lower energy state than "inside the nucleus". We know this because free neutrons are unstable and they spontaneously decay into an electron and a proton, giving off energy (and mass, which is the same thing) in the process. So it seems that a "Hydrogen atom" consisting of a free proton and an associated electron, is in a lower energy state than a "free neutron". And things always naturally move in the direction of the lowest energy state, due to the laws of thermodynamics. So there you have it. I think you should read the book "Atom", by Isaac Asimov. Another good book is "In Search of Schrodinger's Cat, by John Gribben, if you are interested in these subjects.

Answer 2

That keeps the electron from falling into the nucleus? It's Heisenberg's uncertainty principle: the electron cannot be localized in an object as small as a nucleus without it having a large energy. There is an interesting hiccup here: a phenomenon called K-electron capture. A few nuclei, which would be more stable with more neutrons than they have, can eat an electron from the innermost shell (the K-shell) to turn a proton into a neutron. This occurs only if the resulting energy shift is less than 511 kev, because if it were more than that the nucleus would just spit out a positron and be done with it. The tumbling of outer electrons to fill the hole left by the eaten electron makes a characteristic X-ray signature.

Answer 3

... into the nucleus?

It is misleading to think of the electron and the nucleus as little solid spheres with a finite radius. The quantum mechanic wave function of an electron in an 1/r potential of a positive charge at r=0 give you different solutions to different angular momentums L. That one that to L=0 describes a probability cloud around the nucleus with the highest probability at r=0, exactly at the place of the nucleus!

All other solutions with non vanishing L have zero probabilty at r=0 because of conservation of angular momentum. These can't fall into the nucleus.

From this point of view the electrons with zero angular momentum simply goes through the nucleus as we assumed the nucleus to be a point like charge at r=0. For most chemical (related to the electron shells) properties of an simple atoms this description (+taking the electronic spin into account) is good enough to give nearly exact results.

At the dimension of the nucleus the classical electrodynamic description (the 1/r potential) isn't accurate anymore. Now we have to use quantum electrodynamics to describe the interaction, and we have to use quantum chromo dynamics (which deals with the strong interaction) to describe the interactions of the parts of the nucleus with each other, as we can't assume a point-like nucleus anymore. These are complicated calculations, as you're now deep in high energy physics and quarks interact by all four forces.

But since the quarks, like the electrons, are fermions, Pauli's exclusion principle still holds, no two fermions can exist in the same state at the same time.

What really happens when you force an electron to collide with a proton at high energies is exactly what is studied at HERA (Hardon Electron Ring Collider) at the DESY in Hamburg. There they use electrons as a probe to investigate the structure of the proton and this is still subject to actual research.

Answer 4

You ask questions about things for which there are only theories to explain. One current cutting edge theory is that the physical existence that we can detect is only a part of a spectrum of what actually does exist. The matter that we can see all around us is ultimately made up of energy which is organized in such a way that it has physical character and becomes matter. Basically this says that matter is a system of vibrations which are organized into a structure. Different structures come together to make up sub atomic particles which come together to form atoms, etc. In this theory, the forces holding the atom together are the parts of that structure that are not quite matter. In other words matter ultimately originates from the quantum plane (or actually non-plane). The quantum energy making up matter is still energy and subject to quantum physics in ways having to do with the different ways that different kinds of matter are organized. This is manifest in the physical plane as a force with no apparent source (gravity, nuclear bonding).

Answer 5

I thought it was nuclear plus magnetic/gravitational attraction to the nucleus the keeps it in orbit just like the moon doesnt float off (or "fall") in space
2 bodies are gravitationally attracted to each other and that keep it from floating away,
gravity keeps it pulled close to the nucleus plus opposite charge attraction
Repulsion from other same charges balances the distance so its not too far or too near
And it goes into an equilibrium where it stays moving at a constant velocity around the nucleus...
But I'm an idiot when it comes to physics. Right up there with Einstein. :)

Answer 6

Raving At The Center Of The Universe

"In the best of all possible worlds nothing is impossible." - The Shamen

check out the link

Answer 7

centrifugal force being the same as centripetal force.


Centrifugal force: Electrons revolving round the nucleus.
Centripetal force: Electromagnetic force of + & - and gravitational force.