Two Questions About The Hydrogen Atom

[333]

I find no answer everywhere, can you help? Appreciate. 

 

1. Why electron and proton not stick together under f=keq1q2/rr attraction force? What force or mechanism keeps electron not stick to proton?

 

2. How exactly 2 hydrogen atoms share electrons to from H2?

[333]

Stupid questions?

[Turtle]

I find no answer everywhere, can you help? Appreciate. 

 

1. Why electron and proton not stick together under f=keq1q2/rr attraction force? What force or mechanism keeps electron not stick to proton?

 

2. How exactly 2 hydrogen atoms share electrons to from H2?

Don't know #2, and I'd guess the answer to #1 is that the electron is too far away from the nucleus to be affected by the nuclear strong force that binds protons and neutron.

[CraigD]

Stupid questions?

At the risk of being cliché, there are no stupid questions.

 

1. Why electron and proton not stick together under f=keq1q2/rr attraction force? What force or mechanism keeps electron not stick to proton?

This is one of the most important questions asked since the discovery that atoms consist of nuclei consisting of tightly bound neutrons and protons “orbited” by electrons, with a large (compared to the size of a nucleus) space between the electrons and the nuclei, and that electrons emitted energy in the form electromagnetic radiation.

 

The first attempts to answer it used the theories and equations of classical physics and electromagnetism, and were failures, because they predicted that the electrons of an atom would spiral inward, emitting higher and higher frequency light, until colliding with the nucleus. This was called “the ultraviolet catastrophe”. It doesn’t happen, and ca 1900 theories predicted it should.

 

Physics was saved by the invention of quantum mechanics, which explained that electrons could not smoothly change their trajectories like the large bodies we’re accustom to seeing orbit things – planets and moons – but were restricted to orbits with circumferences that were even multiples of the wavelength implied by their energy. Electrons can only “jump” between orbits, emitting photons of very specific energies, and can never jump down to a orbit with a circumference less than a single wavelength. Once electrons reach the innermost possible orbit, they can move inward no longer.

 

So electrons are kept from colliding with nuclei by the laws of quantum mechanics.

 

2. How exactly 2 hydrogen atoms share electrons to from H2?

Don't know #2, and I'd guess the answer to #1 is that the electron is too far away from the nucleus to be affected by the nuclear strong force that binds protons and neutron.

I cant’ answer #2 either, other than “quantum mechanics explains it in a complicated way.” :(

 

However, the strong force doesn’t have anything to do with electrons, because it’s mediated (or “carried”) by gluons, which can interact only with quarks and themselves. The strong force both holds protons and neutrons together with themselves, and binds them together into nuclei. It can do this, because all quarks have color.

 

Quarks (in the form of protons) interact with electrons to form atoms via the electromagnetic force, which is carried by photons.

 

This diagram, from the Wikipedia article for the Standard Model, is helpful in remembering these different interactions:

 

The Standard Model is a beautiful recipe explaining how the commonplace stuff or reality works. It took generations to refine to its present form. IMHO, it’s underappreciated, even by fairly smart folks like us. :)

[exchemist]

Stupid questions?

Yes, extremely stupid, and well-rehearsed already, on at least two other forums, from which you were eventually banned for being unable or unwilling to deal with ANY of the patient replies that were provided, jcc. 

 

Readers, do not waste your time trying to explain to this halfwit. I did once. It goes nowhere. 

Edited November 21, 2016 by exchemist

[333]

At the risk of being cliché, there are no stupid questions.

 

This is one of the most important questions asked since the discovery that atoms consist of nuclei consisting of tightly bound neutrons and protons “orbited” by electrons, with a large (compared to the size of a nucleus) space between the electrons and the nuclei, and that electrons emitted energy in the form electromagnetic radiation.

 

The first attempts to answer it used the theories and equations of classical physics and electromagnetism, and were failures, because they predicted that the electrons of an atom would spiral inward, emitting higher and higher frequency light, until colliding with the nucleus. This was called “the ultraviolet catastrophe”. It doesn’t happen, and ca 1900 theories predicted it should.

 

Physics was saved by the invention of quantum mechanics, which explained that electrons could not smoothly change their trajectories like the large bodies we’re accustom to seeing orbit things – planets and moons – but were restricted to orbits with circumferences that were even multiples of the wavelength implied by their energy. Electrons can only “jump” between orbits, emitting photons of very specific energies, and can never jump down to a orbit with a circumference less than a single wavelength. Once electrons reach the innermost possible orbit, they can move inward no longer.

 

So electrons are kept from colliding with nuclei by the laws of quantum mechanics.

 

I cant’ answer #2 either, other than “quantum mechanics explains it in a complicated way.” :(

 

However, the strong force doesn’t have anything to do with electrons, because it’s mediated (or “carried”) by gluons, which can interact only with quarks and themselves. The strong force both holds protons and neutrons together with themselves, and binds them together into nuclei. It can do this, because all quarks have color.

 

Quarks (in the form of protons) interact with electrons to form atoms via the electromagnetic force, which is carried by photons.

 

This diagram, from the Wikipedia article for the Standard Model, is helpful in remembering these different interactions:

 

The Standard Model is a beautiful recipe explaining how the commonplace stuff or reality works. It took generations to refine to its present form. IMHO, it’s underappreciated, even by fairly smart folks like us. :)

Thank you very much taking the time to explain all this to me. I know QM but I think it is not science but magic.

 

You are honest and wise, do you think QM is rational? How come electron not stick to proton? How strong is the attraction force? What force keeps electron away from nucleus? QM has no answers.

 

Do you agree?

Edited November 21, 2016 by 333

[A-wal]

I know QM but I think it is not science but magic.

QM doesn't explain why the sub-atomic world works the way it does, it models it. Just like general relativity makes no attempt to explain the cause of gravity and the big bang model makes no attempt to explain what actually started the process.

 

The difference with QM is that it's not built on any level of understanding, just purely predictive equations derived through trail and error. It's extremely successful at describing the interactions at that scale but doesn't resemble what we're used to on a larger scale so it seems like magic, but it provides a well tested and highly accurate model, that's the definition of science.

Edited November 21, 2016 by A-wal

[exchemist]

QM doesn't explain why the sub-atomic world works the way it does, it models it. Just like general relativity makes no attempt to explain the cause of gravity and the big bang model makes no attempt to explain what actually started the process.

 

The difference with QM is that it's not built on any level of understanding, just purely predictive equations derived through trail and error. It's extremely successful at describing the interactions at that scale but doesn't resemble what we're used to on a larger scale so it seems like magic, but it provides a well tested and highly accurate model, that's the definition of science.

Extremely well put, if I may say so!

[exchemist]

This poster is a perishing nuisance who is unwilling or unable to learn.

 

But I would not like any other interested readers of this thread to worry about the answer to the question. I therefore give, again, the explanation this person has been given many times already elsewhere on the subject:- 

 

 The electron won't stick to the nucleus because, even in the ground state, it has potential and kinetic energy which it has no way of losing. That is what is meant by the term "ground state". Since it can't lose this energy, it can't stick.

 

The idea of having only a fixed range of possible stable "states", of which the ground state is the lowest possible, is a QM idea that is due to the wave nature of matter. The stable states are standing wave harmonics, and the ground state is the fundamental. 

 

This wavelike behaviour of electrons in atoms, which QM is designed to model, triumphantly accounts for atomic spectra and a huge range of other observed atomic and molecular phenomena, which is why QM is so essential to my own discipline, chemistry. 

[333]

 but it provides a well tested and highly accurate model, that's the definition of science.

Such as what? Can you be exact?

[333]

Strong force bounds protons together is strange enough, what mystery force keeps electron not bound to proton?

 

What model? Any working model of an hydrogen atom? Where? Wiki?

[OceanBreeze]

Strong force bounds protons together is strange enough, what mystery force keeps electron not bound to proton?

 

What model? Any working model of an hydrogen atom? Where? Wiki?

 

A picture is worth a thousand words.

[333]

What wave function? What is waving? The electron? How?

 

In a hydrogen atom, as science told, there are only 1 proton and 1 electron, there is attraction force f=kpq/rr. nothing more.

 

What is uncertain? 

[half]

What wave function? What is waving? The electron? How?

 

In a hydrogen atom, as science told, there are only 1 proton and 1 electron, there is attraction force f=kpq/rr. nothing more.

 

What is uncertain? 

 

This ^^^

[half]

Let's see a gold atom, why all electrons stay within the atom without flying apart? Aren't they all repel each other? 

 

Because nucleus attracts them to stay within the atom? If so why don't electrons stick to nucleus? Uncertain principle?

[exchemist]

Thank you Mods! 

[333]

1 proton and 1 electron cannot form an hydrogen atom.

 

It is impossible. Opposite charges attract each other with super strong force. The only possibility is the 2 particles accelerate to each other and collide. 

 

It is impossible that the electron is circling or waving or clouding or orbiting the proton to form stable atom.. No cause, no mechanism. 

 

So, what's the real structure of a hydrogen atom?

 

You may find answers here. http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message3375023/pg1  Join the discussing, have fun.