Iron is the end of the road for fission and fusion, the lowest energy nucleus. It's also the strongest magnetic atom. Is this coincidence, or is there a deeper connection?
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
5
-
3$\begingroup$ Technically Nickel 62 is the most tightly bound nucleus. But ignoring that, the binding energy has to do with the nucleons configuration while magnetic behavior has to do with electron configuration, so offhand I'd say it is a coincidentally $\endgroup$– RC_23Commented 17 hours ago
-
$\begingroup$ Related: physics.stackexchange.com/q/961/2451 $\endgroup$– Qmechanic ♦Commented 17 hours ago
-
$\begingroup$ I'd argue that this question is a dupe of that given we also marked physics.stackexchange.com/questions/232875 as a dupe of that. $\endgroup$– stickynotememoCommented 16 hours ago
-
2$\begingroup$ This question is similar to: Why is the nucleus of an Iron atom so stable?. If you believe it’s different, please edit the question, make it clear how it’s different and/or how the answers on that question are not helpful for your problem. $\endgroup$– stickynotememoCommented 16 hours ago
-
$\begingroup$ The proposed duplicates say nothing about the magnetic properties of iron. Is it just a coincidence, or are there interesting similarities between iron's electronic shell structure and its nuclear shell structure? $\endgroup$– PM 2RingCommented 14 hours ago
Add a comment
|
1 Answer
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
Iron is the end of the road for fission and fusion, the lowest energy nucleus. It's also the strongest magnetic atom. Is this coincidence, or is there a deeper connection?
Well it's not exactly a coincidence, but the two things are not directly linked.
Fusion and fission are governed by the nuclear properties.
Magnetism has to do with the properties of the electronic structure of the atom.
So while the electron states are linked to the nucleus as they depend on the mass and charge of the nucleus, you would not find an obvious link by comparing e.g. the spectrum of Iron to the nuclear properties of Iron.
If I change the nuclear properties by using different isotopes of Iron, I don't get quite the same effect in any resulting change in magnetic properties, simply because the small change in mass of the nucleus has a relatively small effect on the electronic state. Likewise, changing the energy levels of the electrons does not significantly affect the nuclear properties.
They are linked by the number of protons in the nucleus, but you'd find that hard to tell by comparing the two sets of properties.
answered 15 hours ago