Unraveling the Mystery of Disappearing Electrons: What You Need to Know

[JordanGo]

I just found out that electrons can disappear and return at any giving moment, can someone clarify that for me?

 

[mathman]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle

The above should answer your question.

 

[ZapperZ]

I just found out that electrons can disappear and return at any giving moment, can someone clarify that for me?

Where did you find this?

Here's an important advice for newbies on here. When you say "Oh, I heard from such-and-such" or "I found that...", cite your sources explicitly! If you neglect to do that, it is extremely difficult for us to (i) double check if your sources are valid and not some dubious crackpottery (ii) if you read the source correctly or (iii) if you've misinterpreted the source.

Case in point is this one. An "electron" just simply doesn't appear and disappear, unless we're talking about a number of "special" circumstances, such as virtual electrons, quasiparticles, etc. So if we answer "yes" to the question above, it gives a horribly misleading impression that this phenomenon occurs regularly and that's how we view an electron!

You must give your sources when you expect us to address what you have learned. We simply have no ability to read your minds to know what you actually heard/read/etc.

Zz.

 

[Dr Lots-o'watts]

I just found out that electrons can disappear and return at any giving moment, can someone clarify that for me?

As far as I know, it is not possible to prove that an electron in an atomic orbital actually follows a path (from the right of the nucleus to the left, for instance). In the case that it didn't follow a path, what is the other option?

 

[NetMage]

Under normal circumstances could you not just resort to the uncertainty principal?

 

[ZapperZ]

Under normal circumstances could you not just resort to the uncertainty principal?

What is "normal"? In your common electric circuit, the "normal" way is to treat those electrons as a classical free particle gas! That's how you got your Ohm's law! So that's "normal".

Zz.