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Why do electrons revolve around the nucleus? Please explain

Why do electrons revolve around the nucleus? Please explain

Grade:10

2 Answers

Saurabh Kumar
askIITians Faculty 2400 Points
9 years ago
The first law of Newtonian mechanics says"

The velocity of a body remains constant unless the body is acted upon by an external force.

So there is no need to spend energy to keep on moving, unless external forces are acting on the body.

Electrons around a nucleus are not a classical problem, but conservation of energy holds also in the quantum states. The electron around the nucleus is in a quantized energy level and can change it only if an external interaction intervenes. It is quantization that guarantees this, since in the classical problem of a charge circulating around an opposite charge there would be continuous radiation which would have made the electron fall into the nucleus. Quantized energy states for the electrons are necessary for atoms to exist and were first proposed by Bohr.

Subsequently quantum mechanics became a full blown theory and needs years of study to assimilate it.
We cannot change the energy of the electron, hypothetically or really, except by the allowed transitions from one energy level to another. That is what quantization means in the microcosm. There is no energy incoming or outgoing in the sysem "nucleus-electron" unless there is external interaction. That is the whole point of quantum mechanics. We only know what the electron is doing if we interact with it. Otherwise we only have probability distributions of where it may be if we interact with it. It is not rotating in the sense of classical physics, like the moon around the earth
pranav taysheti
37 Points
9 years ago
Thankyou rahul for asking doubt and thankyou sir for replying and also explaining quantum theory.
 

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