The existence of particles inside a proton means that a proton must spread out to fill a certain space and have a certain shape. A proton is not a point particle, but is in fact a sphere with a radius of 8.
Note that as a quantum object, a proton is not a solid sphere with a hard surface, but is really a quantized wave function that interacts in particle-like collisions as if it were a cloud-like sphere. If the electron was composed of other particles, it could indeed have a shape when interacting like a particle.
But it doesn't. The electron is a point particle. When an electron is behaving more like a wave, it can have all sorts of shapes, as long as its shape obeys the electron wave equation.
An electron's wave equation, and therefore its shape, is a function of its energy and the shape of the potential well trapping it. For instance, when an electron is bound in a simple hydrogen atom, an electron can take on the familiar orbitals taught in elementary physics and chemistry classes, such as the shape shown on the right.
In fact, the word "orbital" in this context really just means "the shape of an electron when acting as a wave bound in an atom". Each atomic orbital is not some mathematical average of where the electron has been, or some average forecast of where the electron may be.
If you decided to catch the electron using some kind of hypothetical scoop, then you could wave your scoop through the probability cloud and an electron might appear inside it — and then again, it might not. You could increase your chances by waving your scoop through the darker higher probability regions of the cloud, but in the end, statistical chances are all you have.
There is no way to predict with certainty whether the electron cloud will interact with your scoop or not. It is critical to realize that this uncertainty is not because you are unsure of the electron's motion, and therefore don't know where to place your scoop. The electron is not like a buzzing fly hidden in the dark.
It is not like a target moving so fast that you cannot track its location, or like a target hidden behind a smoke screen. The electron is a much more subtle object whose location can never be known for certain, because it does not have a specific location.
When we say that "the mass of an electron is 9. If an old cloud changes into a new one, then its total mass, total electric change, and so on are just passed along. Thus, no matter what you do, enclosing one-quarter of an electron cloud inside your scoop will never get you one-quarter of an electron.
Using only a notebook and a pencil, Penrose devised a way to seamlessly cover a flat service in a nonrepeating pattern with just two different shapes, now called Penrose tiles.
This feat had been considered impossible. Researchers have since learned that certain chemicals naturally organize themselves into these patterns, some of which are now used to make nonstick coating for pots and pans. There are four fundamental forces in the universe: electromagnetism; the strong force, which binds atomic nuclei together; the weak force, which is responsible for radioactive decay; and gravity.
Gravity is the only one of the forces that physicists have been unable to explain in quantum terms. Albert Einstein spent more than 30 years in fruitless attempts to harmonize his theories of gravity with quantum mechanics, and his successors are still stumped. To Penrose, the failures are a clue that physicists are on the wrong path. Most believe that quantum theory is fundamentally sound but that our understanding of gravity must change. An object the size of a speck of dust would provide the perfect test.
At this scale, an object is small enough to be strongly affected by the rules of quantum mechanics but large enough to observe directly. Current theory predicts that such an object could exist in more than one location and could remain in that split state almost indefinitely. If there were a way to observe the speck without disturbing it, we would see quantum strangeness laid bare: a macroscopic thing sitting in two places at the same time, confounding reality as we know it.
Penrose is convinced that conventional quantum theory seems absurd because it is incomplete. Specifically, it ignores the effects of gravity. On atomic or subatomic scales, gravity is so weak compared with the other forces that most physicists see no problem with leaving it out of the picture. This warping produces the effect we experience as gravity. Penrose points out that tiny objects — dust specks, atoms, electrons — produce space-time warps as well. Ignoring these warps is where most physicists go awry, he believes.
If a dust speck is in two locations at the same time, each one should create its own distortions in space-time, yielding two superposed gravitational fields. The stability of a system depends on the amount of energy involved: The higher the energy required to sustain a system, the less stable it is. Over time, an unstable system tends to settle back to its simplest, lowest-energy state — in this case, one object in one location producing one gravitational field.
If Penrose is right, gravity yanks objects back into a single location, without any need to invoke observers or parallel universes. What is consciousness? Penrose argues that it is a byproduct of quantum mechanical processes operating in the brain. Some intriguing recent research supports his contention that microtubules — tiny structures in brain cells — can allow quantum phenomena to influence how neurons behave.
How long the process takes depends on the degree of instability. Electrons, atoms, and molecules are so small that their gravity, and hence the amount of energy needed to keep them in duplicate states, is negligible. According to Penrose, they can persist that way essentially forever, as standard quantum theory predicts.
Large objects, on the other hand, create such significant gravitational fields that the duplicate states vanish almost at once. Penrose calculates that a person collapses to one location in a trillion-trillionth of a second. For a dust speck, the process takes nearly a second — long enough that it might be possible to measure. Growing excited, he hoists himself to a more upright position on his sofa.
Is this true? Well, we have to do an experiment. A few years ago, Penrose figured out how to perform that experiment. Instead of a speck of dust he would use a tiny mirror, which would allow him to bounce radiation off it to see if it was in one or two places at the same time.
If traditional quantum theory is right, the doubled state could remain stable for a long time. If Penrose is right, the mirror would maintain a dual existence for no more than a second before gravity chains it to a single location. Penrose initially envisioned putting his theory to the test using an X-ray laser mounted on a platform in outer space.
The laser would shoot photons toward a tiny target mirror tens of thousands of miles away. Here is where quantum weirdness comes into play. Each orbital is a compromise between the attraction of the electron and the center and the repulsion of electrons for one another; so, a maximum of only two electrons can occupy any one orbital. According to Bohr , electrons have fixed levels of energy; so, all electrons with the same amount of energy must occupy the same zone, or energy level around the atomic center.
The first energy level closest to the atomic center consists of a single orbital holding two electrons , which is the shape of a sphere. It is called the 1s orbital. The second energy level consists of 4 orbitals each with two electrons a sphere shaped 2s orbital and three dumbbell shaped orbitals called 2p1, 2p2 and 2p3.
When ever possible, electrons occupy the lowest energy level. It's your turn Try out Brother Gregory's Atom Builder for yourself. See how the electrons are arranged in orbitals and energy levels. Mass and Number. The number of protons in the center of an atom is called its atomic number. The element hydrogen, for example, has one proton and one electron and is therefore given the atomic number of one 1.
The element deuterium also has one proton in its center and thus shares the same atomic number as hydrogen 1.
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