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Nonsense comparing the electrons behavior to the movement of planets or sattelites in orbit. The Earth is receiving a gravitational force from the Sun due to the distortion in the space-time fabric and believe or not Earth is falling towards the Sun. But every-time it falls say X units, it is also departing from the Sun X units cuz it also has an vertical velocity (vertical to the normal of the sun). This vetical velocity keeping Earth departed from the Sun and the velocity caused by gravitational pull is in balance so it is orbiting. In the electrons case it is not even certain that the electrons are in orbit. And the question why electrons don't fall in nucleus is being tried to be expalined in terms uncertainty principle of quantum theory which is beyond the scope of this page... You can search for this principles for further information.

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The movement of electrons around a nucleus couldn't be further from the analogy of orbiting planets around a star. People use this to roughly explain the atomic structure, but it is very wrong.

Electrons occupy a space around the atom at very precise distances from their nucleuses. They move around in this space so fast that it looks like a shell or a shape. the more electrons around a nucleus, the more complex this shape if you will.

Electrons don't move anything like macroscopic objects. they disappear and reappear, even being in more than one place at once, or being in several places at once. Heisenberg describes their motion as uncertain. When the position of an electron is known its momentum is not and vice versa. They cannot be measured basically.

This is a long and complex discussion but to answer your question, Electrons do not orbit or revolve ..... (they have a property called spin but that's a different story!) They simply occupy a space around a nucleus that on their scale a vast distance from the nucleus.

you can maybe search to find different atomic shapes created by their electrons, some are spherical like, some are Taurus shaped. Weird.

I hope this helps a little.

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12y ago
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13y ago

The Standard Model of Physics does not have a good explanation, one must turn to Quantum Mechanics. A brief oversimplification is that the electron, when within the electric field of the nucleus, can only occupy certain energy levels. In order to move to a different energy level it must gain or lose a quantum of energy.

We use the analogy that an Atom is similar to an object orbiting a planet to help illustrate the -structure- of an atom. The reasons why the atom has that structure are in many cases quite different than the reasons why objects orbit planets the way the do. Suffice it to say that while the idea of Centrifugal Force (which is not even a force at all) can generally describe objects in motion under the Standard Model, it does not apply in this case.

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10y ago

The short answer is that in certain cases (s-orbitals) electrons do have some probability of being found at the nucleus.

Remember that electrons are in orbitals rather than orbits. This is similar to the difference between a cloud centered on your head and you spinning something around your head.

Follow the link to ChemGuide below for more about the difference between orbitals and orbits.

Answer2:

Electrons do not fall into the nucleus because of the Momentum of the electrons mV=P and the Momentum enrgy cP. The Divergence of the Momentum energy cDEL.P = -cp/r cos(P) is the centrifugal force that prevents the electrons from falling into the nucleus. it is the same effect that keeps the earth falling into the sun, centrifugal force a center fleeing force.

The Momentum energy is a vector energy and this vector energy is the so-called "Dark Energy". The atomic energy is W = the sum Wn = -vnh/rn + cPn.

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12y ago

Electrons are necessary to balance the electric charge of the protons in the nucleus. They revolve because the wouldn't stay there if they didn't. The centrifugal force prevents them from falling into the nucleus.

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13y ago

This branches into quantum physics.

In Quantum physics an electron orbit is more of a probability of locating an electron at a given point in space than any implied motion of said electron. This and the discreet nature of energy in the quantum world means that there is no where lower for the electron to go once it is in the ground state. Therefore if it collapsed we would be able to determine it's exact relative position & velocity which is impossible according to the Uncertainty Principle

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6y ago

From fundamental physics, we know that electrons are in defined orbits around the nucleus of the Atom. These orbits vary in their radial distance from the center nucleus of the atom. The further away, the longer the path length the electron has to travel around the nucleus and vice versa. From "De Broglie" wavelength theory, we know that all particles have a wavelength associated with them, "lambda", which equals planks constant "h" divided by the particle's mass, "m" and velocity "v", i.e. lambda = h/mv. The electron has a velocity as it orbits the nucleus in the atom. If you were to use this velocity and calculate the electron's De Broglie wavelength, you would discover that the distance it travels in one orbit around the nucleus will exactly equal some multiple of its De Broglie wavelength. Due to this, it can not radiate. What a nice design, for if it were not so, the electron would radiate, lose energy, and collapse into the nucleus.

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10y ago

Electrons have a negative charge, and the Nucleus a positive charge. The REPEL each other very strongly.

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Q: Why do the electrons in an atom NOT fall into the nucleus of the atom and collapse the atom?
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What are the three basic parts of an atom and where are they found?

Protons and neutrons are found in the center of the atom in a core called the nucleus. Electrons are found in a cloud that continually moves around the nucleus


What is givin off when electrons in an atom fall to a lower orbit?

Energy (in the form of photons) is given off when electrons in an atom fall to a lower energy level.


How did bohr and schrodinger describe the atom?

1-Electrons are assumed to revolve around the atomic nucleus in discrete orbitals,and the position of any particular electron is more or less well defined in terms of its orbitals 2-energies of electrons are quantized;that is, electrons are permitted to have only specific values of energies.


What particle is nearly half of the atom's mass?

There's no such particle for which that description is accurate for all atoms. The nucleus of the atom has protons and neutrons in it. How many of each depends on what element it's an atom of. There are 92 elements found in nature, and several more that can be created in the laboratory but only last a short time before their atoms fall apart. Every element has a different number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus of its atoms. A hydrogen atom has one proton, period. A uranium atom has 92 protons and around 146 neutrons. The proton mass is very nearly the same as the neutron mass, so the mass in the nucleus of all kinds of atoms can be anything from 1 of them to 238 of them. Protons account for anywhere between 38% to 100% of it in different atoms, and neutrons make up the rest. -- In the nucleus of a Hydrogen atom, the proton is 100% of the mass and neutrons are zero. -- A nucleus of Oxygen has 8 protons always, and can have 8, 9, or 10 neutrons, so for oxygen only, you could say it's about 50-50 protons and neutrons. -- A nucleus of Calcium has 20 protons, and anywhere from 20 to 28 neutrons. -- A nucleus of Gold has 79 protons, and 116 to 120 neutrons. So you can see that there's no single particle that's always somewhere around half the mass of the nucleus. Surely you've noticed that I've been completely ignoring the electrons. That's because it takes almost 1,850 electrons to add up to the mass of one proton or one neutron. So when you're talking about approximate mass or weight of an atom, it's perfectly OK to forget about the electrons, since the mass of the nucleus is almost exactly the mass of the atom.


Do electrons orbit around the nucleus because there is an electrical charge between electrons and protons?

This is essentially correct. The electrons and protons have equal but opposite charges, and the fundamental law of electrostatics is that opposite charges attract and like charges repel. The positive charge on the nucleus attracts and "holds" the electrons in orbit about the nucleus. It is electromagnetics that holds the electrons in orbit about that nucleus. Answer2: The attraction of the positive nucleus attracts the electrons to the nucleus by a centripetal force vp/r where v= Z alpha c. The electrons exeert a centrifugal force cDEL.P = -cp/r cos(P). When the orbit is stable the centripetal force equals the centrifugal force vp/r = cp/r cos(P) and the electrons do not fall into the nucleus. The balance gives v/c = cos(P), the redshift. This is the result of the Quaternion Energy W = -vh/r + cP, the atom has a scalar energy -vh/r and a vector energy cmV=cP, the Momentum vector energy. The mystery of what holds the electron from falling into the nucleus is the Divergence of the vector energy. Physics has come to grips with the fact that energy is a Quaternion quantity with a vector energy and the Divergence of the vector energy creates the centrifugal force, the cosmological constant force and the Dark Energy.

Related questions

What did the Bohr model address the problem of?

why electrons didn't fall into the positive nucleus how so many positive charges could be crowded into such a small space in the nucleus how so much energy could be released from an atom


Problems with Rutherford model?

In Rutherford's model of the atom the electrons had a circular motion around the nucleus. By the laws of physics, if something is going in a circular motion then it must be accelerating and a particle that accelerates is losing energy. This means that the electrons that are revolving around the nucleus would eventually fall into the nucleus. Nucleus would eventually collapse. This does not happen therefore the Rutherford model was put aside.


What are the three basic parts of an atom and where are they found?

Protons and neutrons are found in the center of the atom in a core called the nucleus. Electrons are found in a cloud that continually moves around the nucleus


What are the shortcomings of Rutherford's atomic theory?

Rutherford explained that all the positive charge was concentrated at the centre and the electrons revolved around it. But this theory was discarded as a charged particle undergoing circular motion would accelerate and an accelerating particle looses energy. Hence, the electron would fall into the nucleus and the atom will collapse. But this doesn't happen. So, Rutherford's model of atom was discarded.


What are drawbacks of Rutherford's atom model?

Rutherford explained that all the positive charge was concentrated at the centre and the electrons revolved around it. But this theory was discarded as a charged particle undergoing circular motion would accelerate and an accelerating particle looses energy. Hence, the electron would fall into the nucleus and the atom will collapse. But this doesn't happen. So, Rutherford's model of atom was discarded.


What do we mean when we say a nucleus has undergone an electron capture process?

You will recall that electrons orbit the nucleus of an atom (or in quantum mechanical terms, they surround the nucleus as a cloud). Under some circumstances, one of those orbiting electrons can fall into the nucleus, where it will react with a proton and convert it into a neutron. This is an electron capture process.


What holds electrons in their shells?

The electrons "orbit" the nucleus of an atom. They do so because they are attracted to the positive charge of the protons inside the nucleus. They do not usually leave the atom because of this attraction, and do not usually fall into the nucleus because they are moving.


What is the force thea holds an electron to an atom?

The electromagnetic force (protons are positive and electrons are negative, so they attract), which is manifested into Coulomb's force of attraction. The reason that electrons will not fall into the nucleus is due to the electron's energy; it is moving fast enough to not collide with the nucleus.


What is givin off when electrons in an atom fall to a lower orbit?

Energy (in the form of photons) is given off when electrons in an atom fall to a lower energy level.


What happens when an atom has no more electrons?

it would fall apart.


When electrons gain additional energy do they move farther away from the nucleus?

In general, electrons farther from the nucleus will have more energy than electrons closer in. These "outer" electrons are said to be in higher Fermi energy levels, and they have more kinetic energy than the electrons in lower orbitals. Consider that electrons give up energy to "fall into" closer orbitals, and they will, in general, have less energy than the outer electrons. A consequence of the idea that there is less energy binding outer electrons to that nucleus is that it takes less energy to remove that outer electron from an atom. These are the so called ionization energies of the atom's electrons. And when the electron is in a higher orbital, it has a lower ionization energy. It can be removed more easily. As we attempt to remove more electrons from that atom, it takes progressively more and more energy as we move inward removing electrons.


Why dont electrons pack together next to the nucleus?

In simple terms because they are moving around the nucleus very fast and so they don't "fall in". Similar to why the moon doesn't fall in to the earth. There are also rules defined by quantum physics that mean taht electrons can only stay at certain distances forthe nucleus.