Are you saying electrons aren't part of an atom?
I am saying that orbital electrons are not part of an atom; in my humble opinion, they are simply an unfortunate historical aberration stemming from the 1913 Bohr model consisting of a positively charged nucleus being orbited by negatively charged electrons. The comforting features of the Bohr model at the time were its simplicity and similarity to our own planetary system, with a Sun being the equivalent of a nucleus and the orbiting planets the electrons. The main difference, apart from size and scale, is that the planets are held in orbits by gravitational pull whereas electrons are allegedly by opposite electric charge attraction; and there is the slight problem that the mutual repulsion between protons within the nucleus should cause it to explode.
Discrepancies soon between predicted and measured energy levels related to emission and adsorption spectra became problematic, and the Bohr model has since been upgraded to the Orbital Nuclear Atomic Model (ONAM). For ONAM the nucleus is represented by a cluster of nucleons (positively charged protons and neutral neutrons); with electrons considered to act like electromagnetic waves rather than particles; and the shell-like orbitals of electrons replaced by weirdly shaped probability distributions around the nucleus as determined by the wave equations. However, the planetary system analogy persists as does the concept of electrons are held within orbitals by the electric field attraction between protons within the nucleus and electrons.
The first time that I came across a theory that suggested that electrons do not orbit around an atomic nucleus was the 2003 online version of Professor P M Kanarev’s
'The Foundations of Physchemistry of Micro World'. As I was a firm believer in the orbital nuclear model that had been fed to me since school days, although his experiment results and associated mathematical modelling seemed thorough, I was most skeptical of Kanarev’s claims and did not pursue them.
Initially I worked upon the energy-centric hypothesis that there is only one type of energy generating material (dubbed
energen) with respect to electrons. All fundamental particles have a spin component and thus angular momentum, albeit intrinsic, which suggested that concentrated energen would involve circular flow or movement. My research into electron characteristics led me to believe that the best physical model for an electron was a variation of the toroidal model. Then, when it came to the structure of the atom, a similar toroidal model seemed to be the appropriate building block (or candidate for being the illusive
preon).
This led to a suggested structure for up and down quarks in terms of concentrated energy sources (
CESs). CESs have a similar structure to that of an electron, but are larger and contain much more energen. The quarks built into
nucleons, and nucleons into
atomic nuclei that seemingly has no need for electrons. Electrons do exist within some atomic nuclei, but in a pre-electron form called a
bitron. However, in this atomic model, electrons per se are not needed, and are certainly not orbital electrons. Electrons are considered to be derived from bitrons within chemical bonds, when the bonds are damaged or broken, and from some fission processes.
