- 3139 - ELECTRON - there are 3 generations? Why are there three generations of electrons? This review discusses the various properties of the electron and how adding energy creates the second and third generation of electrons called Muons and Taus.
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---------------------- 3139 - ELECTRON - there are 3 generations?
- An electron is one of the lightest fundamental particles. The neutrinos are lighter but all the other fundamental particles are heavier. Electrons come in three generations with the next generation being Muons which are over 200 times heavier than the electron.
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- The third generation is the Taus which are over 3,000 times heavier. If you add energy to an electron it transforms itself into a heavier particle, the Muon. This happens over our heads every day.
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- Cosmic Rays, which are heavy nuclei, smash into the gas atoms in the upper atmosphere causing a shower of fundamental particles to rain down on us. Among them are the Muons that pass right through your body and into the surface of the Earth.
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- The electron has a negative electric charge. It has a spin of ½ and all particles with a spin of ½ are called “Leptons“. All Leptons do not participate in the Strong Nuclear Force that controls the nucleus of all the atoms.
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- Neutrinos are also Leptons but are neutral and have no electric charge. Because electrons carry an electric charge they interact through the electromagnetic force.
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- The family of Leptons include 6 fundamental particles:
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---------------- electron ------------------- electron neutrino
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--------------- Muon ---------------------- Muon neutrino
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--------------- Tau ------------------------ Tau neutrino
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- Each generation is created at higher energy levels, and , therefore, heavier mass. Each of the 6 Leptons are part of a family of Fermions and each have an equivalent anti- particle. The Muon is over 200 times heavier than the electron.
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--------------- mass of an electron = 511,000 electron volts / c^2
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-------------- mass of a Muon = 105,600,000 electron volts / c^2
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- Electrons make up all the atoms and are responsible for the chemical binding that creates all the molecules. The flow of electricity in conductors is due to the motion of electrons. When electrons are in motion they constitute an electric current. When an electric charge is in motion it creates a magnetic field. So a moving electron carries a magnetic field. A stationary electron carries an electrostatic charge.
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------------------ The electron’s charge = - 1.6 * 10^19 coulombs.
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------------------ The electron’s mass = 9.11 * 10^-31 kilograms.
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------------------ The electron’s mass = 511,000 electron volts / c^2
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- Electrons can exhibit a particle - wave duality. They can behave with both sets of properties, those of particles and those of waves. Each electron has its own wave function so the exact momentum and position of an electron cannot be simultaneously determined.
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- This property is called “Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle“. Because the electron is also a wave its momentum and position must be given in probabilities, that is uncertainties.
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- The electron is also a “Fermion“. All particles with ½ integer spins are called Fermions because they all obey the Exclusion Principle. The Exclusion Principle applies to all particles that can not occupy the same energy state at the same time.
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- Electrons, protons, and neutrons all obey the Exclusion Principle. Fermions are particles that are “excluded” from occupying the same energy state.
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- Particles that do not obey the Exclusion Principle are called “Bosons“. Photons are examples of Bosons and photons can occupy the same energy state and at the same time. Like photons in a flashlight beam they can be all on top of each other. Electrons have to live in separate energy shells. Bosons have integer spins not ½ integer spins like electrons..
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- The anti-particle for electrons is the “Positrons” having the same mass but a positive charge. Electrons and Positrons can collide and annihilate each other in a burst of high-energy photons. Vise versa, high energy photons can collide and transform into pair production of electrons and Positrons. When electron and Positrons annihilate each other they return mass to energy in the form of Gamma Rays each having 511,000 electron volts of energy.
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- Electrons have an intrinsic angular momentum and a magnetic moment along their spin axis.
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- When electrons travel through semiconductors they can become “Cooper Pairs” whereby their motion is coupled to matter via the lattice vibrations in the crystals called Phonons. Cooper Pairs are also responsible for superconductivity in metals that are cooled to near absolute zero temperatures.
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- The classical electron radius is 2.8179 * 10^-15 meters, although it has not been determined if an electron has a structure. It is also a wave. Experiments have concluded that if there is a structure it must be smaller than 10^-18 meters.
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- Electrons can be accelerated to near light speeds to an energy of 51,000,000,000 electron volts / c^2. Gamma is 1 / (1 - v/c)^0.5. The Gamma at this velocity is 100,000. Therefore, the rest mass of an electron is 511,000 electron volts /c^2
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- The number of electrons in the Universe is 10^79. There is about one electron per cubic meter of space.
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- As mentioned in the first paragraph Muons are created in the upper atmosphere by the onslaught of Cosmic Rays. ( They are also created in particle accelerators here on Earth). Cosmic Rays are high-energy atomic nuclei traveling at near light speeds.
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- When Cosmic Rays collide with the atomic nuclei in the gas molecules in the atmosphere they explode into a shower of particles. Pions are particles that are created but they decay in a few nanoseconds into Muons which in turn decay in 2.2 microseconds into electrons. The energy that creates these heavier particles is the Kinetic Energy of the speeding Cosmic Rays.
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----------------------- Kinetic Energy = momentum * velocity. = mass * ( velocity )^2.
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- The Muon decay into an electron and also an electron anti-neutrino and a Muon neutrino. This decay occurs in 2.2 microseconds. However, the Muon is able to travel the hundreds of miles from the upper atmosphere to the surface of the Earth before the decay happens.
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- This phenomena proves the time dilation of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. The Muons are traveling so fast they experience time slowing down so their lifetimes are extended and to us observers they live longer in order to reach the surface of Earth before decaying into electrons.
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- Muons were first discovered in 1936 when Carl Anderson was studying Cosmic Radiation coming down from Cosmic Rays. When the Cosmic particles were viewed in a cloud chamber and under a magnetic field their trajectory path was curved by the magnetic force acting at right angles to the path of the charged particle. The degree of curvature was a measure of the mass of the particle.
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- Anderson calculated the mass of the Muon was in between the mass of the electron and the mass of a proton, but, it had a negative charge the same as an electron. At the time he called them Mesons. When other Mesons were also discovered they became known as Mu Mesons. When it was later discovered that the Mu Mesons were not Mesons at all they became known as Muons.
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- When neutrinos are fired at protons the collisions produce a negative Muon and a Charm Quark, which decays into a Strange Quark, a Muon neutrino and a positive Muon. Particle Physicists use these high energy collision to discover the fundamental particles that fly out as debris from the collision.
- Adding even more energy to these collisions creates a heavier electron called a Tau Lepton
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----------------------- mass of the Tau = 1,777,000,000 electron volts / c^2
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---------------------- mass of the proton = 939,000,000 electron volts / c^2
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--------------------- mass of the electron = 511,000 electron volts / c^2
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- The lifetime of the Tau Lepton is 3*10^-13 seconds. This is a 10,000,000 times shorter lifetime than the Muon. The Tau decays into a Muon or an electron. The Tau was first discovered at the Stanford Linear Accelerator in 1977. No structure has been found in any of these Leptons, the electron, Muons, or Taus. It there is one it is less than 10^-18 meters in size. All have a spin of ½ and all have the same negative electric charge.
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------------------------------------ Other reviews available:
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- 2845 - ELECTRON - defining the wave function? In water waves, the quantity that varies periodically is the height of the water surface. In sound waves, it is the pressure that varies. In light waves, electric and magnetic fields vary. What is it that varies in the case of “matter waves“?
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- 2562 - Antimatter - mystery in physics? Why is there more matter than antimatter? The Conservation of Energy tells us that at the time of the Big Bang, when matter was first created from energy, there should have been equal amounts of matter and antimatter created. When matter and antimatter come back together again they annihilate each other and everything returns back to energy again, according to E=mc^2, Energy is Conserved.
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- 2557 - ELECTRON - just the fundamentals? The electron is the one fundamental particle that most affects our daily lives. It is responsible for all electricity, magnetism, chemistry and biology, to name a few. It was first identified as a particle in 1874.
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- 2495 - ELECTRON - best description imagined? - This review covers the many things we have learned about the electron. It is a fundamental particle in our Universe that is responsible for electricity, electronics, chemistry, biology, and the neurological thinking that goes on in your brain. So, in a way, in reading this review your electrons are studying themselves.
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- 2494 - ELECTRON VOLTS - and the nuclear forces. The proton at 1 MeV is at rest. The Cosmic Ray is a proton traveling at nearly the speed of light. It was flung out of a galaxy that was 12 million lightyears away. It was so near light speed that after 12 million lightyears it was only behind a photon, released at the same time, by 46 nanometers. Because Relativity slows time at light speed the Cosmic Ray has only experienced 20 minutes of flight. Science is stranger than fiction
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- 2373 - The electron is one of the fundamental particles that make up the Universe. There are twelve in all . A moving electron creates one of the four fundamental forces in the Universe, the electromagnetic force. We may not understand all the physics of an electron but we understand the behavior of electrons because we have invented electric stoves, microwave ovens, televisions, computers and digital cameras ( to name a few ).
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- 2232 - What is the shape of an electron? As far as physicists currently know, electrons have no internal structure and thus no shape in the classical meaning of this word. In the modern language of particle physics the fundamental blocks of matter are continuous fluid-like substances known as “quantum fields” that permeate the whole space around us.
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- 1652 - Electrons are all around us? This review summarizes what we know about electrons. A few hundred years of study and there are still mysteries to keep us challenged.
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- 1306 - Electron Volts in the Large Hadron Collider. When the Universe first formed it was composed of a hot, dense, plasma of charged particles. It was so hot that these ionized particles popped in and out of existence, constantly. To recreate this condition today particle physics is trying to accelerate and smash charged particles together in Mammoth Colliders. Today the CERN Large Hadron Collider is smashing a stream of protons and an opposite rotating stream of anti-protons together. Both streams are traveling nearly the speed of light. The energies created exceed 14,000,000,000,000 electron volts. At these high energies it is hoped that some of these primordial particles will be recreated. And, hopefully, more about how our Universe was created in the Big Bang.
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- 1068 - Muon Capture. A Muon is one of 12 fundamental particles that make up the Universe. Actually there are 24 particles if you count anti-matter. All the fundamental particles in matter can be divided into 2 groups: Fermions and Bosons.
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- 507 - What is an Electron. Lorentz Factor?
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- April 26, 2021 ELECTRON - there are 3 generations? 1226 3139
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