# Is the direction of the Coulomb force at short distances indeterministic?

Suppose we have two electrons that apply a Coulomb force on each other. At large distances, we can consider the two electrons as point charges and the direction of the Coulomb force would be on the straight line connecting them. Now, if they are close enough that their distance is comparable to the radius of their "position clouds", can we still accurately determine the direction of the Coulomb force, or it would be kind of random with a probability distribution?

This can also be asked about the momentum direction of two atoms after a low-velocity collision, since the repulsion is in fact a Coulomb force applied by the nuclei and the electron clouds to each other.

• "position clouds"? – Avantgarde Apr 20 at 22:11
• What I mean is that the position of the electron is not exactly determined. In an atom, it's a cloud of probability around the nucleus. For a confined electron, the positions the electron can be is determined by the squared amplitude of its wavefunction. If you suppose that the electron is a point charge, it's position would have different possibilities. Now my question was, if each of these possibilities correspond to a possibility for the direction of the Coulomb force. Simple. – Ali Lavasani Apr 20 at 22:15