His opening lecture points to the proton and electron in your average hydrogen atom and then concludes that there's nothing between the two of them except (by implication)that attractive force. If that was all that was between them then WHAT then stops the electron nose-diving into the proton - is just the FIRST question? Do you know the answer MileHigh?
Rosemary
I'm just going to give you a simple answer. Take a look at the example of the Earth in orbit around the sun or a satellite in orbit around the moon where there is no atmosphere. Let's focus on the satellite in orbit around the moon. Assume the satellite is in a nice circular orbit 10,000 kilometers above the surface of the moon. There is no friction so it will remain in orbit forever. So if you could go up to the satellite and give it a nudge, you would change the orbit and it would go from a circular to an elliptical orbit but it would still orbit forever. You could try to nudge it over and over and over and it would still remain in orbit in some orbital path or other. In theory you could make the orbit get so eccentric that it would crash into the surface of the moon. However, let's continue on our intellectual journey and reduce the size of the moon to a basketball, but still having the same mass and the same gravity field. Now you can try nudging that satellite almost forever, and you will never be able to stop it from orbiting the basketball-sized moon. The satellite will never ever hit the moon, it will always swing by the moon and remain in orbit. That's what an electron looks like in orbit around a nucleus. It's in a vacuum, a frictionless environment, and nothing can "knock" it so that it hits the nucleus. The height of the satellite above the moon or the orbital shell an electron is in represents an "energy state." In a vacuum there are no forces to stop the satellite or electron from happily orbiting at its given energy state. So, you say that you don't need to look at the MIT lectures on electromagnetics, yet you can't fathom how an electron remains in orbit around a nucleus. In the lecture series the properties of an electron in orbit around a hydrogen nucleus are discussed in detail, and they go through the calculations to determine the electron's equivalent linear speed and equivalent current. It's fascinating because the equivalent linear speed is something like 2/3 of 'c' (If I recall correctly) and the equivalent current it represents is almost one milliampere. MileHigh
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Topic: Ether - Does it Exist? (Read 154953 times)
