Is an electron inside hydrogen atom able to move and achieve the speed of light or faster?

Question

How do we know that when the electron gets close to the nucleous that it increases mass since it approaches the speed of light at that point=may be its not true?

and isnt true that the photon mass limit has been now been determined by experiment,hence shows photon is not massless?

So at what speed does the electron move around proton when hydrogen is frozen at near zero degree absolute?

If the velocity of the electron cannot be determined than what about its momentum?

Answer 1

Nothing can reach the speed of light, because according to the theory of relativity, the mass will become infinite the moment a particle reaches the speed of light. In the continuum, the speed of light is an upper limit, and it does not necessarily mean that anything will reach the limit. Theoretically photons have no mass, and that is why they are assumed to reach the speed of light.

Answer 2

Aside from all the great answers that people have already given, you have to ask yourself "how would an electron achieve the speed of light or close to it while inside the orbit of an hydrogen atom? Remember the faster you move, the more energy is required. So where would the electron acquire such energy while it is in a stable quantum state about the hydrogen atom? Also, usually such increase in energy has to come externally, such as a photon striking the electron. But such type of events that imparts energy to the electron usually kicks the electron out of orbit, i.e. the electron escapes the electrostatic potential of the positively charge hydrogen atom nucleus. So achieving high speed inside an orbit is equivalent to escaping the orbit.

Additional Details

>13 minutes ago
>How do we know that when the electron gets close to the >nucleous that it increases mass since it approaches the speed >of light at that point=may be its not true?

I guess here you're implying that if the electron gets confined very close to the nucleus, so the velocity of the electron would increase via Heisenger's Uncertainty Principle. Even if this is true, what happens is that when the electron gets more confined and thus increases its energy and velocity, this increase in energy would push the electron away from the nucleus (similar to the idea that I mentioned before where the electron escapes the nucleus if it has too much energy). And once the electron is moved away rom the nucleus, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle would required the electron to slow down and lose its energy.

>10 minutes ago
>and isnt true that the photon mass limit has been now been >determined by experiment,hence shows photon is not
>massless?

Don't get confused by experiements that measure photon's energy and hence its momentum. The "rest mass" of the photons is still ZERO.

Here we need to clarify that the "rest mass" of the photon or any other particle NEVER increases. The "rest mass" or the "invariant mass" is the mass of a particle when it is NOT in motion (a better way to say this is that the particle's mass as measured in a referential frame such that it is not in motion).

>5 minutes ago
>So at what speed does the electron move around proton when >hydrogen is frozen at near zero degree absolute?

What I will say here is that at aboslute zero, there is NO kinetic energy, but there is still quantum jitters due to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. And this low temperature actually helps the electron to stay bound to the hydrogen nucleus, because there is almost no possibility of photons or other particles colliding with the hydrogen atom causing the electron to get kicked out of orbit.

Also, you seem to think that the electron is moving about the nucleus like a planet moving about its Sun. This analogy is simply wrong. This is obviously the reason for your confusion.

The correct way to think about an electron around the hydrogen nucleus is this: the confined electron has a probability distribution centered around the hydrogen atom. The probability distribution tells you the likelihood of finding the electron at any particular location in space. The electron is not traveling anywhere within this probability distribution. The electron simply don't exist at any particular location, at least not until we actually go there and measure its location (this is called the collapsing of the wave function or its probability distribution).

>If the velocity of the electron cannot be determined than what >about its momentum?

Not knowing the velocity is the same as not knowing the momentum. They are measuring the same physical quantity.

Answer 3

The electron, which circles the proton, or nucleus, of the hydrogen atom doesn't move at the speed of light. Like all atoms, certain energy levels are reached by external forces, causing the electron to circle the nucleus at different radii, and therefore different velocities; but none of thees speeds are as fast as the speed of light.

Answer 4

Hi. The electron has mass so it can not travel as fast as light. Even weirder is that we can not know the velocity of the electron, only where it is likely to be.

Answer 5

In response to your additional question about the photon mass - what has been established is an upper limit. Zero mass is consistent with this upper limit.

Answer 6

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Answer 7

No, it cant. Although it travels at incredible speeds in its orbital it cannot exceed the speed of light