Or in other words which forces keep electrons in orbitals and prevent it from flying away or crashing into the nucleus according to modern understanding?

  • threelonmusketeers
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    3 months ago

    electrons should spontaneously decay

    Really? What is it hypothesized that they decay into?

    • AmalgamatedIllusions@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      They are not expected to decay. The half-life they’re thinking of is a lower-bound based on current measurements, not an actual expected half-life.

    • Dave.@aussie.zone
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      3 months ago

      I looked it up, after 6.6 x 10e28 years or so they are theorised to decay into neutrinos and photons.

      • threelonmusketeers
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        3 months ago

        Huh, interesting. So would charge not be conserved in that process? Neither neutrinos nor photons are charged.

        • AmalgamatedIllusions@lemmy.ml
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          3 months ago

          Charge conservation would indeed be violated, which is why this decay is not expected. Dave is mistaken: the half-life they’re referring to is an experimental lower-bound, not a actual expected value.

        • Dave.@aussie.zone
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          3 months ago

          Presumably there is a transformation of charge to energy which is then carried away by the photon, but all of this is beyond my understanding of the theories involved.

          • AmalgamatedIllusions@lemmy.ml
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            3 months ago

            Charge conservation would unambiguously be violated, which is why this decay is not expected. The half-life you quote is an experimental lower-bound.