Is the reason the position of an electron cannot be found due to an extra, imperceptible dimension?
83696
No, that's not the case.  It's not a question of the electron disappearing.  We know that it's in our spacetime.  We just can't determine it's position without stopping it, or it's velocity without changing it's position.
730175
As I understand it, the electrons are found where they are because of the interplay of the fundamental forces, and some random element.  Consider the possibility that asking where an electron is might be a silly question to "mother" nature, and she might give silly answers in response.\n\nthis is helpful:\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom#Electron_configuration\n\nlook up the Pauli exclusion principle, it's coo
524918
what dimensions boil down to is this: to specify where something is in space we need to know four peices of information. take a location on the earth for example, if i were to ask you to meet me someplace you would need to know the lattitude, longitude and height above the surface of the earth (it doesn't do you any good to know i'm in the empire state building if you don't know what floor) and the time we were to meet.  these are the observable dimensions. some scientist theorize that the observable dimensions are not the only ones. the cannonical example would be to consider a wire like a wire on a telephone line. how would you describe where something is on a telephone line? if you look at a wire from far away it seems to have only one dimension, so instead of haveing to give three pieces of information to specify a place to meet i could only use two: "meet me 300 feet down the line at high noon".  but when we get close we observe that there is more then one dimension in the wire. if we were say ants crawling along the wire we would need to know if we were meeting at the top of the wire or on the bottom of the wire or whatever. the dimension that we don't see from far away is the analogy of the dimensions that we exsist in but aren't "observable".  they are balled up in a very tiny space, so that we don't notice that they are there, but if we were smaller then atoms we might notice
835410
You need to get your units in a consistent form.  I suggest changing the velocity of the electron to 2.5E6 m/s so when you divide it into c-----------WAIT A MINUTE!-----Yor formula is NOT right, because you're dividing a speed by a speed, which will give a dimensionless answer.  Wavelength is a LENGTH, so the answer must come out that way.  I forget the formula you're refering to, but what you've typed isn't it................
894776
According to quantum mechinics, an electron is not confined to an orbit as we know for satellites, it has a 'shell' of probability where it is most likely to be found. It also has the small but finite chance of being found inside the nucleus of the atom, so the anwer is 0.
15904
Probably not.  There are several problems\n\n1) because of the Heizenberg(sp?) uncertainty principle to learn of the exact direction of an atom one would change it's original direction.\n\n2) even if we could know a priori all that information it would require a simulation machine the size of the universe to calculate everything exactly.\n\n3)  I think there are still events of randomness at the atomic level that cannot be predicted.
545067
"Time" is not a dimension in the same sense that x,y,z,a,b,c, ..etc are spatial dimensions.\n\nThough the human mind is cabable of imagining muti-dimensional space, and can create clever matematical concepts supporting the idea, there is not one whit of physical evidence to support it.  And there is ample evidence to refute it.  \n\nTake gravity, for example.  Measurments show that gravity decreases as the inverse square of the distance from the source, exactly as it should in three-dimensional space.  If there were more than three spatial dimensions, that wouldn't be the case.  So if you want to postulate there are more than three dimensions, you've got to explain why gravity ignores them!\n\nAlso, take ElectroMagnetic Radiation (EMR), which also behaves the same way - i.e. it decreases as the inverse square of the distance from the source, just as it should in three dimensional space.  So if you postulate more than three dimensions, you've got to explain why EMR doesn't know about it!\n\nAs to string theory, scientists proposing it can't agree whether it requires twenty-six dimensions in order for the math to come out right, or "just" ten!  And they all admit there's no known way to prove or disprove the theory itself. That's makes the theory pretty weak. In fact, it makes it almost science fiction! Great mind exercise, but no eidence of reality!\n\nEinstein's theories provide predictions that can be proved or disproved. That's one reason they are so powerful.\n\nSo the jury's still out on multi-dimensional space - and pobably will be for some time to come.\n\nBut it's fun to speculate!  Just don't bet your food money on it!
481055
Since Einstein is rather inconveniently dead at the moment, I'll have to answer.  \n\n\nWhy we can't simply have a half a photon that goes undetected is a good question, from the information presented in that article, but a reason it can't work like that:\n\nThe energy of light is related to its wavelength, so if a photon split into two equal halves, then each would have twice the wavelength.  Of course, I'm kinda cheating here, since the relationship between energy and wavelength is one of the rules of photon quantization.  However, there's a very good theoretical reason for this: the ultraviolet catastophe.   See links below.\n\nThe "twin" in this case is really the same photon.  So, this is an example of superposition, which is similar to entanglement.  Entanglement is basically when a set of particles are put into superposition such that the outcome of a measurement on one depends on the measurement of the other.  In this case, the photon is simply in two possible paths through the beamsplitter until such time as it's measured.  Superposition is said to occur whenever a particle is put in a state such that it can have more than one observable outcome if measured.  Until such time that the photon hits one detector or another, it's both reflected off the mirror *and* passed through the mirror.  Yes, it seems like it really ougth to be one or another, doesn't it?  However, QM doesn't work that way.   \n\n\nIf there were three paths...  well, then there would be three paths.  It depends on what the detectors and other optical devices put in the path can do as far as how this would affect the whole behaviour of the system. \n\nThe example given there is the classic "interaction free measurement" trick, also sometimes called quantum interrogation.  It's an important function in ideas about quantum computing since it allows information about states to be retrieved without upsetting entangled states.\n\nIt's getting rather late in my current timezone, and I haven't had dinner yet.  I'll answer in more detail and answer your additional comments once I get some dinner in me.\n\nOK, a few additions...\n\nThe screen placed in either path breaks the single particle interference and gives rise to the possibility of detector B finding the photon, but it doesn't rule out the photon still ending up at detector A, and it also gives rise to the possibility that the photon gets absorbed by the screen.  However, the amazing thing is that if the photon does show up at detector B, then it will tell us that something is located in the optical path without ever having interacted with it.  Presto!  An interaction free measurement.  So, this both shows some interesting possibilities for quantum measurement tricks, which have implications for quantum computing, and shows one of the achilles' heels of the technique.  In this case we can do something which is impossible in a classical physics sense, but we also have three possible outcomes of the experiment, only one of which actually does anything interesting.  So, there are a lot of issues in the development of quantum computing that hinge on the ability to take advantage of these strange effects, but also give us good reliability of the answer.  Taking this trivial example, what we'd need is to develop a more complicated system in which the interaction free measurement effect occurs not 1/4 of the time (half the time the photon is absorbed, if not absorbed, half the time it ends up at A, which tells us nothing) but almost every time.  There are ways to do this, but it gets very complicated very quickly.  \n\nAs for how you get a single photon to work with in the first place...   We currently don't have the technology to simply conjure up a single photon reliably.  There are certainly hypothetical ways it can be done, but right now you just take a brief low intensity laser pulse, pass it through a filter that will
383428
It's an interesting idea, but subatomic particles that do not have electrons are also affected by time dilation (cosmic rays for instance).  And electrons do not literally spin around a nucleus (as far as we can tell) there is a potential for it to be anywhere in a give shell at any given time.
183005
Alot of people pinned down 4 dimensions pretty good, but nobody has explained the dimensions beyond 4 very well, except to say that they exist. Let me take a shot:\n\nOPE did the best job of explaining the first 4 dimensions, I'll summarize and then move into the other ones.\n\n0D: Imagine a point, the smallest little dot with no length. There is only one point in this dimension, 0.\n1D: Imagine a line that can have any length in 1 direction but no length in any other direction. We can describe a point on this line with one coordinate, x.\n2D: Imagine a sheet of paper that is infinitely thin (you hold it sideways you see nothing). We can locate a point on this plane by (x,y).\n3D: This one's easy. You find a point in 3D space by (x,y,z)\n4D: Harder. In 3D, your point cannot change. You cannot move around because in order to change position you need one more dimension, time. For a point to move from one place to another (dx,dy,dz) it requires a change in time (dt). To locate this point now you need to define its position as (x,y,z,t) or else you won't find it. If you imagine your point is a person you want to meet, you would have to be told where in space (x,y,z) they will be and when (t) they will be there, or else you are not guaranteed to find them (unless you both have cell phones).\n5D: The hardest. Go back to 0D (a single point). If we were able to shrink down to the size of this point, instead of seeing a point, we would see a tiny circle. So if you were trying to locate a point in 5D, you could not locate it exactly unless you placed it in (x,y,z,t) and w, it's location on that circle. So you now have (w,x,y,z,t). The radius of this 5th dimension is so small that we can't see it, but we should be able to perceive its effects when our technology improves. It makes a lot of sense mathematically because it explains why we can't explain gravity at tiny (quantum) levels. The math doesn't work unless we add dimensions and wrap strings around them. Note that dimensions 5 and up have a property called compactification. That means that anything operating on the compactified radii of these dimensions moves in a complete circle, always returning to its original position. The radii are so small that we cannot percieve a change in position at all; a particle changing position along one of these dimensions seems to not move to us.\n6D and up: Very hard to imagine. Your point can now be found on two circles. The easier way to think of this is a point on the surface of a sphere, which will give it two coordinates on a tiny round surface (like longitude and latitude on the Earth's surface). Now you can add as many compactified dimensions as mathematics permits given whatever theories you are trying to incorporate. Your compactified radii can be given upper and lower limits to allow them to be plausible.\n\nI saw some people say infinite dimensions and another say 27. The reigning theory has 11 dimensions. 27 dimensions comes from a part of string theory that claims that matter does not exist and that there exists a fantasy particle with very strange properties, called a tachyon. This theory ties in to the most prominent theory, M-theory, which says only 11 dimensions is needed to explain everything.
339011
Qunatum uncertainty says that you can never be certain that space is empty at Planck distances, therefore on those scales there is always some matter-energy in the form of virtual photon / antiphoton pairs that suddenly come into existence and then annilihate one another.  This suggests to me that empty space cannot exist on its own unless there is something in it.  Ultimately, we can spin whatever theories we want and debate forever which ones we prefer - but unless someone can design practical experimental methods, then the arm chair physics will not resolve very much.
799446
electrons can't line up in a plane they wouldn't all fit... unless it was like a big 747... or one of those military airbus things... and by 3d do you mean 2 spacial dimentions + time or 3 spacial dimensions? cause we already live with 3 spacial dmension (4 including time)
406372
The following things are not random, but appear to be:\n\nFlipping coins, throwing dice, the weather, etc.\n\nAll of the above are ruled by the laws of physics. But in those cases, the results might as well be random because the equations governing them are so complex that in practice we can't find exact solutions for them.\n\nHowever, one might ask whether there exist any physical system that it truly random - or do the equations of physics predict exact results for everything? (The only reason we don't know the future, in that case, would be because the equations are too difficult to solve.)\n\nThe answer is actually quite surprizing. Subatomic particles - that is, things smaller than atoms - are truly random. It is impossible, even in principle, to ever calculate what they will do next. All we can do is calculate a probability. That's from an area of physics called Quantum Mechanics. So, in this area of physics, instead of asking a question like, "Where will the particle land?", we ask, "What's the chance of the particle landing over here? Or over there? Or anywhere?" Quantum mechanics produces some truly "spooky" effects - such as the fact that an electron, trapped at the bottom of a bowl, can get out of the bowl without having to get up over the sides! That's a phenomenon known as tunneling, and is due to the fact that there's a small chance of the electron being outside the bowl, even if the electron doesn't have enough energy to get over the walls. That means that it must, at some point, be seen outside the bowl. But it's energy means that it can't go over the walls! So, it basically "teleports" from inside the box to outside the box. There are other quantum mechanical effects due to probability as well - but I'm sure you can find those with a quick internet search...
768835
Didn't answerer 1 and I just answer this question? Deja vu...\nAnyway, see the ref. Basically de Broglie suggested that it was not only light that had wave-particle "duality" but that "ordinary 'particles' such as electrons, protons, or bowling balls could also exhibit wave characteristics in certain circumstances."
547652
I asked my self the same question when I was 12 years old. I like to believe it. It was a nice idea; and then I imagine even bigger things (with the same concept) and smaller ones. But now I know it`s not possible (with the physics laws in our universe). For instance, you can not see nothing, since the diameter of the biggest atom is smaller than the lowest visible wave light. (that`s why we will never be able to see an atom, even with the best microscope ever)
827113
As a practical matter, it is impossible.  If the model is the size of a basketball, the nucleus would be a point in the center too small to see, and the electrons would be modeled as fog of various concentrations depending on position.  This applies to all elements, not just krypton.
960070
Two dimensions should be explanation enough. Assume the de Broglie wavelength of an electron is some distance in nanometers. If we draw the nucleus as a dot and draw the electron as a continuous wave around the nucleus, the wave has to be the length of some multiple of its wavelength. If the wave were not the length of a discrete multiple of its wavelength it would not be continuous because a full circle's rotation would cause the wave to jump. If we constrain the atomic model to behave like this, then the answer is simple. \n\nConsider the electron wave that is four wavelengths long. This wave is a function which describes electron density. The next energy level has to correspond to a wave that is five wavelengths long. In this way, the wave cannot increase gradually, but rather the levels are split into discrete shells, one for each number of wavelengths in the wave.