Tiny orbiters

Usage examples of electrons.

Although it would be hard to explain the properties of a tornado in terms of the physics of electrons and quarks, I see this as a matter of calculational impasse, not an indicator of the need for new physical laws.

But the effort has been well worth it: the calculations yield predictions about electrons that have been experimentally verified to an accuracy of better than one part in a billion.

Particle accelerators are based on the same principle: They hurl bits of matter such as electrons and protons at each other as well as at other targets, and elaborate detectors analyze the resulting spray of debris to determine the architecture of the objects involved.

This is why particle accelerators use protons or electrons as probes, since their small size makes them much better suited to the task.

Davisson and Germer, experimental physicists at the Bell telephone company, were studying how a beam of electrons bounces off of a chunk of nickel.

The other is quantum mechanics, which provides a theoretical framework for understanding the universe on the smallest of scales: molecules, atoms, and all the way down to subatomic particles like electrons and quarks.

Why are there so many fundamental particles, especially when it seems that the great majority of things in the world around us need only electrons, up-quarks, and down-quarks?

String theory adds the new microscopic layer of a vibrating loop to the previously known progression from atoms through protons, neutrons, electrons and quarks.

This transferred energy can agitate electrons in the metal, and some of the loosely bound ones can be knocked clear off the surface.

And just as more dollars result in more children being able to leave, more photons result in more electrons being hit and knocked clear off the surface.

OK to think of this experiment as being the same one illustrated there, except that a beam of electrons is used in place of a beam of light.

Davisson and Germer made the wave-like nature of electrons tangibly evident.

We saw some evidence of this in our attempt, described in the preceding chapter, to pinpoint the location of elementary particles such as electrons: By shining light of ever higher frequency on electrons, we measure their position with ever greater precision, but at a cost, since our observations become ever more disruptive.

But then, when the temperature had dropped to a few thousand degrees, wildly streaming electrons slowed down to the point where atomic nuclei, mostly hydrogen and helium, could capture them, forming the first electrically neutral atoms.

But when negatively charged electrons were brought into orbit around positively charged nuclei, yielding electrically neutral atoms, the charged obstructions disappeared and the dense fog lifted.