# Tag Info

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CuriousOne writes in a comment that single atom is visible "if it is illuminated properly," which is correct. It's possible to construct a trap for a single atom with transparent windows, and to illuminate that atom so that it fluoresces. Note that this was impossible thirty years ago and is nontrivial today. What your textbook author almost certainly has ...

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Resonant frequency of an object: A frequency at which the object will best capture and retain energy from a driving force. Driving energy into an object or system with a force at the natural frequency of the object will maximize energy transfer.

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The resonant, frequency is the frequency at which an object tends to vibrate. Every rigid object in existence has a natural structural resonance frequency, a frequency at which it, metaphorically speaking, wants to shake more than any other. If you vibrate an object at its resonant frequency, it will gradually shake more and more wildly. This frequency ...

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why do atoms not collapse on themselves. The reason is explained in answer to this question . In a nutshell, our observations/measurements lead to the quantum mechanical framework for atoms molecules and elementary particles and a probabilistic theory, quantum mechanics. The positions and energies of the particles are not determined but given by a ...

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One possible hidden variable theory is that the hidden variable is just the positions of all the particles. In that case for the ground state the probability distribution for position doesn't change. So it is easy to make a hidden variable theory where in the ground state the electron isn't moving. Not moving, no change in hidden variable, no change in ...

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Sometimes electrons do "crash into the nucleus" - it's called electron capture and is a mode of decay for some unstable isotopes.

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As Mark Eichenlaub's Answer states, this is a quote from one of Carrol's admired forerunners. You actually hit nearer the mark with your own words: So, in physics void can mean anything but "void". In modern physics there are only quantum fields, a handful of them: the photon field, electron/ positron field, quark field, gluon field and so forth. In ...

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Look at H, the simplest atom. One neutron and one electron. If your imagination can put H in perspective, it would be the Empire State Building as the nucleus and a grapefruit racing around it at 500 yards. This model is composed mostly of SPACE or VOID!!

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You're correct that it's not the high voltage itself which ionizes the atoms, but rather the free electrons accelerated by this electric field. In any system at finite temperature, there is a non-zero probability for some atoms to be ionized at any given time. Applying a strong electric field causes the free electrons to accelerate. Collisions with bound ...

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A high level description. In the case of reflection at a metallic interface the electric field of the photon forces the electrons in the metal to oscillate. The oscillation means that the electrons are being forced at the same frequency as the photons. Thus as the electrons in the metal oscillate they begin to emit light in response. The frequency, ...

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The key in your mercury diagram is the phrase "a few energy levels". In the hydrogen diagram, the lines were labeled with "n-1, n=2" etc; the mercury lines were labeled only with letters. You could write down the energy level of all possible states of all electrons in all orbits - you would find that there are many of them. However, just because an energy ...

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The energy levels can be found in the solutions of the time-independent Schrodinger equation for a system with a harmonic oscillator. For atoms with more than one electron, the situation becomes complicated: the Hamiltonian operator depends on a potential that has to take into account the relative position of not only the electron to the nucleus, but also to ...

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How many real elementary particles (not hypothetical) make up an atom or can be in an atom? This is tricky, because of the inclusion of the word "real". Let's say we're talking about a helium atom, and we're talking about how many different types of elementary particles there are. The helium atom is comprised of protons, neutrons, and electrons. OK, now ...

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You can make an atom with heavier generations of quark if you want to count that, for example, a top quark has the same spin and charge as an up quark and you can "construct" a proton from a charm or top quark - not sure how stable it would be. http://www.particleadventure.org/three_gen.html But as Gabriel said, Up quark, Down quark and the Electron are ...

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The number depends on the type of atom, but all of them are mostly made of up and down quarks (which make up the proton and neutron) and electrons.

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Even in the classical model, an infinite amount of levels doesn't necessarily mean that it occupies an infinite amount of space. You can divide any finite distance into infinitely many bits (for instance, $1 = \frac{1}{2} + \frac{1}{4} + \frac{1}{8} + \ldots$). EDIT: I'd forgotten about the $r\sim N^2$ relation that the OP mentions below, so yes, although ...

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Electrons actually don't orbit the nucleus. This is a model that simplifies things. The most correct model of the atom that we have today is the Schrodinger model. The denser the the cloud of dots, the more likely it is for an electron to be there. They do not have a predictable, regular motion. The nucleus also has this random positioning. It has a ...

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