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Or in other words which forces keep electrons in orbitals and prevent it from flying away or crashing into the nucleus according to modern understanding?

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[–] jadelord@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 month ago (14 children)

The follow up question would be the opposing force which keeps them in orbit(als)? This balance of force was called the planetary model which has this shortcoming that electrons might fall into the nucleus.

If electrons actually followed such a trajectory, all atoms would act is miniature broadcasting stations. Moreover, the radiated energy would come from the kinetic energy of the orbiting electron; as this energy gets radiated away, there is less centrifugal force to oppose the attractive force due to the nucleus. The electron would quickly fall into the nucleus, following a trajectory that became known as the "death spiral of the electron". According to classical physics, no atom based on this model could exist for more than a brief fraction of a second.

https://chem.libretexts.org/Courses/Northern_Alberta_Institute_of_Technology/CHEM1130_Principles_in_Chemistry_I/2%3A_Quantum_Mechanical_Picture_of_the_Atom/2.05%3A_The_Bohr_Atom

I am trying to recall what kind of forces enable the orbitals of electrons according to Quantum Mechanics.

[–] dgriffith@aussie.zone 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (9 children)

As I understand it, it's the quantum part of quantum mechanics.

Electrons can only have fixed energy states, they can only radiate or accept fixed sized packets of energy - a "quantum" of energy. So an electron that is hit with the correct sized quantum of energy can be excited up to the next orbital, and it will emit the same sized packet of energy when it returns to its ground state. So they can't gradually emit radiation and fall into the nucleus.

Eventually electrons should spontaneously decay but that's predicted to be in 10 to the power of 40 years or something like that.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago (8 children)

electrons should spontaneously decay

Really? What is it hypothesized that they decay into?

[–] AmalgamatedIllusions@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago

They are not expected to decay. The half-life they're thinking of is a lower-bound based on current measurements, not an actual expected half-life.

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