Re: [Phys-L] zero point motion and E-M emission

[richard lindgren <ral5q@virginia.edu>]

Another way of looking at this is the way I learned it is that 
that the electron in the ground state of the hydrogen atom does not radiate because there is no final state for the electron to go to
in as simple terms as I can put it. It was quantization that solved this riddle.

Richard UVa
Charlottesville







On Jun 11, 2013, at 1:39 PM, Bruce Sherwood <Bruce_Sherwood@ncsu.edu> wrote:

> What I meant is that, although one can certainly measure the position of
> this particular atom's electron, and as John says, since there is a speed
> there must in a bound state be a change in direction, there isn't something
> like a classical trajectory. Repeated measurements of the position of the
> electron in a specific hydrogen atom wouldn't show  a nice continuous
> curve. That's all I meant.
>
> Bruce
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 10:44 AM, Paul Nord <paul.nord@valpo.edu> wrote:
>
> > What do you mean when you say there is no trajectory in the ground state?
> > The 1s orbital does not have a zero diameter, nor is the electron frozen
> > in place.
> >
> > The other way this is said: Bound electrons are constantly emitting and
> > reabsorbing photons at a particular energy of their motion.
> >
> >
> > On Jun 11, 2013, at 10:42 AM, Bruce Sherwood <Bruce_Sherwood@ncsu.edu>
> > wrote:
> >
> > Dunno whether this is relevant, but: Classically radiation is associated
> > with acceleration, which implies a trajectory with a changing velocity, but
> > there's no trajectory in the ground state of a hydrogen atom.
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