If an electron cannot go "In-between" orbits. Then how does it get from one orbit to the other?

Question

amansscientiae - Perhaps the term "Go" is not entirely adequate to descibe electron behavior so let me try again. We all know that when electrons radiate light they "Magically appear" in another orbit. Right? According to Bohrs model of the electron. Ok so then how does an electron "get" hows that from one orbit to another when it radiates light if there is no in-between?

Answer 1

Orbits are actually wave states, it essentially just changes frequency.

Answer 2

I've been at this for more than two decades and I still don't get it, so you have company.

It is true that you cannot picture the electron as a nice little tiny package that jumps around from one orbit to another. There doesn't really seem to be a nice way to visualize it in a way that seems satisfying.

I am bothered by quantum mechanics. I tried to explain my attitude about the way I want the world to work to my quantum mechanics professor a few years ago and he said, "You'd have been great in 1800!"

Sigh,.

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ADDED:

That same professor got very animated when one of the students made mention of a "quantum jump." "Electrons don't jump!," he yelled. "It's an elegant dance," he said.

So I think there really is an "in between" in the sense you are looking for when a transition between stationary states occurs. I wish I had a better understanding of it, though.

Answer 3

Your mental picture of an electron "going" here and there is a classical one. Classical Mechanics treats particles as points with precisely determined properties which obey a deterministic dynamical equation of motion (Newton's law).

Quantum Mechanics, which better describes electron orbitals, assumes that particle properties are determined statistically by operations on a wave function representing the particle's probability distribution. The wave function obeys a dynamical wave equation

In the subject electronic transition, for example, the probability that an electron is in one orbital exponentially decays while the probability that it is in the other one grows asymptotically toward unity. It requires a very different sort of mental picture. If this bothers you too much, consider the following words of wisdom by Richard Feynman, "Anyone who thinks he understands quantum mechanics doesn't understand quantum mechanics".

Answer 4

Electron's don't "go". They don't have feet. They don't fly, either because they don't have wings. And neither do they "tunnel" because there are no mountains between orbitals and they don't have tunneling machines. OK.. I made the last two up, but you get the idea.

You are going at this from a very naive perspective. Electrons do what electrons do. And that is pretty well described by Schroedinger's equation. Not perfectly, but pretty well.

If you are a physicist, the question what happens in-between two things that can not be observed is about as useful as the question of old school theologians who liked to debate how many angels can dance on the pin of a needle. Since there are no angels which dance on needle pins, the question is nonsensical. Since we can not measure anything that quantum mechanics can not predict, the question about what electrons do in their "spare" time while nobody is looking is... just as nonsensical.

What is happening here is this: QM is the ultimate reality. Classical mechanics follows from it. But not the other way around. Because classical mechanics describes LESS than quantum mechanics, it can not reproduce the effects we see in QM, i.e. in the microscopic world.

You will get used to it... takes about two decades.

:-)

Answer 5

It is by definition a discontinuous transition between quantum states. For example, an electron “in” one energy level in an atom, jumps instantly into another energy level, emitting or absorbing energy as it does so. There is no in-between state, and it does not take any time at all for the leap to occur.

Answer 6

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While going up a staircase you are on one step and then on next higher step.

You can remain or exist either at one step or on the next higher step

You cannot remain or exist in between.

It is not possible that you remain in between the steps.

You cannot remain in air above the first step but below the second step

Similarly, an electron can remain or exist either in one orbit or in the next lower (or higher) orbit

Whenever the electron jumps from one orbit to the lower orbit energy is radiated

Imagine two concentric circular tubes of light, in which only one light is on at a time.

When outer is on inner is off, and when outer is off inner is on.

Electron behaves like that, it is one light at a time ,either this or that , no in between, one and only one must light up.Never simultaneously both off , never both simultaneously on

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