The orbit of electrons

No, classical physics is a statement about averages of many quantum states. therefore building classical states from quantum states, you are actually losing information, not gaining information. classical mechanics is a special case of quantum mechanics (in the h->0 limit), not an extension of it.

strangely enough, this strikes right at the heart of quantum axioms. so really, it is so fundamental that you can t ask "why". like chroot said.

to answer your question, yes, i do think it.

logic dictates that everything has a location? i am sorry, but i must have missed the part of logic where they address whether everything must have a position. i remember de morgans laws.... and boolean algebra. i must have been sick that day.

seriously, logic doesn t say that everything must have a location. that is your intuition talking. until you can think imaginitively and abstractly, you will not be able to know how atoms work. however strange quantum mechanics is, it is not illogical. it starts with a set of axioms, and everything else follows logically. one of the things that follows logically is that not everything does have a location.

by the way, what is the location of a wave? is it the peak or the trough of the wave? i forget..

 

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chroot,

As you pointed out, there are complex axioms and there are fundamental axioms. The complex axioms are built from the fundamental axioms.

The Theory of Everything consists of fundamental axioms. The goal of the scientific community is to reach and know these fundamental axioms. But the scientific community can't reach these axioms because of two road blocks:

1) The assumption of uncertainty in subatomic physics.
2) The assumption that a complex axiom is a fundamental axiom.

By stating that that electrons don't have precise orbits and locations, you have demonstrated that you are stuck on the first road block. By telling me that I shouldn't ask "why", you are indicating that you believe that the motion of an electron around a nucleus is a fundamental axiom, which it is not. This shows that you are stuck at the second road block as well.

Believe it or not, today the scientific community would know much more about the universe and subatomic particles if these two road blocks weren't artificially placed on the road of knowledge by former physicists. I know that if these road blocks aren't removed, we may never understand the fundamentals of the universe.

Tom

 

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hey man, have you been listening? the uncertainty is not an assumption. it was forced upon us by nature. it is an experimental fact, and there is no way around it.

 

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lethe,

There are two kinds of uncertainty:

1) The uncertainty resulting from not being able to measure something.

2) The uncertainty resulting from the apparent random behavior of particles.

I agree that first type of uncertainty, but no the second type.

True randomness doesn't exist, so all particles must behave according to the laws of cause and effect. Although we don't know all the factors that may determine the "effect" of a particle, it doesn't mean that those factors don't exist.

Do you believe in randomness or cause-and-effect???

Tom

 

ugh... this is getting kind of repetetive. you re giving me a headache.

 

Oh, did I mention... welcome to sciforums?

There really are people here that just do not listen, or simply refuse to comprehend. Crackpots, if you will. Prosoothus is not here to gain an education, he's here to tell everyone else they're wrong. Of course, nothing he says is of any real value, nor has he ever succeeded in actually proving anything wrong. He's just a nay-sayer, and a rather pathetic one at that.

I only respond to his kind of posts for one reason: because it hones my pedagogical skills.

- Warren

 

Hi Tom,

"The uncertainty resulting from the apparent random behavior of particles.

True randomness doesn't exist, so all particles must behave according to the laws of cause and effect."

I would like to add to James' statement that this "randomness" seems to be incorporated into nature, that this does not mean that we cannot do predictions on how systems will behave.

On a quantum scale, this "randomness" (or rather: probabilistic interpretation of the wavefunction) is very important. There are experiments (e.g. the Young double slit experiment for electrons) that indicate that the non-local character of the electron seems to be the case.

However, in principle, we can calculate thisnon-local character, or spreading of the wavefunction (which leads to hte probability distribution on position, momentum, ... ) in an entirely exact way using the Schrodinger equation. This is a deterministic equation in the sense that we can find a solution for the wavefunction at every possible time given an initial condition. Concepts such as cause and effect still hold in this case.

So you shouldn't think of this randomness as a "chaotic" behaviour (not to be interpretted in the strict math sense, but rather the intuitive "unpredictable" sense).

Bye!

Crisp

PS: Sorry if I don't immediatelly reply to posts, I am busy at work and can only every now and once pop in to read the threads here at sciforums.

 

chroot, lethe, James, and Crisp,

Well, we finally came to the core of this debate. You guys believe that true randomness exists (which results in quantum uncertainty) while I believe that true randomness is impossible.

I believe that subatomic particles follow the rule of cause and effect, and that their exact motions and positions can be calculated if ALL of the factors are known.

Funny, but I had a discussion with my father a few weeks ago. He, like you, is a true believer in randomness. My argument to him was that if randomness existed in the subatomic world, it would also exist in our macro world since everything is built from subatomic particles. But we know that randomness doesn't exist in the macro world as a result of complex forms of matter (life) that evolved in our universe. Some physicists may claim that, somehow, randomness only exists in the subatomic world and ends when you reach atom level. However, this is impossible because if you understand math, and I know all of you do, then you know that a random number can't be stabilized with any other number, even another random number, to make a real number. Therefore, this means that randomness, if it exists at the subatomic level, would exist at all other levels as well. But as I already pointed out, this is not the case.

Let's, for the sake of argument, look at a lotto machine. In a lotto machine, the lotto balls are blown all around the container using a fan at the bottom of the machine. Although, the prediction of which ball will come up first is almost impossible, this does not mean that there is a random factor in this machine. You might look at the lotto machine and determine the wavefunction for each of the balls and claim that there exact location (through mathematical extrapolation) is impossible to predict. However, if someone knew all the characteristics of the container, the fan, and the balls, that person could calculate (with a very very fast computer) the exact location of the balls at any given time. So it turns out, what appeared to be randomness was only a complex formulae. Could it be that the electrons in an atom are like the balls in a lotto machine? Could it be that the motions of the electrons aren't random, but are predictible? I think they are.

Tom

 

Remember: their exact position is unknowable, but we can still tell where they are down to a very, very small area. It's not as if the electrons are just wildly floating around; we're talking about a few angstroms of space here. They are confined enough by the laws of probability that we can figure out how they will interact.

Also, their position is not random; you can calculate the probability of finding the electron (or whatever) in any specific place. This is why we are able to generate all those atomic orbital pictures.

 

Nasor,

But are their positions random within those orbitals??

Tom

 

Yes, we believe in what our experiments tell us, and you believe in crackpot pet theories.

Randomness has nothing to do with causality.

It does exist in our macro world. Turn on your TV to an air channel that doesn't exist. You're seeing true randomness. Listen to the clicks emitted by a geiger counter. You're hearing true randomness.

Uh... what? Life disproves randomness? This is not a logical conclusion; this is some silly horseshit you made up.

No physicist will ever say this.

Uh... stabilized? Okay, whatever. No one is claiming that randomness does not exist at the macroscopic level -- it absolutely does. You throw a baseball. Do you know the exact position and momentum of the baseball simultaneously to perfect precision? No. You cannot. You can only know the position and momentum of the baseball simultaneously to a very high precision. In the macroscopic world, the allowed precision is so huge (literally minute fractions of an angstrom) that you never notice it. You couldn't even hope to begin to design a machine to notice it. Randomness is there, but it's negligible.

It does exist at all other levels as well. Stop using your mouth so much, and start using your eyes and ears instead.

No, that would imply that the electron has internal watchworks, and that we could observe those watchworks to determine how the electron does what it does. I have said ALL OF THIS in Frencheesnz's thread, so I'm a little annoyed at having to recapitulate all of it, but so be it.

There are only three possibilities for the universe:

1) The the universe has infinite complexity. If you looker deeper, you see more complexity, ad infinitum.

2a) The universe has finite complexity. There is a layer of maximal complexity. That layer is deterministic.

2b) The universe has finite complexity. There is a layer of maximal complexity. That layer is probabilistic.

I find it hard to believe that we live in a universe like (1) for both philosophical reasons and experimental reasons (it seems fundamental particles like the electron literally have zero "size.")

Of the two remaining sensible choices, (2a) is impossible, too. There's no way that a universe that displays randomness at scales like radioactive decay can be deterministic at its fundament. The universe must be of type (2b) to explain the behavior of experiments.

Prosoothus, as I've said many times, you cling to your determinstic world-view out of culturation, conditioning, and faith. You do not accept the evidence around you. Your worldview has been proven incorrect by literally millions of experiments performed by hundreds of thousands of scientists over the course of nearly a century. There is no excuse for clinging to your view, which literally cannot be correct.

I have no interest in some probabilistic vs. determinism religious-type war. There is fundamentally nothing "better" about determinism than probabilism. They're peers. You've provided no evidence that determinism is correct, and modern science has provided boatloads of evidence that determinism is wrong.

Your position is untenable. You can only maintain your position by retreating to faith. Good luck to you.

- Warren

 

No, their positions aren't random - they will always have a specific probability of being at any specific point.

 

Nasor,

Probability is used when you don't have enough information or there is randomness in an event. Since your claiming that their positions aren't random, I assume you are implying that we lack the knowledge to calculate their actual locations.

Tom

 

I'm going to have to disagree with Nasor. The electron itself does not have a well-defined position in the orbital. When measured, however, the electron will always appear at an exact position; this position is not precise, because subsequent measurements will produce a different exact position.

The electron can appear anywhere in the orbital at any time; the probability of it appearing in a given spot is well understood. The electron does indeed "choose" a random position in the orbital each time it is measured.

- Warren

 

Hi chroot,

"I'm going to have to disagree with Nasor. The electron itself does not have a well-defined position in the orbital. When measured, however, the electron will always appear at an exact position; this position is not precise, because subsequent measurements will produce a different exact position."

I would rephrase the last sentence as follows: "however, the electron will always appear at an exact position; this position is not precise, because if the measurement where to be performed again under the exact same conditions, it could have produced a different exact position"...

But I don't want to open the cesspool of the influecen of quantum measurements on the system here

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Bye!

Crisp

 

Yes, thanks, I got a little sloppy.

- Warren

 

I have to go with the ortho-Quantum view. I want badly to be a realist like Albert E. However the evidence is so dam convincing.

By the way in the quantum world there is randomness caused by quantum uncertainty we can measure. Listen to a Geiger counter near a tad of Uranium or similar. In the quantum view Cause and effect does not apply to this.

Ok so you can argue it is caused by neutrionos or something we aint found yet. But we have tried all the ones we can think of. Heat it, prod it with a magnetic field or just about anything but a particle and the rate and randomness is unchanged.

We can seem to alter the rate if we fire particles at it, neutrons for example - but ortho theory says all this does is change the hitee into something more radioactive. But if we shield it from all but a small number it still fires off more rapidly than it is being fired at and from places where we are quite sure it wasn't zapped. Even if we cant shield it perfectly we should be able to get it down to a very very low rate and we cant.

Worse the behaviour follows the quantum uncertainty predictions.

And worst of all we can show experiments that show an atom is no more or less likely to radiate if its neighbour does - implying no interaction with the neighbours. Yet on average the probability rate applies. Dang!

 

I guess I should have been a little clearer. I wouldn't really call the position of the electron random. While it's true that it can be measured as being anywhere, each position has a specific probability attached to it. While it's true that the position of the electron is 'random' in that it isn't deterministic, it is a sort of 'weighted randomness' in which the electron is far more likely to be in some places than others. Since we know where the electron tends to be as dictated by the laws of probability, we can have a pretty good idea (although not exact) of where it is when considered on the scale of a molecule. So you could say something to the effect of 'Its position isn't random because I know it is probably somewhere in the 1s orbital, and I know what the 1s orbital is shaped like.'

Did that make any sense? I just got back from a very late night with SpartanPro software and I don't feel particularly articulate. Off to bed, I think…