Are electrons flying nowhere close to the nucleus of their atoms?

[fuzzybabybunny]

I've heard that the mean radius of the orbit of an electron around its nucleus is something like 50,000+ times larger than the radius of the nucleus. Basically electrons orbit very very far away from their nuclei, respectively.

We recently were able to take a photo of a single strontium atom:

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/trapped-atom-photograph-long-exposure-competition-spd/

I'm assuming that the photo is of the nucleus of the atom. Does this mean that the electrons of this single atom are actually flying around somewhere outside the frame of the photo?

 

[IronWing]

The photo is of the electrons, or more specifically, the electrons' interaction with the lasers.

 

[dullard]

FBB, you have it backwards. The nucleus is many times smaller than the dot that you see (which IronWing is correct is the laser light being reemitted by the electrons).

 

[Paratus]

Repost!

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/matotga-science-thread-of-the-day.2537286/#post-39305752


Great. Now you’ve quantum entangled these two threads. Good Job Op.

 

[herm0016]

your scale is way way way off. how would you breath if 2 atoms of oxygen were that big? you interact with the outside shell of electrons in an atom, not the nucleus.

 

[Ken g6]

The position of the electrons is, well, fuzzy. It's a quantum mechanics thing. That's why in modern texts it's called an "electron cloud".

And, yes, the electron cloud is what you see and it's much bigger than the nucleus.

 

[Paratus]

The photo is of the electrons, or more specifically, the electrons' interaction with the lasers.

FBB, you have it backwards. The nucleus is many times smaller than the dot that you see (which IronWing is correct is the laser light being reemitted by the electrons).

To be even more technical he photo is collection of photons registered at the sensor over a fairly long time as given off by the by the single strontium atom whose electrons were excited by a laser pulse.

Or

That is the light given off by a single atom heated until it glows at that particular wavelength.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Oh I see. That makes way more sense now.

So the photos that people at UCLA made of platinum nanoparticles here...

http://www.physics.ucla.edu/research/imaging/dislocations/

...each dot is the interaction of the electrons with whatever imaging technology they used.

I would expect each dot to be overlapping themselves, no? Wouldn't electrons be shared between each atom?

 

[herm0016]

this is a good primer.

https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Perp..._title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1461084782&sr=8-1

 

[Paratus]

@fuzzybabybunny

Now technically, per quantum mechanics, there is an infinitesimally small chance one of the strontium atoms electrons is outside the frame of that picture.

The highest probability to find them is within the average radius of an atom, but technically they can be anywhere from inside the nucleus to across the observable universe.

Quantum mechanics is weird.

 

[dullard]

this is a good primer.

https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Perp..._title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1461084782&sr=8-1

I thought that you were going to go this direction:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/qu...QpG2puVB6VlpjkrNvw-91tY476f4aRiRoCVmoQAvD_BwE