- 2867 - ATOM - and the electron cloud? The picture of the atom you were taught in high school is wrong, mainly because electrons aren’t point-like particles. Electrons are ‘fuzzy’ . They are tough to pin down due to their ‘Quantum Wave Function’, which is a complicated way of saying they exist as a field of “probability“, not as an individual particle.
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--------------------------- 2867 - ATOM - and the electron cloud?
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- All of us know what an atom looks like, protons and neutrons bound together with electrons whizzing around them. I learned this in high school physics class. You could even use the math to calculated the orbit of one electron orbiting the proton nucleus in hydrogen. The math got too complicated as soon as you got to helium having two electrons.
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- If we were to take a picture of an atom today, is this what we would see? Or was my high school physics all wrong?
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- Our understanding of atoms has changed dramatically over the past 60 years. Even 100 years ago when Rutherford’s experiments on the nucleus to the discovery of neutrons, we have uncovered the nature of the building blocks of the Universe. But, almost all of us at school were taught that atoms were mostly empty, with a dense core and tiny electrons orbiting in different energy levels.
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- This picture is wrong, mainly because electrons aren’t point-like particles. Electrons are a lot more ‘fuzzy’ than that. They are tough to pin down due to their ‘Quantum Wave Function’. They exist as a “field of probability“, not as an individual particle.
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- For example, say we have an Electron on its own, no Atoms nearby or electromagnetic forces acting on it. Where the Electron is ‘located’ is where it is most likely to be, the further away from this point, the exponentially less likely the Electron is to be there. The rate at which this probability decreases, the further away you get, is known as the Quantum Wave Function for that particle.
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- This means that there is a very, very small chance that an Electron can pop out of existence here and instantly reappear on the other side of the Universe. However, the chances are so slim that it will virtually never happen.
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- You could say that the Electron keeps disappearing and reappearing in a manner that means it creates this field of probability, which is a common explanation for the Electron Cloud. But that isn’t entirely true either, as the double-slit experiment showed.
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- The double slit experiment can use Photons of light or Electrons as the principle is the same with both particles. Photons also don’t exist as point-like particles but fields of probability.
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- The experiment sends a single photon or electron through two very close slits in a screen then lets the light or Electron beam shine on a second screen. A single particle at a time.
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- They do this in rapid succession, so you get a stream of single photons / electrons going through the double slits. All of their positions on the screen are then recorded, so you get a readout of their distribution on the second screen.
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- If these acted as point-like particles, you would expect to get an uninterrupted bright patch on the screen behind. This is because the particles must go through one or the other slit, and therefore they have nothing to interact with.
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- But you don’t see this at all, instead, you get an “interference pattern“.
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- This is because the particles’ Quantum Wave Function actually goes through both slits, making it constructively and destructively interfere with itself.
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- This Double Slit simulation all sounds very weird as Quantum physics always seems to be! As an electron or photon passes by you, we don’t see it as a point-like particle because of its’ Quantum Wave Function. Instead, it passes more like a wave, as the probability of finding it gradually increasing and then decreasing.
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- This means that these particles actually act like “waves” with a wavelength determined by it’s Quantum Wave Function. And just like waves, they can interfere with each other.
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- If you have two streams of particles where the peaks and troughs meet, then you will see a constructive interference with a doubly strong signal. But if the peaks line-up with the other troughs, then you get destructive interference, and the signal completely cancels out.
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- This is what causes that interference pattern seen in the double slit experiment, even though there is only a single Photon/Electron. The Quantum Wave function goes through both slits, acting as a wave, not a particle, effectively making two waves from the same particle! These then interfere with each other and we get the beautiful bands on the second screen.
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- This band pattern shows that we can’t think of Electrons as points; they occupy a fuzzy area of probability. So what does that mean for atoms? Are these neat orbits of individual electrons wrong? What about the different energy level orbits that I was taught in chemistry? Was all of that wrong too?
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- Let’s start with how electrons look around atoms, then the different energy orbits, and what atoms actually look like. How does a fuzzy spec of probability orbit an atom? The wavelength of the electron has caused the interference pattern? The same thing happens, it is just wrapped around the atom.
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- The Electron is still stuck to the nucleus by its charge; that part is still the same. Except, rather than orbiting the nucleus, the atom contorts the shape of the Electron’s probability field. This effectively means the electron wraps its’ Quantum Wave Function around the nucleus.
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- Rather than having a nice neat orbit where the electron is always the same distance away from the nucleus, it can instead be really close or really far away, or anywhere in between. You get a hazy cloud of Electron probability all around the Atom, known as an “Electron Cloud“.
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- What about all of the energy levels? Are they the same was I was taught in high school? Atoms have different energy ‘shells’ which the electrons could orbit, these were repeating spherical ‘shells’ around the nucleus. If the atoms had more energy, then the electrons would orbit in the higher energy outer ‘shells’.
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- As you probably guessed, this can’t be true either. If the electrons don’t have a set orbital distance, then you can’t have different energy shells. But the truth of energy shells is far more beautiful than anything we would dream of.
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- These shells aren’t concentric shells expanding out but complex bubbles of Electron Clouds. The different bubbles of Electron Clouds interact with each other, and this pushes them into many beautiful and bizarre shapes like shown in the picture above.
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- These are simulations, not images, that show the weird bubble-like fuzzy nature of Atoms. They are surrounded by complex Electron Clouds that interact with each other to make beautiful symmetrical and strange shapes.
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- The shapes of these orbits can be changed with different energy levels, as shown in the image above. The different Electrons’ Quantum Wave Functions can harmonize with each other as different Electrons take on more energy and change their Quantum Wave Function, effectively changing their ‘wavelength’.
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- This means that a simple atom like Hydrogen can have all these different Electron Cloud patterns, making the different energy levels changing how the atom looks.
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- These weird-shaped Electron Clouds are what gives chemical bonds their shapes. Each one is a connection point for elements to form bonds. With an Electron Cloud shaped like a clover, you have four connections. You could create a straight connection or a crooked one.
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- If you could ‘take a picture’ of an Atom, what would you see? You would see these fuzzy opaque shapes, some more spherical, others more complicated like an Atom in a kaleidoscope.
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- Some of the atoms would share these Electron Clouds as they form bonds, like atoms holding hands. But the overriding thing that you would see is the fuzzy nature, these are beautiful, symmetrical but ultimately not very neat objects.
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- The next time someone says that Atoms are mostly empty space, you can correct them and say that they are actually stuffed to the brim with Electron Clouds.
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- The smallest parts of the Universe look very different from the common understanding of them. But, this fuzzy ball view gives us an incredibly beautiful Atomic-scale world, with complex symmetrical shapes that look almost like intricate flowers.
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- It just shows how deeply ingrained beauty is in nature and the Universe. The more I learn the further behind I get.
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-------------------------- Other reviews available about atoms.
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- 2709 - ATOMS - measuring how atoms work? - An atom can be viewed as a tiny electron orbiting a tiny nucleus at a certain radius. Let’s start with the hydrogen atom which is a single proton orbited by a single electron.
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- 2694 - ATOM - How can mathematics tell us how an atom works? It is 100 years of discovery. - It is how physicists were able to figure out the mathematics that defines the behavior of an atom. They are still figuring, but, we have come a long way.
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- 2685 - MOLECULE - how a molecule works? When there is more than one proton in the nucleus and more than one atom in orbit this classical physics math just becomes overwhelming. That is the reason the math of Quantum Mechanics was invented. When Quantum Mechanic’s math is used, the concept of the electron orbiting the proton completely disappears. The electron’s position around the nucleus becomes a probability distribution
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- 2452 - ATOMS -Michael Discovers Atoms. - My grandson, Michael, was looking at pond water under his microscope. He could see small plants and animals moving around in the water. But, he also saw all the little pieces of dust jiggling, almost vibrating, in a zigzag manner. He asked me what causes everything to move like that?
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- 2377 - ATOM - defining the atom All the other elements in the periodic table above hydrogen and helium were created in the nuclear fusion of the stars The first stars formed with only hydrogen and helium. When they burned all their fuel and exploded as supernova they splattered the surrounding space with all the atoms in the higher level elements.
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- 2333 - Rainbows can tell us what the Universe is made of. Introduction to the science of spectroscopy.
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- 2318 - Brownian motion from atoms you can not see. - 2318 - My grandson, Michael, was 9 years old when he was looking at pond water under his microscope. He could see small plants and animals moving around in the water. But, he also saw all the little pieces of dust jiggling, almost vibrating, in a zigzag manner. He asked me what causes everything to move like that?
- 2315 - About how atoms were first discovered. How was the atom discovered, This review covers the first 100 years of discovery that started in 1808. John Dalton conclusively argued for the existence of the indivisible atom, and at the same time as Einstein was provided a way to directly measure those atoms, Thomson and Rutherford discovered that the atom wasn't indivisible at all. Instead, it was made of even tinier bits
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- 2307 - How small is the atom? An atom is very small. However, all atoms are about the same size, 10^-10 meters. Atoms of all the elements have different atomic weights but they still are about the same size in diameter.
- 2255 - The history of the atom continues. It starts in 1803 with molecules, then atoms, then atomic nuclei, then sub-nuclear particles, then antimatter and the possibility of an anti-Universe. The study of the ever smaller has taken us to the ever larger. And, the history of the atom continues.
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- 2256 Atom’s stability and uncertainty? The stability of all atoms, in all the elements, in all of matter, depends on the Principle of Uncertainty and the wave-particle duality of all matter. This review will use the Uncertainty Principle to calculate the ground energy state of the atom. The rest state of all atoms can not be zero. If it were zero all atoms would be unstable. Instead, the rest state of all atoms is some specific energy level we can express in electron-volts.
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- 2147 Rutherford’s atom. How the atom was discovered in 1911.
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- October 18, 2020 2867
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--------------------- --- Tuesday, October 20, 2020 ---------------------------
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