How can we explain why electrons don't spiral into the attracting nucleus?
Answers
Why do electrons in an atom keep a distance from the protons if opposite charges attract? Why don't electrons crash into the nucleus?
Originally Answered: Since the nucleus of the atom contains protons which have a positive charge and around the nucleus are orbiting electrons with a negative charge why don't electrons collide on to the nucleus,since there is an electric force that pulls the electrons towards the nucleus?
The electrons (at least those on s orbitals) actually do collide with the nucleus! The wave function for s orbitals actually has maximum density at the nucleus position. However at such low energies they don't "notice", as the wavelength of the electron is much larger, than the size of the nucleus. So it does not really matter, that the nucleus is there. You may also think in the following way: the electron is pulled towards the nucleus, but quantum mechanics (the uncertainty principle) forbids the electron to be localized on the nucleus, because its momentum would be so uncertain, that such electron would not be bound to the nucleus at all. Thus, most that can happen, is elastic scattering of electron off the nucleus, which does not change the configuration of the atom and therefore is not measurable.
The only case where it does matter and we can see results of collisions between electrons in the atom and the nucleus, is a special type of radioactive decay, called electron capture. For some nuclei one of the electrons can fuse with a proton form the nucleus, producing neutron and a neutrino. In this specific case electron indeed "falls on the nucleus" and gets absorbed in it.
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