View From Electron: What Would You See?

[scott_alexsk]

If you could see from the prespective of an individual electron, what would you see (disregarding the fact that it impossible) ? I did not say from the prespective of a human since it is impossible.
Thanks,
Scott

 

[z-component]

From the perspective of a single electron you may be in the electron cloud area moving chaotically around the bunched atomic particles (protons and neutrons) at unknown instantaneous speeds and directions (remember the uncertainty principal). I am being imaginative as this is a rather odd but facinating question, but I think this is pretty viable. :)

Here's an interesting point about perspectives which you may have heard:
"Nuclei are many thousands of times smaller than the atom itself. For example, if an atom was the size of a football stadium, the nucleus would be comparable to a pea."

 

[scott_alexsk]

Well at least I now that my question is not stupid. I wanted to see what others thought of this question. Personally I think that since the electron is traveling at light speed, since no time passes wouldn't from its perspective, it be everywhere it can be and could be at the same time. I feel that this is fundamnetal since it tells a lot about the way the electron behaves. Isn't it in Quantum theory that there is really no motion in the electron but a frequency of possible locations?
-Scott

 

[ZapperZ]

Well at least I now that my question is not stupid. I wanted to see what others thought of this question. Personally I think that since the electron is traveling at light speed, since no time passes wouldn't from its perspective, it be everywhere it can be and could be at the same time. I feel that this is fundamnetal since it tells a lot about the way the electron behaves. Isn't it in Quantum theory that there is really no motion in the electron but a frequency of possible locations?
-Scott

I'm going to intervene here because there's a potential of a wrong application of special relativity.

Note that the PROPER TIME doesn't change! If I'm moving close to the speed of light, I see NOTHING different with my time. I only see something different on the clocks of OTHER frames, not mine! So your statement that since electron travels "at light speed", no time passes for it is wrong. It's proper time is still unchanged.

Furthermore, it is really strange ask this question when in many cases, the electron's proper location is undefined until a measurement. If you are an s-orbital electron, where are you in the atom?

Lastly, in many instances, free electrons are, for all practical purposes, are classical free particles. Electrons in particle accelerators are classical particles, because they have very little overlap with other electrons, and the boundary conditions are a gazillion times larger than their sizes.

So which electron are you sitting on?

Zz.

 

[scott_alexsk]

I understand that the postion of an electron is constantly uncertain. I was trying to see what people thought of the actual state of the electron, even though this can be never be determined to the accuratness of a degree. Really this reflects their view on whether or not the particle is a wave or particle. I might as well come out and say it, do objects that travel towards the speed of light take on wave characteritics or is this only a charateristic of the unobservable atomic world?
-Scott

 

[ZapperZ]

I might as well come out and say it, do objects that travel towards the speed of light take on wave characteritics or is this only a charateristic of the unobservable atomic world?
-Scott

Not in the particle accelerator that I work with... and they are practically moving at c after they go above 1 MeV in energy.

Zz.

 

[scott_alexsk]

You deal with electrons within a vacum, right (this is a stupid question but I just am not sure) ?
-Scott

 

[ZapperZ]

You deal with electrons within a vacum, right (this is a stupid question but I just am not sure) ?
-Scott

Electrons do not travel very far in air and they don't maintain very high quality with the constant scattering. The accelerator beamline is under ultrahigh vacuum (i.e. better than 10^-9 Torr).

Zz.

 

[scott_alexsk]

Are conditions provided in Young's double slit experiment are similar to what you work with in a particle acculerator.?
-Scott

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

ahh, you work a Fermilab Zapperz? neato! that would be fun

 

[ZapperZ]

ahh, you work a Fermilab Zapperz? neato! that would be fun

No, I don't. I said I work with a particle accelerator, not a particle collider. Fermilab doesn't have a monopoly on all the particle accelerator in the Chicagoland area.

Zz.

 

[ZapperZ]

Are conditions provided in Young's double slit experiment are similar to what you work with in a particle acculerator.?
-Scott

Come again?

Zz.

 

[scott_alexsk]

Might as well go back to the beginning and clarify a point. How do electrons you excellerate behave? Do they act like waves or do they just go in a strait line?
-Scott

 

[ZapperZ]

Might as well go back to the beginning and clarify a point. How do electrons you excellerate behave? Do they act like waves or do they just go in a strait line?
-Scott

They behave like classical particles. I think I've mentioned this before. "Straight lines" really don't apply here since you have space charge effects, emittance, solenoid fields, and steering fields.

Zz.

 

[scott_alexsk]

So I take it that you believe that the electron is a point particle clothed by the Hisenberg uncertainity principle and not so much a wave.
-Scott

 

[ZapperZ]

So I take it that you believe that the electron is a point particle clothed by the Hisenberg uncertainity principle and not so much a wave.
-Scott

Eh? This is getting awfully strange.

Zz.

 

[scott_alexsk]

I should really just forget all the stuff I thought I knew and start out with the basics. What does particle accelerating show us? I mean particle colliders find smaller constituent particles but what can a particle accelerator demonstrate?
-Scott

 

[ZapperZ]

I should really just forget all the stuff I thought I knew and start out with the basics. What does particle accelerating show us? I mean particle colliders find smaller constituent particles but what can a particle accelerator demonstrate?
-Scott

The use of particle accelerators:

1. For high energy physics experiments. They provide the high energy particles that are then used in the collider.

2. In a synchrotron radiation center. Electrons are accelerated to practically c and then shoot into a synchrotron storage center where it "coasts" around and around in circles giving up synchrotron radiation and other light to be used to study everything from protein to DNA to mummies to properties of materials.

3. In your doctor's office to generate very precise x-ray beams for imaging and diagnostics.

4. etc.

This means that particle accelerator does NOT automatically implies particle collider (my pet peeve).

I don't know why this has morphed into what an accelerator can reveal.

Zz.

 

[scott_alexsk]

Its more so a irrelevant tangent I went off on. Really I am just curious about the current state of the contraversy with wave-particle duality. What is the current view of all of this? Have people simply just used either theory when it applies or is there still an argument?
-Scott

 

[lightgrav]

Electrons in a conductor travel as waves.
Electrons in a vacuum travel as waves.

This goes for ZapperZ's electrons, too.

The big difference is that Electron waves in a conductor
cautiously "feel" their way among the Electric Potential Wells
of the substrate atoms, tilted as they are in the weak E-field.
They get to cooperate with (or confront) the other electrons
that they overlap, as their encircling magnetic fields guide
them into - %!$&!# tripped me, that well, tumbling now, back,
here's a B loop, next well, another, neighbor spare some L?,
well to well on and on downwind easier ...

they don't even notice the speed of light, so extended.

ZapperZ's got this poor little lonely wave so scared
its spin aligns inside the B-guide loop.
I've tickled nuclei with these myself,
but I could treat the Electron as a wave the whole time.

Some say that an Electron interacts as a particle,
(when not traveling as a wave)
but it interferes with itself even as it resonates off a nucleus.
I can't imagine a scenario so extreme that it is particle-like
(and I think I have a pretty good imagination).

Small wave, compared to the beam-pipe, but still a wave.

 

[ZapperZ]

Electrons in a conductor travel as waves.
Electrons in a vacuum travel as waves.

This goes for ZapperZ's electrons, too.

The big difference is that Electron waves in a conductor
cautiously "feel" their way among the Electric Potential Wells
of the substrate atoms, tilted as they are in the weak E-field.
They get to cooperate with (or confront) the other electrons
that they overlap, as their encircling magnetic fields guide
them into - %!$&!# tripped me, that well, tumbling now, back,
here's a B loop, next well, another, neighbor spare some L?,
well to well on and on downwind easier ...

they don't even notice the speed of light, so extended.

ZapperZ's got this poor little lonely wave so scared
its spin aligns inside the B-guide loop.
I've tickled nuclei with these myself,
but I could treat the Electron as a wave the whole time.

Some say that an Electron interacts as a particle,
(when not traveling as a wave)
but it interferes with itself even as it resonates off a nucleus.
I can't imagine a scenario so extreme that it is particle-like
(and I think I have a pretty good imagination).

Small wave, compared to the beam-pipe, but still a wave.

You gain NOTHING by treating the free electrons in an accelerator as "waves". In fact, you are using a bazooka to kill a fly. Can you show me any particle tracking code for particle accelerators that actually use "wave" picture for these electrons? No? Then viewing them as waves is as silly as telling structural engineers that they have to use Special Relativity and Quantum Mechanics when they build bridges and buildings.

Being a physicist doesn't mean you blindly apply textbook scenarios. You have to look at what is the most effective means to solve a problem or describe a scenario effectively. Only when there are indications that such a description is insufficient do we add more complex parameters. Simply telling people that electrons can ONLY be described as waves is being naive and ignorant of the whole purpose of USING such info.

Zz.

 

[scott_alexsk]

So is there still a real argument between wave and particle theories, or do most, like zapperz, apply each when it is necessary instead of trying to create a unified theory?
-Scott

 

[jtbell]

So is there still a real argument between wave and particle theories,

Only if you insist on a classical-physics view of the way the world should work. In quantum physics, particle-like aspects and wave-like aspects co-exist in light, electrons, protons, atoms, buckyballs, etc. Which aspects are more important depends on the kind of experiments and measurements you do.

 

[ZapperZ]

So is there still a real argument between wave and particle theories, or do most, like zapperz, apply each when it is necessary instead of trying to create a unified theory?
-Scott

OK, for the LAST TIME, I will make this explictly clear - there is NO DUALITY in QM between "wave" and "particle". Let shock rings through the forum!

There's no separate description for "wave" and another separate description for "particle". QM simply doesn't differentiate between the two. It is only classical physics that distinguish one from the other and designate those to be incompatible behavior! But if you look at QM's description of the phenomena, there's just ONE for electrons, photons, neutrons, etc... No "duality"!

However, when you try to accurately describe a situation, you cannot simply rush into something head first! Even when we know that the "free electron" concept in metals isn't valid, the Drude model is still a good approximation for many cases - it is what gave you Ohm's Law! If that is all the one needs, it is absolutely stupid to force someone to treat electrons as complicted QM wave. This does nothing be create unnecessary complicatons that do not contribute to anything useful for such a simple scenario.

Note that even in more complicated scenario, especially in condensed matter physics, we STILL deal with a single-particle phenomenon. One can clearly see this via the Landau Fermi Liquid model in which the electronic many-body interaction has been renormalized into a many one-body quasiparticle problem. Here, you STILL talk about the quasiparticle as if it is a classical particle, with scattering rate, lifetimes, self-interaction, etc. Yet, this is purely a QM description using Second Quantization.

You want more? What about transport problem in solids? The description of optical, electronic, and thermal transport in matter are done, in many cases, using purely classical-like formulation - The Boltzmann transport equation! How light moves through a solid, how charge moves through a solid, and how heat moves through a solid, are accurately described in the majority of cases via a classical-like description. The distribution function and "forces" acting on the system are all using a classical particle pictures. Is there a QM description for this? You betcha! But there's a QM description to build your house too. It doesn't mean your contractor should use it!

Zz.

 

[scott_alexsk]

I appreciate you making yourself explisitly clear. Hopefully you do not feel I wasted your time, if so sorry.
Thanks,
Scott

 

[Haelfix]

Wave particle symbiosis (:p) First chapter, Feynman lectures volume 3. No one has to my mind ever explained it better (or worse).