Welcome Physics Lovers! Ask Your Questions About Electron Spin

[EinsteinII]

Hello Physics Lovers,

I was working and suddenly got this question. What external forces have effects on electron spin, like slowing down/speeding up? Is that a possible thing in the first place?

 

[Drakkith]

Spin is an intrinsic property of a particle, similar to mass. It cannot be changed at all. Note that the particle isn't actually spinning in a circle. It's just that some of the math involving certain properties behaves AS IF it were a small little ball spinning around.

 

[MarekS]

Electron is a fermion with spin 1/2 which can't be altered. The orientation of spin can be "up" or "down" and this can be seen by an external electromagnetic force. It may be interesting to read about the Stern-Gerlach experiment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern–Gerlach_experiment

 

[manojr]

You may be interested to know that it may be possible to separate/select/confine electron with specific spin. See this.

 

[tris_d]

You may be interested to know that it may be possible to separate/select/confine electron with specific spin. See this.

I think they are just flipping them to encode binary information: spin-up= 0, spin-down= 1.