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carrz
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Are there any actual numbers for electron orbital velocity in hydrogen atom?
sophiecentaur said:No, because you cannot model an electron, bound to a nucleus as an orbiting object. The Bohr atom model is not a valid one - which is why it was replaced some time ago by the model which treats the electron, when bound to an atom, as a wave or a probability density function.
That is why the energy states are nowadays referred to as 'orbitals' and not 'orbits'. The term 'orbital' should. perhaps, not even be used but, for the sake of Chemists, it seems to be.
carrz said:Is there some velocity associated with electron in Bohr atom model?
But if we can measure electron orbital magnetic moment then I should be able to work out some velocity from Biot-Savart law, right? Can we measure electron orbital magnetic moment in hydrogen atom?
sophiecentaur said:You can get a number but what meaning would it have if the electron is not in one particular place at any time?
You can only have a velocity if there is a displacement / position.
carrz said:I think it can only mean "rate of change in position", in units distance per unit time. But whatever the meaning it should be related and proportional to its momentum. Wouldn't you agree?
I know we can not quite measure it, but are you sure QM actually forbids electrons to move in continuous trajectories? And why is that again, uncertainty principle, radiation maybe? It was radiation problem Bohr atom model suffered mostly, wasn't it?
Isn't that true for a magnetic moment as well? Both the magnitude and orientation of a magnetic field is defined by the charge velocity vector, isn't it?
For bound states, yes, QM says that the electron does not have a continuous trajectory. This is neither the uncertainty principle nor the answer to the radiation problem (which appears in the Rutherford model not the Bohr model), although both of these results fall out of the solution of the Schrodinger equation for the bound states of the hydrogen atom, along with the lack of a continuous trajectory.carrz said:I know we can not quite measure it, but are you sure QM actually forbids electrons to move in continuous trajectories? And why is that again, uncertainty principle, radiation maybe? It was radiation problem Bohr atom model suffered mostly, wasn't it
Not in QM. This is most clear in the case of the intrinsic magnetic moment of subatomic particles, which is associated with the (sadly misnamed - nothing is spinning) quantum mechanical property of spin, but it's also the case for the magnetic moment associated with the (equally misnamed) orbital angular momentum of the electron.Isn't that true for a magnetic moment as well? Both the magnitude and orientation of a magnetic field is defined by the charge velocity vector, isn't it?
sophiecentaur said:When it's bound, the momentum is known accurately, because of its defined energy state so its position is not knowable to finer than a fuzzy region, given by the wave equation solution.
Nugatory said:For bound states, yes, QM says that the electron does not have a continuous trajectory. This is neither the uncertainty principle nor the answer to the radiation problem (which appears in the Rutherford model not the Bohr model), although both of these results fall out of the solution of the Schrodinger equation for the bound states of the hydrogen atom, along with the lack of a continuous trajectory.
There are a number of sites (including wikipedia) that have pretty decent explanations of what the solutions to the Schrodinger equation for hydrogen look like.
Look at the solutions of the Schrodinger equation for the bound electron in a hydrogen atom. Calculate the expectation value of the position as a function of time in these solutions. Does this describe a continuous trajectory? No.carrz said:Are you saying it is the Schrodinger equation which somehow implies electrons can not move in continuous trajectory when bound to an atom? Can you explain?
It can be. However the solution for a collection of 1050 atoms traveling in close formation (that's what a planet is) in the gravity well of a mass 1012 meters distant doesn't look anything like the solution for a bound electron. Instead, it predicts pretty much exactly the same thing as classical mechanics does.It seems to me Schrodinger equation can be applied to classical systems, like solar system, just the same.
carrz said:Are you saying it is the Schrodinger equation which somehow implies electrons can not move in continuous trajectory when bound to an atom? Can you explain?
I don't see how a probability cloud exclude continuous trajectories. It seems to me Schrodinger equation can be applied to classical systems, like solar system, just the same.
Nugatory said:Look at the solutions of the Schrodinger equation for the bound electron in a hydrogen atom. Calculate the expectation value of the position as a function of time in these solutions. Does this describe a continuous trajectory? No.
carrz said:You can replace Coulombs potential with gravity potential and Schrodinger equation will describe the same thing for planetary orbits, and you can also get their harmonic oscillator or wave function, even though planets move in continuous trajectories, or maybe better to say, because of it.
sophiecentaur said:You can do lots of Maths and get lots of different, mathematically correct, answers but do they mean anything in the real world?
I am not sure what you hope to get out of this. You asked a question at the start yet you seem to be telling us 'your' answer, which, afaics, is counter to accepted Physics. All the replies are telling you this, it seems.
Matterwave said:You can easily calculate the "velocity" in the Bohr model.
In the Bohr model, the angular momentum is quantized ##L=n\hbar##, classically (the Bohr model is a semi classical model) the velocity is related to the angular momentum ##L=mrv##. Therefore very simply we have:
$$v=\frac{n\hbar}{mr}$$
So for the ground state, the radius is the Bohr radius ##r=a_0## and n=1 so:
$$v=\frac{\hbar}{ma_0}\approx 2*10^6 m/s$$
What this value means...probably nothing...
Nugatory said:You can indeed make that replacement and solve for the energy eigenstates of an orbiting planet under the assumption the planet represents a single quantum object in the same way that an electron does. However, unlike the electron, the planet consists of an enormous number of individual particles with no particular coherency relationship between them. Thus, this assumption is an unrealistic oversimplification; it's only useful for showing that the energy eigenstates are so close to one another that we can treat them as continuous (again, unlike the electron). The classical trajectory that we observe for classical objects like planets emerges when we do not make this oversimplification.
carrz said:It's like an equation to tells us the odds of getting a 6 out of 10 dice rolls. But it can not tell us which side will turn up on each try, and similarly it is unreasonable to expect of Schrodinger's equation to be anything more than just statistical. It tells us general odds, but nothing about specific time or specific location, and so I conclude there is plenty of room for any kind of trajectories in that equation, including continuous one.
carrz said:I'd say that's a reasonable number. By the way, do you know in what units would electron orbital magnetic moment be measured?
Nugatory said:If you're not already familiar with the DeBroglie-Bohm pilot wave interpretation, you may want to spend some time reading about it.
Nugatory said:As for the units of magnetic moment... This is one of the things that wikipedia wil get right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_moment#Units
carrz said:It's like an equation to tells us the odds of getting a 6 out of 10 dice rolls. But it can not tell us which side will turn up on each try, and similarly it is unreasonable to expect of Schrodinger's equation to be anything more than just statistical. It tells us general odds, but nothing about specific time or specific location, and so I conclude there is plenty of room for any kind of trajectories in that equation, including continuous one.
carrz said:Is there some velocity associated with electron in Bohr atom model?
carrz said:Not knowable position doesn't really mean "cannot move in continuous trajectory". What precisely is the equation, theory, or experiment that is supposed to forbid electrons to move in continuous trajectories when bound to an atom?
Drakkith said:I don't think this can fit with observed phenomena such as quantum tunneling.
bhobba said:Since QM is a theory about observations and is silent about what going on when not observed you can hypothesise all sorts of things and never be able to be proven wrong experimentally. That's because you can only ever know about something by observing it.
If you disagree - fine - I won't get into an argument about it. Simply produce your calculations making predictions that can be checked experimentally based on electrons moving in a continuous trajectory etc.
bhobba said:You need to step back a bit and think in terms of the formalism of QM. The Bohr model was simply a stepping stone to that. And it had flaws eg:
http://nsb.wikidot.com/pl-9-8-1-6
Bohr's biggest contribution in his model was to introduce quantum principles to classical physics, but his model had a few limitations
Spectra of Large atoms:
The Bohr model could only successfully explain the hydrogen spectrum. It could NOT accurately calculate the spectral lines of larger atoms.
The model only worked for hydrogen-like atoms
That is, if the atom had only one electron.
Relative Spectra Intensity
Bohr's model could not explain why the intensity of the spectra lines were NOT all equal. This suggests that some transitions are favoured more than others.
Hyperfine spectral lines
With better equipment and careful observation, it was found that there were previously undiscovered spectral lines These were named Hyperfine lines and they accompanied the other more visible lines. Bohr's model could not explain why this was the case due to the lack of equipment and development in quantum physics. The reason for these lines is actually because of a hyperfine structure of atoms. Solved through developments into Matrix Mechanics
The Zeeman effect
It was found that, when hydrogen gas was excited in a magnetic field, the produced emission spectrum was split. Bohr's model could not account for this Solved by accounting for the existence of a tiny magnetic moment of each electron.
Stationary states
Although Bohr stated that electrons were in stationary states, he could not explain why.
Mixture of Sciences
The Bohr model was a mixture of quantum and classical physics. This is an issue because it was thought that quantum physics was completely irrelevant and different to classical physics.
carrz said:Thanks. That's all very interesting. Can you tell me more about "stationary states"? This is the first time I hear about it and from what I know I don't see it would be so.
tom.stoer said:Last but not least a small appetizer: of course one can study the velocity as a vector instead using the velocity squared. The interesting result is that the expectation value of the electron velocity vanishes for the ground state of the hydrogen atom. This sounds weird. Welcome to the quantum world!
carrz said:Exactly. But, on the other hand, classical predictions can be proven wrong,
carrz said:I'm saying QM doesn't really exclude continuous trajectories, and if it actually does, then I'd like to see some more convincing evidence.
carrz said:That's what I'm talking about. I propose to calculate velocity from measured orbital magnetic moment via Biot-Savart law, then use that velocity to calculate momentum via p=mv, and finally then compare that result with experimental measurements. What do you think, would you be surprised if the result matched experiments? Is there really any reason to believe those relations would not be preserved after passing through classical equation
Coming from the Bohr model and circular electron orbits a vanishing [itex]\langle\vec{v}\rangle[/itex] sounds weird!DrDu said:I don't consider this to be so astonishing. Classically a state with vanshing angular momentum corresponds to the electron falling in a straight line through the nucleus until it reaches a turning point, falls again through the nucleus until it reaches the turning point on the other side. Clearly the expectation value of the velocity vanishes at any point.
Nugatory said:Google for "stationary state quantum mechanics" and you'll find some good explanations.
tom.stoer said:Coming from the Bohr model and circular electron orbits a vanishing [itex]\langle\vec{v}\rangle[/itex] sounds weird!