As stated above, and as we know, there is only a fixed discrete set of momenta it canThe weird thing about that cloud is that its spread in space is related to the spread of possible momenta (or velocities) of the electron. So here's the key point, which we won't pretend to explain here. The more squashed in the cloud gets, the more spread-out the range of momenta has to get. That's called Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. It could quit moving if it spread out more, but that would mean not being as near the nucleus, and having higher potential energy. Big momenta mean big kinetic energies. So the cloud can lower its potential energy by squishing in closer to the nucleus, but when it squishes in too far its kinetic energy goes up more than its potential energy goes down. So it settles at a happy medium, with the lowest possible energy, and that gives the cloud and thus the atom its size.
They also absorb and release energy as they jump from level to level. Slippery little buggers, they are. Really hard to pin down.https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=1195
As stated above, and as we know, there is only a fixed discrete set of momenta it can
occupy. If we do the calculation at the lowest orbit that picks a specific momenta. The
MIT prof did those calculations at the lowest orbit. Not that he was trying to say a
discrete particle in a race track, just an approximation to it based on radius, charge,
mass..... a mapping of energy and spin and KE and PE into an equivalent circuit.
Regards, Dana.
PS : Not a physicist, so be gentle And by the way electrons are red, I saw it in a book.
by Duane Benson
by Jake Hertz
by Jeff Child
by Duane Benson