This is a look at what might be going on at the atomic level of an atom from an electromagnetic vantage point. I haven't chosen any atom in particular to look at. I just want to look at the structure of the periodic table as it relates to some very basic and theoretical electromagnetic theory that goes well beyond the writings of J. Maxwell or O. Heaviside.
It is first interesting to consider the Q-factor for an atom. Q is energy stored divided by energy dissipated. This is usually easiest to measure within the context of one cycle or orbit. Q, for an atom, looks to be nearly infinite as the electrons orbiting an atom don't seem to lose significant amounts of kinetic or photonic energy. We know that electrons dissipate energy through a dissipation of photons or through transmitting energy to the nucleus synthesizing heat.
The statistical distributions and rate parameters of an atom exchanging electrons with other atoms or the vacuum of space don't seem to be well known. One way or another there must be a method of modeling electrons colliding with other matter vs an electron moving away to another atom. In a given atom (any element) with a given number of covalent, ionic or Van Der Walls type bonds, an electron, will leave the atom at a particular rate. This rate is conveniently modeled in statistics using the related Poisson and exponential distributions. The electron departing the atom may be involved in a bond or it may just be a statistical departure due to a collision or charge related effects.
It is best to use the exponential and Poisson distributions to characterize the random departure of electrons from the vicinity of a nucleus. There doesn't seem to be good data sets to try to develop rate or shape parameters for exponential or related distributions. What we can infer from what we know about atoms is that the electrons move at speeds that can only be characterized through relativity. At these speeds the electron appears to be in more than one place or to have more than the mass of one electron.
From the periodic table we can try and lay out the shape of an ideal stable atom. This is a misnomer as the electrons are traveling very fast and the configuration of an atom will be in constant flux. When looking at the atom we must switch our thinking from the flux of field theory to the discrete nature of natural numbers where there is a discrete number of electrons, protons and neutrons.
Conventionally we have to understand that the elements we observe near a large mass are under a high amount of 'pressure'. A large amount of pressure translates to a lot of electrons that are exchanged between a great number of atoms. In the upper atmosphere there is a lot of plasma interacting with a lot of particle rays from the sun (alpha, beta, gamma et al.). The pressure of a large mass with significant gravity shows atoms in a different manner than the atoms we find in the vacuum of outer space which take the form of plasma rather than the well formed atoms on larger forms of mass and in the periodic table of the elements.
So how do we visualize an atom from any column of the periodic table of the elements. I spend my time looking at columns III, IV and V of the table but any column or row is worth thinking about. Electrical engineers are often concerned with semiconductors, conductors and dielectrics.
Octahedrons are the best shape to consider when envisioning the periodic table and its elements. Octahedrons involve a lot of triangles. Eight to be exact. Octaherons have three squares, for example, one for each dimension in space. Civil engineers love triangles because trusses tend not to collapse when a truss is involved. Octahedrons also stack well so that they can be combined to form a lattice. The Octahedron has eight faces as the periodic table has eight columns and models of electrons have eight statistical positions.
Cubes have eight points allowing that form to show some usefulness whilst considering the periodic table. The trouble is that the cube is made of all square faces and without the triangles a civil engineer likes so much.
Electrons move fast and constantly. There is no reason to believe that electrons always move at speeds less than light speed. When electrons move this fast around a much more massive nucleus we can expect some interesting effects. The spin of both the electron and nucleus will mean that most collisions between the electron and her nucleus will result in a bounce and not a new neutron. This is similar to the effect of a top bouncing off an object as in collides with great spin. Also, the high speeds of the electron mean that the very shape of the atom will be low pass filtered. Rather that a perfect octaheron or cube we end up with a sphere shaped atom if we could look at any type of time lapsed photograph of this particle.
I'll circle back now to the Q factor as it relates to one or more atoms. Single atoms seem to have an extremely high Q factor due to the fact that they don't seem to dissipate energy over short periods of time. Putting ten to the power of forty atoms in close proximity adds a low pass filter effect to the Q factor of the new system. Energy stored vs. energy dissipated goes down greatly because of the energy stored in the form of capacitance and inductance and the energy dissipated rises due to interactions between the electrons and the lattice or nuclear complex. It is important to consider the transmission line equations as they relate to large masses. The transmission line equations as they relate to large masses displaying obvious gravity may be the subject of a future blog post.
No comments:
Post a Comment