Geometry of Electron Shells

Davidjayjordan said:
Thanks for the confirmation of spins (sexuality) and confirmation that the Platonic Solids are harmonic with the number of electrons in the shells....and as I pointed out 1, 2 , 3 , 4 shells the square of which times 2 = 2, 8, 18, and 32 ..... I appreciate your honest confirmation.
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I DON'T appreciate your BS attempt to spin anything I said as consistent with your nonsense.

1) Spins are not "sexuality" you dingbat.

"Spin" is used for lack of a better term to explain an apparent angular momentum that particles posses. In order to properly describe the physical properties of electrons, you have to include in the wave function a component that gives an expectation value of either +1/2hbar or -1/2hbar when applying an angular momentum operator. What this has to do with "sexuality" is beyound comprehension. It's as much ying/yang, black/white, or any other arbitrary binary distinction as it is male/female. Moreover, unlike electrical plugs and garden hose connections, spin doesn't even act like male/female. The reason electrons "pair up" in orbitals has little to do with interactions between electrons (which are, in fact, repulsive!, even for electrons with opposite spins) but because they occupy two different states, and therefore create systems where the wave functions are anti-symmetric with respect to electron exchange. Sexuality is a bad analogy for it, even in the loopy world where you want to try to make biological analogies.

2) Don't think that I didn't notice your shift from "numbers are caused by Platonic Solids" to "Platonic Solids are harmonic with number of electrons," assuming that you are only using "harmonic" to mean "follow the same trends as." Of course, as I said, all that represents, if anything, is that the geometrical relationships in platonic solids follows spherical harmonics, and that spherical harmonics are also a means for solving second order differential equations.
 
pgwenthold said:
1) Spins are not "sexuality" you dingbat.
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Sure they are. Didn't you know that you can get a sex change by standing in a strong magnetic field?

Or was it that magnetic fields can turn you gay? I can't keep it straight. :confused:
 
Just out of interest, DavidJayJordon, which Platonic Solid were you counting on for the next shell out?
 
...and don't Platonic Solids, by definition, remove themselves from any sexual context?
 
Well, it looks like we have yet another model of the atom. The Basketball Hypothesis where electrons "happily mate" therein just to please The Creator. Fascinating.

Davidjayjordanjingleheimerschmidt, you have been offered, in my opinioin, a spectacular begining to an education in quantum mechanics/physics but you are turning it down. Some of the posted responses here are textbook worthy. I would recommend that, if you were serious about understanding how electrons exist happily in atoms, you would read and reread post #78* until it sunk in but many of the posts here would have given me quite a boost if they had been available to me.

*author = Schneibster :th:

Anyway, let's get on with it. You've invited yourself to this forum full of skeptics and skeptics we are. Skeptics don't disbelieve everything. Skeptics demand evidence for stuff others want them to believe. So far, you've presented absolutely no evidence for your hypothesis. (If I'm wrong, please point it out.) All you've really offered is your conclusion. Your conclusion is questioned because your explanation of said conclusion is not unique nor is it the most likely one.

However, let's say, for the sake of argument, that you had won the day and that you had effectively and victoriously set aside all the counterpoints from all the experts to whom you've had free access. :wink: Now, you're ready to take the next step, no? You see, even if it were correct, what you have so far is only a hypothesis. For it to be considered scientific Theory or Law, the hypothesis must explain all known relevant data. Do you think your hypothesis does that? If not, it's time to start over and maybe determine whether the secrets of the universe are really revealed by footballs or hula hoops.

So, if you're ready, I have a few challenges of my own. I'm a chemist. I'm sure the physicists are not yet finished with you. The biologists haven't even had a turn yet and they will probably nag you to explain Receptor Theory and how mitochondria work based on your atomic model but, hey, let's leave that for later. You see, the beauty of science is that a change in one basic fact affects just about everything else. If you redefine the atom, you have to explain the effect cascade or you'll be laughed out of any serious forum.

For my part, could you explain, based on your model of the atom:
1. bonding angles, esp. non-linear three-atom molecules.
2. oxidizing agents (your theory only adds electrons to horny singlets and it doesn't explain the voyeur singlets who go out looking for sex)
3. bond lengths for multiple-bonding (how do basketballs shrink based on how many electrons are having sex?)
4. beta radiation (just where did those electrons come from?)
5. protons and neutrons (why can't they get any?}
6. resonance (The chemistry kind)
7. tautomerism (do electons "swing"?)
8. free radicals (more voyeurs in your "happy marriage" atoms!)
9. why aren't Family IA metals bimolecular? (Did you get a thrill out of "bi"? I know you did but this is why Mr. Scott is so hard up for dilithium crystals, cap'n.)

I could go on but try those on for a start. Quick, before the biologists show up and the physicists lower themselves to talking to you again!
 
I am confused- what about a pattern suggests a designer? I mean, there has been lots of talk about patters, but without a logical connection between pattern and designer I am having trouble understanding the point. Just because patterns we often associate with in our daily lives have a designer (us), does that necessarily mean that *all* pattern must have a designer?

I think we are getting at the fundamental nature of the way in which humans organize the world. We are creatures of pattern; our very nature is consumed with the necessity to find correlation, and jump immediately to causation. But correlation and causation are two different things. I have been very interested in your argument Davidjayjordan, I have certainly learned a great deal from what you and others have said. I agree that there are beautiful pattern in nature, and they move me to awe. But, one must ask as a skeptic, is the jump from patter to intelligence a reasonable one to make? I would be interested in your answer Davidjayjordan.
 
Big Al said:
Well, an inverted one, with more glasses at the top than the bottom, and with the champagne flowing from the bottom to the top.:)
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[grin] For that, all I need to do is stand on my head. ; ) Thanks, tho -- knowing that the analogy works (even if distantly) really helps me follow the more knowledgeable parts of this discussion.
 
Just a heads-up for people trying to engage DJJ in rational conversation:


HE'S A TROLL!
 
Please Davidjayjordan take a couple of minutes to read this, I THINK* you will find it enligthning.

http://tinyurl.com/28yvcz
(pdf file)

*purely in a non-eucalyptic sense
 
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Jackalgirl said:
But Schneibster, they are magic numbers -- because that's how the world works! : )

Thank you for the extremely cogent explanation. I'm an art major, so I'm going to have to go through it a couple of times more, slowly, reading it out loud, but it makes sense.
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Yeah, looking at it two days later, it does. The only thing I missed- didn't screw up, just didn't explain well enough- is right at the beginning. I'll probably beef it up in another couple minutes.

Jackalgirl said:
A friend of mine tried to break down quantum physics -- well, at least the electron shell and color frequency thing -- with the following analogy: it's like tiered "wedding-stack" of champagne glasses. There's a certain amount of energy (champagne) that can be contained in any given level, and once that level is filled, the energy (champagne) jumps directly to the next level. Is this a good analogy, if somewhat (very) distant from what you've so precisely described here?
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Well, I didn't go there- but pretty much, except that champagne is continuous, but electron orbitals (which is the technical name for those standing waves) aren't- they're discrete.

See, because those standing waves are all the standing waves available, an electron can't occupy any other points- it either is in one of those standing waves, or it's not part of that atom. So if an electron gains some energy, it has to jump to the next standing wave- and that means it can only absorb just enough to jump there, no more, no less. Of course, it could absorb enough to jump two waves, or three, but not two and a half, or a half, or any other fraction. Has to be just precisely one, or two, or three- otherwise, the electron won't stay, and that also would violate conservation laws. Atoms are very constrained little beasties. It's why chemistry works so well, not to mention astrophysics.

A corollary of the fact it can only gain energy in those steps, is that it can only lose energy in those same steps. And only so much; once the lowest energy standing waves are occupied, any more electrons have to occupy the higher ones. From this we get the beauty- and the utility- of spectroscopy. Just precisely these wavelengths right here, these are the wavelengths of this particular element's atoms, no other is precisely like them. No matter where they are, if they absorb energy, or emit energy, we can identify them- like fingerprints. That's how we know what the atmospheres of stars, and the contents of clouds of dust and gas, are made out of, out there.
 
simon dalton said:
Atleast his manners seemed to have improved, though, we haven't gotten to end of this thread yet.
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Hey, if you got something to say, bring it.

I generally criticize the spectacularly stupid, and the gratingly sycophantic. It sounds as if you've been criticized. That's a shame. Here's the world's smallest record player playing, "My Heart Bleeds For You."
 
Buckaroo said:
I have been slapped into next week, and stand corrected. This is better than anything I could've managed, especially at midnight Seattle time! Why would you think I might deride it? My rancor is reserved for posters like DJJ. ;)
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Well, you pretty clearly know your way around the pointy end of a PDE; which is more than I can say for the general run of folks. It was more a mark of respect than a plea for mercy. ;)

Buckaroo said:
(I'm a big fan of your work on the global warming threads, incidentally.)
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Thanks, I truly appreciate that.
 
Splossy said:
Is there a simple(ish) answer. I'm capable of understanding technical subjects but there are a lot of technical words in the article that lead to other words and so on leading me to believe it's going to take me months to understand more than I need to get the general idea.
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By the way, Splossy, I never gave you credit- your post was the inspiration for my brief moment of clarity. Thanks for asking this; I hope I answered you well.
 
Zep said:
Just a heads-up for people trying to engage DJJ in rational conversation:


HE'S A TROLL!
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Stating the obvious.

Actually, have you noticed that people calling themselves "a true skeptic" more that two times in a post usually are?

Hans
 
About electrons orbiting, here are some facts

electrons decelerating in a magnetic field emit radiation.

Therefore, the electron orbiting a nucleus would decelerate and collapse into the nucleus. Which they don't. Therefore electrons do not orbit.

Crushing blow to the Bohr model of the atom, but the dawn of quantum mechanics.
 
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Schneibster said:
The way this works is, the Laws of Spin and Statistics say that since electrons are fermions, they can't occupy the same state or they will cancel out, and that would violate energy conservation, charge conservation, and lepton number conservation. This is a direct result of the fact that half-integer spin implies that if you rotate a fermion 360 degrees, it is distinguishable from its unrotated counterpart; it must be rotated 720 degrees to be indistinguishable. Thus, only one electron can occupy one quantum state at one time.
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It was here I noticed the missing concept.

It's phase. Spin, for a quantum (which an electron is), is a concept that involves phase. The reason that quanta must always have either integer or half-integer spins is that they must remain in phase with themselves. If they could vary their phase, then they could cancel out and disappear- and this would violate conservation laws (generally mass/energy conservation, and specifically conservation of any charge they might carry). I might post somewhere else on where conservation laws come from (a tease: they're based on symmetries), but for the moment just accept that they exist, and are absolute, and are the result of the characteristics of the geometry of spacetime. If you think of the phase of a quantum with an integer spin, it duplicates itself every time the quantum rotates once. That means that wherever the phase of the wave function that defines that spin is high on one rotation, it's high on the next one- and every one thereafter. Spin is an inherent parameter of quanta, like their mass, or the charges they carry; and the phase of that spin can either be in phase on each rotation, which is integer spin, or out of phase on each rotation, which is half-integer spin.

Now, two waves that are precisely out of phase can cancel one another. Since the phase of the spin of a half-integer spin quantum isn't out of phase with itself at the same time, but on the next rotation, it doesn't cancel. And because it comes around to the same phase on the next rotation, it reinforces its own existence. But if two of them could occupy precisely the same position, then if one had positive spin and the other negative, they could cancel one another out, and this would violate conservation laws for their charges, and their masses, and so forth. So half-integer spin quanta cannot occupy the exact same location; they are exclusive, in that the occupation of a location by a half-integer spin quantum excludes the possibility of any other identical quantum occupying that spot.

Now, remember that the wave functions of the spin are Schroedinger wave functions; that means they are probability waves. So what this means is that the probability of two half-integer spin identical quanta occupying the same spot is zero. Physicists called this the Pauli exclusion principle for a long time, and some still do, because it was discovered by Wolfgang Pauli.

But the integer spin particles behave exactly the other way; they cannot cancel. They reinforce one another. The wave function for two integer spin particles at the same spot is twice as high. They are in phase, and they reinforce. And since the waves are probability waves, that means that the probability of two integer spin identical quanta occupying the same spot is twice the probability of them occupying different spots. And this is the reason for lasers, and Bose-Einstein condensates.

These two principles of spin are called the Laws of Spin and Statistics. The statistics of the integer spin quanta were first worked out by Albert Einstein and Satyendra Nath Bose, and are therefore called Bose-Einstein statistics. The statistics of half-integer spin quanta were first worked out by Enrico Fermi, the man who led the part of the Manhattan Project during World War II that led to the creation of the first nuclear reactor, and the first sustained nuclear reaction, and Paul Dirac, the creator of the most complete, accurate, and precise theory in the history of all of science, quantum electrodynamics, and these statistics are therefore called Fermi-Dirac statistics. Quanta of the former type are called bosons, and of the latter, fermions. It is worth mentioning that of the four, only Bose did not win a Nobel prize; and there is significant feeling that he should have, particularly among Indians. It should be noted that India has a long tradition of mathematical scholarship, and that the widely (but not universally) acknowledged greatest mathematical talent to have lived so far is Srinivasa Ramanujan; and never forget that Einstein spoke of the piercing comprehension of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar's mathematical realization of Einstein's field equations for gravity, and Karl Schwarzchild's conception of the black hole, in his work on determining the Chandrasekhar limit, which is the limit in mass beyond which a star is capable of forming a black hole, as "shuddering before the beautiful."

Because of the Laws of Spin and Statistics, we identify bosons as energy; bosons are gregarious, congregating together and trying to squeeze as many of themselves as possible into the same space, reinforcing one another, forming aggregates where one can hardly be told from the other, passing through one another as if the other were not there. Because of the Laws of Spin and Statistics, we identify fermions as matter; fermions are exclusive, pulled together by gravity, but collecting not into ultimately tiny packets, but into finite-sized chunks which grow ever larger as more of them congregate, which cannot be penetrated by any other such chunk. The bosons form the basis of all fields and forces; the fermions, that on which those forces and fields act.

BECs, or Bose-Einstein condensates, are a state of matter in which the atoms overall each are bosons; although they are made of fermions, electrons and quarks, they can behave gregariously as bosons do. This makes them curious amalgams of the qualities of both matter and energy, a sort of halfway state, and their quantum behavior intrudes into the macroscopic realm in a way impossible for most other materials. We are just discovering the things they can do; many interesting applications for these unusual states of matter will doubtless appear in coming years.

It is worth noting that when Ludwig Boltzmann worked out the laws of thermodynamics, he used spinless particles. Spinless particles are also what James Clerk Maxwell used for his work on thermodynamics, and so the statistics of spinless particles are sometimes called Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics. It was the realization that these statistics do not actually apply to real matter and energy that led to the creation of the fluctuation theorem, which has revolutionized quantum thermodynamics in the last few years and led to the first known laboratory demonstration of violations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Note, however, all you optimistic woos who might be reading this, that these violations can only occur over very small volumes, for very short times, and only at the expense of overall increase of entropy of the system. However, even such minor violations were considered impossible or so improbable as to be unduplicatable in the laboratory only a decade ago.

Last, but hardly least, the Laws of Spin and Statistics are why Star Wars' "Light Sabers" are so ridiculous. No weapon can be made from bosons; it will merely pass through another such weapon, or even through solid matter, without doing much. If you want to do real damage, you need exclusion; you need fermions. Which means you need matter.
 
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bobdroege7 said:
Crushing blow to the Bohr model of the atom, but the dawn of quantum mechanics.
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Ummm, the Bohr atom does not include little balls spinning around in orbits. Of course, they hadn't discovered the standing wave concept yet, but they knew they were onto something when they were able to synthesize the Rydberg and Lyman constants from the theory.
 
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