But at the inception of this single atom universe, matter is everywhere - it occupies the entire space, until space starts expanding. As the space expands, the atom loses energy and emits photons.
Eventually it will run out of photons and reach ground state as the universe continues expanding...
Sorry I'm not making myself very clear.
Let's assume that a universe (not ours, but subject to the same laws of physics) consists of a single hydrogen atom in an initially energetic state surrounded by expanding space. The atom's electron gradually emits photons over time as it loses energy to...
If our expanding universe consisted of just a single atom, would it's energy just leak away over time until eventually it entered the lowest possible energy state and could no longer lose any more energy?
So if we conclude that in an expanding universe objects moving at a fixed velocity and not interacting with other objects will lose kinetic energy over time, and conversely in a contracting universe those same objects will gain kinetic energy over time, then what does this mean for the law of...
In a contracting universe would we expect to see the cosmic microwave background radiation become more blue-shifted - eventually moving into the visible spectrum?
Classically an object moving at a constant velocity in a straight line will continue to move at the same velocity until it encounters an external force.
It has been shown that this does not hold true in our universe because of the expansion of space: the object will slow down, losing kinetic...
So what you're saying is that even if the gold foil is beaten down so it's only 1 atom thick, there is no space between the atoms in the metallic structure - all of the space is between the nuclei and the surrounding sea of shared electrons?
Yes due to a small percentage of the alpha particles being deflected with the majority passing through.
But how could he conclude that the alpha particles were passing through the atoms rather than between them?
I'm not sure if gold's conductance is relevant as this is due to the loosely bound electrons in the outer shell which hardly interact with the alpha particles.
Gold is very malleable so can be beaten into very thin sheets. Rutherford seems to have concluded that the gaps between the atoms were...
Why did Rutherford conclude the atom was mostly empty space after firing alpha particles at gold leaf?
Was it not equally possible that the observed behaviour of the alpha particles was due to space between the gold atoms rather than space inside the gold atoms?
I asked Chat GPT this but could'nt get a satisfactory answer. I felt he was making it up as he went along.
In principle it should be possible to set up two lasers emitting the same frequency and synchronize them so they are perfectly out of phase so that both beams destructively interfere.
I...