Energy for spinning of Electrons/ Subatomic particls

Energy is simply matter travelling at the opposite end of the spectrum, relative to your own speed....In other words everything is the same stuff, just travelling at different speeds and in different configurations...at least, that's my take

SolarEagle

Why is that your take? Is this your personal theory? Have you experimentally verified it? What was your experimental setup? And what about potential energy? It's not travelling at all.

There's an absolutely tremendous amount of scientific research available at your fingertips, and seeing as you have access to the Internet, you need only look. The cohesive, internally-consistent work of thousands upon thousands of very dedicated, very smart people spanning hundreds of years and backed up by ingenious experimental verification - all at your fingertips. You should check it out sometime.

-e

That's my take, from the research i've done in this area, stated simply, without all the confusing gobbledegook that most give when asked this question....

SolarEagle

Electron spin is not quite the same as the spin of a top. For one thing, experiments designed to probe the size of an electron suggest that electrons have no size; none, at least, within the resolution of the instruments. They appear to be infinitely small or, if Quantum Mechanics tells us aright, no larger than a Planck length, which is very small indeed!

So, please allow me to ask you a question: if you shrink a top down to the size of a mathematical point (zero dimensions), what does it mean for the top to spin? Remember, a radius drawn from the spin axis to the top's surface traces out a circle as the top spins. But in this case the electron/top has no radius, so how can there be spin? Electrons have spin - I'm not suggesting otherwise - but it's not the same thing as you might be thinking. In the Quantum World things get a little strange. Not a little strange; a lot strange! Ordinary common sense and an understanding of how things work up here in Macro World have little place there.

What I'm asking you to do here is to dig a little and think about what you find. Gravity is pretty much out of the picture, btw, as you'll find out. Good luck!

-e

could the minute electromagnetic field of all these electrons, (neutrons, protons and quarks included), spinning, be the source of gravity? if they can be infinitely small, couldn't they be infinitely large as well? as in say, our atmospheric shell, or even our solar system shell. maybe that is why the nasa probes are being mysterically pushed back. maybe gravity pushes both directions from the same thing, only opposite in size and position? Electrons have size. everything that exists, exists in our universe and therefore, has size, regardless of how small. Do electrons have something like a "quark" inside them? how small is a quark? I could go on with these questions forever but the fact remains, no one really and truly knows, at least not yet.

Electromagnetism and gravity behave in very different ways and have considerably different properties. It is theorized that the four fundamental forces - gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force - were unified into one "superforce" at the moment of the Big Bang, but the energies required to unify these forces are far, far beyond anything that can be duplicated here on Earth.

Electrons are not infinitely small, as there are quantum-mechanical limits on the minimum size of things. That minimum size is called the Planck length, and it is very, very small indeed. At the Planck-length scale even spacetime becomes "foamy" and discontinuous. Even simple things like our concept of continuous motion through space becomes bizarre and "quantized" at these scales.

Yes, we can speculate that if electrons can be "infinitely" small, then perhaps they can be "infinitely" large. But this doesn't measure up experimentally. The fact that charge is localized - not diffuse - stands against such a concept. We can speculate, and there's nothing wrong with doing so as long as it produces verifiable results. But if it produces no fruit, then why bother? We'd probably be better off daydreaming in a hammock between two Tahitian palm trees, sipping on a margarita.

Electrons do not contain quarks. Electrons are elementary particles. Truly elementary particles. They're not made up of smaller particles, like protons, for the simple reason that, in order to contain something, that something has to have an inside. Furthermore, if electrons did contain quarks or some other kinds of particle, this hypothesis could be (and has been) tested by performing scattering experiments on electrons. Protons, which contain three quarks, scatter particles beamed at them by accelerators. Protons seem to be constructed more like a lump of chocolate-chip cookie dough. They're lumpy! And, consequently, they scatter particles beamed at them differently than they would if they were made up from some kind of homogenous material. Electrons exhibit no such properties.

Electrons are part of a larger family of fundamental fermions called leptons. Quarks are also fermions. Photons are members of the family of bosons. Gravitons (theorized) are members of this family. Protons are members of a larger family of composite particles called baryons. Google these for more info. Wikipedia has a lot of info of this sort. Give it a shot!

Guest writes: "...but the fact remains, no one really and truly knows, at least not yet."

You're absolutely right in that no one knows everything about this stuff, but yet they do know something. And that makes all the difference in the world.

-e

Hey, E-man! Found you again. Very good reply. However, I don't think I'd be too quick to definitely say that electrons have no internal structure.

Because they're entangled with the weak-force, there's evidence that neutrinos are somehow connected to electrons, which are part of the Fermion family (all those particles that obey Fermi-Dirac statistics). So from my ramblings, are you sure that there is no internal structure to electrons. Rabble, rabble, rabble!!!

BTY, was reading an article the other day where they had actually created the expected Bose-Einstein Condensate, at about a few nano-degrees Kelvin. These were metallic atoms that were cooled by lasers. When they got the condensate, all the atoms became just sort of a single wave... They didn't say whether when kicked out of the cold, if all the atoms returned or if just one returned. Spoooooky!!!

I am reasonably sure, based on scattering experiments. But the more I learn, the less I'm sure of anything.

Thanks for your thoughtful post. One great thing about peer review is that it keeps us all on the straight and harrowing.

-e

Dear Europium,

I am not a great scientist to put forward any theory of my own. It has been my curiosity to know. Firstly you jumped to answer that it is well known truth about my question and I am not trying enough to get the answer of my own and bothering you on this blog. Later you also dont seem to be very much sure about the answer of my question.

Questions cannot remain unanswered for ever. If it is not possible to get answer today, it does not mean the question should not be raised today.

Nandan

nadan,

Let's see if I can help...

1. Yes, subatomic particles are subject to the force of gravity. In the old Cyclotron experiments, collision debris was viewed as tracks through a "bubble-chamber." A magnetic field applied to the bubble-chamber would cause electrons to spiral one way and positrons (anti-matter electrons) to spiral the opposite way. One thing did come out of these early experiments: gravity pulled all particles (matter and anti-matter) toward the ground. So gravity acts the same on both types of matter.

2. The concept of spin regarding electrons (and all subatomic particles) is a misnomer. Particles do not really spin, and scientists aren't really sure what they are really doing, but it isn't spinning. Science, however, finds it easy to manipulate the numbers if the Macro-world analogy of spin is used - and this works well up to a point.

3. Whatever electrons are doing, seems to be inherent in their creation process. And because there's no friction on them... "A body in motion tends to stays in motion & one at rest tends to stay at rest - Right?!" Electrons (and all subatomic particles) seldom find themselves in a situation where all forces are so balanced that it would totally counteract the spin of the electron.

4. Also, remember that electrons do change the amount of their "kinetic energy." That's what Quantum theory shows, and what makes lasers work: electrons gain and lose energy by moving from one quantum state to another. In fact, I would think that you would be much more curious about why electrons can exist only in certain (quantum) energy levels, and not in "in-between" energy levels.

Let me know if any of this helps.

Dear Vermin.

1. Cyclotron experiment shows gravity acts on electrons

2. Electrons may not be spinning but they are not stationary. They are in motion.

3. To keep them moving some way or other energy is required.

If motion is given at the time of creation it cannot continue as some force (gravity) is acting on it. Electron has some mass, however small it may be. To keep it moving some energy is required.

Question remains unanswered.

Nandan

"If motion is given at the time of creation it cannot continue as some force (gravity) is acting on it. Electron has some mass, however small it may be. To keep it moving some energy is required."

Once an object is in motion it possesses energy and that energy has to go somewhere. At the macro level the Moon remains in orbit around the Earth, it is in motion and under the affect of gravity but the energy it possesses remains constant. It is not gaining or loosing energy.

It's not really that different at the subatomic level. The electron is in motion and it continues in motion, it doesn't necessarily get robbed of its energy just because gravity and an electrostatic field is acting upon it.

I am not convinced. Anology between planet and elctron is not valid. Motion of planet is supported by gravitational force, whereas in case of electron gravity is against its motion. If gravity is supporting the spinning then it is definitely new theory. Europian had asked if it is my theory. I wouldn't say so unless I am fully convinced about it.

Nandan

europium asked guest if it was his theory, not if it was yours. your reply to him was pretty hostile if you think about it. i thought his post was interesting and informative. it did not answer your post directly, but is that a crime? you're awfully demanding of people, considering that everyone here is volunteering this information at the expense of their own time and don't owe you a thing.

Nandan writes:

I am not a great scientist to put forward any theory of my own. It has been my curiosity to know. Firstly you jumped to answer that it is well known truth about my question and I am not trying enough to get the answer of my own and bothering you on this blog. Later you also dont seem to be very much sure about the answer of my question.

Questions cannot remain unanswered for ever. If it is not possible to get answer today, it does not mean the question should not be raised today.

Nandan

-----

Perhaps then you should have been very specific about the kinds of replies you'll allow and from whom. It was hardly the intent of my posts to puncture your thin and tender skin. I now regret to have posted anything on this thread. My mistake.

-e

blood sugar levels can cause such problems

cheap shot. and hostile. very. maybe its you who should get off this thread.

By the way, keep a lookout for the glass.

why would an ordinary wool sweater cause sparks to fly? the question is how electron gain their energy at creation?(creation???)- by interacting with the field around them and with other particles.

Nandan:

If you were thinking of the most simple atom - the Hydrogen - in the most stable state, the electron spinning around the nucleus on a statistical sphere, cutting that sphere with a plane going through the nucleus and thinking of the mechanical energy of the electron going on a circle, then you say that the electron is doing some work to fight Earth's gravity? If this is your original thought, than you miss something:

On the "falling" half-trajectory the electron is gaining momentum due to Earth's gravity and on the "raising" half-trajectory is loosing the same momentum, all this happening in a frictionless sub-atomic world. We say when falling, the Earth's gravity is doing work and when raising, the electron is doing work, but both have the same absolute value and conservation of energy is not violated.

If you widen the boundaries at atomic and molecular scale, than other energies might be involved like heat=vibration and collisions of atoms and molecules, etc.

Like someone else tried to say here, energy and fundamental physical interactions cannot be defined without setting the boundaries and referentials.

So the influence of gravity on a free particle or on the same particle bonded inside an atom or molecule is essentially different.

An interesting study is on chemical elements which are crystallizing differently on Earth and in orbit.

Electrons are spinning around themselves and around the nucleus, each such spin being accompanied by a magnetic momentum. The spin of free electrons around themselves is studied by a science called "spintronics" and is intended to be used as an information bit in a new generation of computers.