Why don't the orbits of electrons decay?

[UfarkTheRipe]

Please dumb it down for me and use 8th grade level colloquial English.

 

[Hawkeye]

Please dumb it down for me and use 8th grade level colloquial English.

Orbit is a misconception. It's more like a never ending game of fooling the nucleus by tapping on his shoulder and appearing on the other side.

 

[HsinHsin]

Orbit is a misconception. It's more like a never ending game of fooling the nucleus by tapping on his shoulder and appearing on the other side.

Nice!

 

[Cognisant]

I can't believe this, it explains everything, you're a genius!

 

[UfarkTheRipe]

Orbit is a misconception. It's more like a never ending game of fooling the nucleus by tapping on his shoulder and appearing on the other side.

So the electron is sentient and mischievous? How can all of them be sentient and have the same playful personality?

I read somewhere, people are playful when they are thankful. What are all the electrons thankful for? A nucleus for a playmate?

You know many electrons have to share their playmate with other electrons. Does it also stand to reason that electrons on average aren't stingy?

 

[Coolydudey]

It's not as if the electron is moving on some nice predictable path around the nucleus. It appears as just a cloud, taking many random positions over time, just in a certain area around the nucleus. Que quantum mechanical shit for more explanation.

 

[Hawkeye]

So the electron is sentient and mischievous? How can all of them be sentient and have the same playful personality?

I read somewhere, people are playful when they are thankful. What are all the electrons thankful for? A nucleus for a playmate?

You know many electrons have to share their playmate with other electrons. Does it also stand to reason that electrons on average aren't stingy?

Richard Feynman once hypothesised that the reason all electrons have the same charge and mass is because they are actually the same electron.

This could explain their apparent generous nature in sharing the nucleus.

Or...

Perhaps the electrons are trying to stop the nucleus from falling apart and zip around maintaining structural stability. With this idea, there will be a cut off point with how many electrons can actually help without causing a hindrance to the team.

 

[Words]

It does. Everything decays because of entropy. There is nothing stable.

 

[Hawkeye]

It does. Everything decays because of entropy. There is nothing stable.

Electrons don't decay (as far as we know).

 

[BigApplePi]

Excellent Q, but is it the right Q?

Electrons or something about them is in motion (change). We are just trying to describe it. If change itself exists, why aren't we asking about change rather than how the change takes place? IOW if change changes, why wouldn't it itself run down? Answer: if change changes other changing things, statistically eventually won't it all eventually run down? Not necessarily quiescent, but all equally run down.

Before that happens, we call this "change" energy. It stays the same before it runs down. So if there is decay, it's too small to be seen especially with all the other bombardments all around. Please note that electrons relative to a nucleus, whether cloudy or not, don't amount to much. So there is no or little "friction" to slow any activity down. On the macro scale, the moon doesn't slow down much either around the Earth. In fact, isn't it speeding up which is the opposite of decay?

 

[BigApplePi]

Richard Feynman once hypothesised that the reason all electrons have the same charge and mass is because they are actually the same electron.

Why not? An electron or what we observe as such could be one thing. The reason then why we see separate electrons could be because we, as observers, are actually all the same one thing. We are under the illusion we see separate things because we ourselves aren't actually separate.

If this explanation seems too far-fetched, so is existence itself. This will require further thought to be reported back here by next Thursday. If you fail to see any report Thursday, either I'm still working on it or I've disappeared into the void.

 

[Vrecknidj]

Electrons aren't things in the same sense in which macroscopic things are things. And, decay, at the level of radioactivity, is a fishy thing.

Energy alters over time.

 

[UfarkTheRipe]

Excellent Q, but is it the right Q?

Electrons or something about them is in motion (change). We are just trying to describe it. If change itself exists, why aren't we asking about change rather than how the change takes place? IOW if change changes, why wouldn't it itself run down? Answer: if change changes other changing things, statistically eventually won't it all eventually run down? Not necessarily quiescent, but all equally run down.

Before that happens, we call this "change" energy. It stays the same before it runs down. So if there is decay, it's too small to be seen especially with all the other bombardments all around. Please note that electrons relative to a nucleus, whether cloudy or not, don't amount to much. So there is no or little "friction" to slow any activity down. On the macro scale, the moon doesn't slow down much either around the Earth. In fact, isn't it speeding up which is the opposite of decay?

I don't know if the moon is going slightly too fast causing it to move 2 inches further from the earth every year or if it is the effect of universe expansion in which begs the question, "Does the inch get bigger with the rest of the universe?" I know they say they are measuring the distance to the moon by bouncing lasers off mirrors left there, but what effect on the measurements does the possibility that light is slowing down bring?

That's like 3 calculus curve equations to measure a straight line. Wait is it straight at all?! Will a millimeter one day equal the foot of olde as we spiral away from center of the universe toward its own heat death?

Electrons aren't things in the same sense in which macroscopic things are things. And, decay, at the level of radioactivity, is a fishy thing.

Energy alters over time.

Electrons don't decay (as far as we know).

The question was about the orbits, not the electrons.

 

[Duxwing]

The OP's question is vacuous: electrons are not in orbits, but orbitals, which, despite their deceptively similar name, are unlike orbits and therefore should not be judged as such.

-Duxwing

 

[UfarkTheRipe]

The OP's question is vacuous: electrons are not in orbits, but orbitals, which, despite their deceptively similar name, are unlike orbits and therefore should not be judged as such.

-Duxwing

An answer apropos. Excellent!

Making one mindful of the quantum counterpart of the chicken or egg. The particle or the wave. Thankfully this dual nature keeps everything from being defined accurately because life is too easy! So we make up words like "orbital" to describe a theory that may or may not fit the equations we put to them. I guess this could be said about anything.

Orbital sounds more like an adjective than a noun.

New question:

Why don't the orbitals of electrons decay?

 

[Latte]

Look at decay as an emergent phenomena rather than a ruru.

Think about what would makes decay in macro examples happen.

Look for these factors when it comes to electron orbitals. If the necessary factors aren't there, there is your "answer".

There is no understand of why things don't happen. There is an understanding of how things do occur. Thinking about things in this way makes acquiring one's own answers easier, as one knows what to look for.