On Mar 25, 2009, at 6:10 PM, mix...@bigpond.com wrote:
In reply to Horace Heffner's message of Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:46:46
-0800:
Hi,
[snip]
On Mar 23, 2009, at 1:05 PM, mix...@bigpond.com wrote:
I think the electron doesn't spiral into the nucleus because it
doesn't have
enough angular momentum to create a photon, hence it can't radiate,
which means
it can't lose energy.
This argument must not be true. There is a finite probability of
finding the electron near or within the nucleus.
If viewed as a point
particle and not a wave function, the acceleration can thus become
arbitrarily high, as can the kinetic energy and angular momentum,
In standard QM the angular momentum of any given orbital is a
constant. For the
1S orbital there is no orbital angular momentum, only spin angular
momentum.
In theory therefore, the electron could radiate by flipping it's
spin back and
forth, and dropping into ...what? This apparently doesn't happen.
In my model, the spin angular momentum of the electron is not a
"magical
quantum" property at all, and can in fact be less than h_stripe /
2. Each
successive sub_ground state orbital has less angular momentum, and the
difference between that and the angular momentum of higher orbitals
(up to the
"ground state") is always less than h_stripe, making photon
emission impossible,
and neatly explaining the stability of the ground state to normal
radiation.
You are of course assuming radiation can only come from spin flipping.
thus guaranteeing Larmor radiation. In fact, some molecular orbitals
exist in a figure 8 configuration, where the center of the 8 is the
nucleus, thus guaranteeing constant nuclear traverses. I think
ordinary Newtonian point particle models just can't explain the lack
of radiation.
I think that if you calculate the angular momentum of an electron
in/near the
nucleus, you may get a surprise. The "r" part of "mvr" is very small.
Yes, but as r->0 we have energy->inf and the energy available to
Larmor radiation goes to infinity. Stable orbital conditions no
longer apply. If a spin zero electron enters a nucleus then all bets
are off regarding angular momentum and the Coulomb force interaction
of the components. Once within the nucleus the "spin zero" means
nothing. It is not a "direct hit" on any specific charged particle
because the nucleus has multiple charged particles, including quarks.
Any collision "off center" has an inherent angular momentum, and the
initial "spin zero" is irrelevant. It is not possible to be "on
center" to multiple targets.
I suspect that Larmor radiation is only possible when the electron
comes from
outside the atom.
That then is an assumption outside the boundaries of my statement
which explicitly assumed "ordinary Newtonian point particle
models" (i.e. implying your model appears to assume this), and thus
proves my point.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
