Can wave nature of electrons be explained by the repulsion between them???
922361
That was the theory, for a little while.\n\nThen they did this experiment and the universe proved to be really, really creepy because electrons still act like waves when there are no other electrons to repel:\n\nhttp://quantumiscool1.ytmnd.com/\nhttp://quantumiscool2.ytmnd.com/\nhttp://quantumiscool3.ytmnd.com/\nhttp://quantumiscool4.ytmnd.com/\n\nThey are YTMNDs, but the facts are right and in a form comprehensible to mortals. Its so weird and creepy you just have to watch this and I won't even try to explain it.
1171601
The conduction band is not really related to the energy levels of electrons in an atom. Instead, it is about how electrons behave in a crystal lattice.\n\nIf you think about it, when you try to get an electron to move through a solid, it is going to keep coming across nuclei that will stop it in its tracks or bounce it back. So how on earth does anything conduct?\n\nThe answer is that electrons behave like waves. So the crystal lattice behaves like a 3D diffraction grating. You will have seen 1D diffraction gratings  splitting light into a spectrum. What this tells you is that photon of a given energy can go easily in one direction but not at all in another (the dark bands). The same applies - but more complicated - to the electrons in a crystal (metals are crystalline in structure).\n\nYou can think of it this way - in some directions the electron can wiggle around all the nuclei because the spacing is a multiple of its wavelength, in others it cannot.\n\nBecause electrons are no free to move as they please in a metal then the usual rule that their energy will vary with the square of their momentum does not apply. The band structure of a material shows how energy and momentum are related. It varies in different directions in the material.\n\nImportantly, the band structure has a gap in it. This gap is the area where there is no momentum an electron can have to have a given energy (you can see why this exists above). The band below this gap is called the valence band. The band above is called the conduction band.\n\nBecause of the Pauli exclusion principle. no two electrons can have the same state (i.e. the same momentum/energy/spin relation). So the bands fill up from the bottom.\n\nTo conduct, it must be possible to add some momentum to an electron to make it move. You can see that if the valence band is full, then you have to give a lot of energy before you can change the momentum because there is a gap before you find a vacant state. \n\nMaterials with a full valence band and empty conduction band are insulators.\n\nMaterials with some electrons in their conduction band are conductors.
78820
people have this picture in their head of what an atomic electron is like - it's a little ball and it whizzes around the nucleus really fast.  but it's not really like that.  \n\nyou have to divorce from your mind the notion that the electron has a single, fixed, localized position.  instead the electron is "spread out" over space, like a big smear in three dimensions.  a lot of chemistry teachers like to fudge this bit by saying that the electron spends "more time" in areas with higher electron-cloud density, but that's not really correct.  if it were, i could see where your confusion might come from - if it was spending some time on one side of the nucleus, it must spend some time getting back to the other side.\n\nthe truth is, in quantum mechanics an electron is "delocalized".  this means that it has no real, fixed position - instead it is spread out over a region or regions of space, and in fact those regions of space need not be connected.  the electron is quite literally in both places at once, not in one place or the other.\n\nthis is a rather small effect in atomic electrons, but if you consider a conducting metal like copper, the "free electrons" that carry electricity are extremely delocalized.  every single electron is basically spread out over the entire piece of copper.  it's kind of hard to picture, but that's why quantum mechanics is hard.\n\nhope this helps.  feel free to email if you'd like to discussit more.
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.
389400
Remember that those lobes are not real physical structure, but rather a plot of the probablity (really probability density) of the electron's spacial component of its wave function.  The electron actually occupies both lobes simultaniously, so it has no problem going from one lobe to the other, as it is already in both places.
566511
Electrons, which are a Fermion particles, obey the Pauli Exclusion Principle. This means in a system there can never be 2 identical fermions (in this case no 2 electrons in an atom) that occupy the same quantum state. This is different to Bosons (photons for example) where any number of bosons can occupy the same quantum state.\n\nIn a bit more depth:\nThe Pauli exclusion principle plays a profound role in a huge number of physical phenomena. One of the most important, it results in "rigidness" or "stiffness" of fermions as contrast to bosons - impossibility to squeeze identical fermions into each other - thus in "rigidness" of ordinary matter (Young and bulk moduli of solids are direct consequences of Pauli principle). Another consequence is the elaborate electron shell structure of atoms and of the way atoms share electron(s) - thus variety of chemical elements and of their combinations (chemistry). (An electrically neutral atom contains bound electrons equal in number to the protons in the nucleus. Since electrons are fermions, the Pauli exclusion principle forbids them from occupying the same quantum state, so electrons have to "pile on top of each other" in atom).\n\nFor example, consider a neutral helium atom, which has two bound electrons. Both of these electrons can occupy the lowest-energy (1s) states by acquiring opposite spin. This does not violate the Pauli principle because spin is part of the quantum state of the electron, so the two electrons are occupying different quantum states. However, the spin can take only two different values (or eigenvalues). In a lithium atom, which contains three bound electrons, the third electron cannot fit into a 1s state, and has to occupy one of the higher-energy 2s states instead. Similarly, successive elements produce successively higher-energy shells. The chemical properties of an element largely depend on the number of electrons in the outermost shell, which gives rise to the periodic table of the elements.\n\nAstronomy provides another spectacular demonstrations of this effect, in the form of white dwarf stars and neutron stars. In both types of objects, the usual atomic structures are disrupted by large gravitational forces, leaving the constituents supported only by a "degeneracy pressure" produced by the Pauli exclusion principle. This exotic form of matter is known as degenerate matter. In white dwarfs, the atoms are held apart by the degeneracy pressure of the electrons. In neutron stars, which exhibit even larger gravitational forces, the electrons have merged with the protons to form neutrons, which produce a larger degeneracy pressure. Neutrons are the most "rigid" objects known - their Young modulus (or more accurate, bulk modulus) is 20 orders of magnitude larger than that of diamond.\n\nAnother physical phenomenon for which the Pauli principle is responsible is ferromagnetism, in which the exclusion effect results in exchange energy that induces neighboring electron spins to align (whereas classically they would anti-align).
700830
I'll give you a little visual guide here.  \n\nOk lets think of a piece of string.  One guy stands on the end of it and he is moving it up and down and making the string look like a wave.  Now the particles in this string are only moving up and down..(there is no forward movement)  \n  The "wave" which is accually the energy that the person on one end is supplying IS moving.  The energy moves from one end of the string to the other .. and yes some reflects back.  The particles of this string don't move at all.
258518
Your analogy doesn't represent the problem at all.  \n\nWhen we say a particle is treated as a wave it refers to the particle actually not existing at any particular point.  It actually exists at all of points in some region with a certain probability (it is everywhere at once).
1007225
An electron is a "monopole".  The reason for it having but a single extending magnetic field is that one half of an electron is formed of magnetic lines and the other half is formed into mass.  The electric field of the electron forms the equatorial line.\n\nIn larger mass, that is formed of electrons, opposite fields are formed because of opposite spin lines forming at opposite ends of a magnet.\n\nTo see this on a larger scale, consider our planet.  It has the magnetic field it does because of its rotation.  Planet Venus is almost a twin to our planet, but it has almost no spin and no magnetic field.  Planet Jupiter, a large planet with great spin, has an intense magnetic field about it that it affects spacecraft that are too long in its presence.\n\nThere are "hemiforces" moving from the poles of our planet toward the equator (called Coriolis effect).  This energy increases as one moves from the pole toward the equator because of greater mass having greater spin.  When these forces meet at the equator, they are, in force, moving opposite each other.  When passing through the plane of our equator the energy moving through the plasma forms opposite existing fields.  It's always the same.  Where there is energy present, it must give evidence of its presence in some manner.
126283
In some experiments light behaves as a wave as in the single slit diffraction experiment, Youngs Double Slit experiment etc.\n\nHowever when it transfers energy to matter, it behaves as if it consists of particles that physicists have named photons. Such particle like behaviour can be seen in the photoelectric effect.\n\nSo it is both a particle and a wave, but what character is dominant depends on what situation you are talking about.
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
463572
The reality of the situation is the electron doesn't orbit around the nucleus like the earth orbits around the sun.  \n\nThe electron is in what is called the "electron cloud."  You can only say that the electron is at a certain place with a certain probability: not certainty.  \n\nTherefore, there is no way to visualize how the electron moves about the nucleus.
128025
This is a relativistic problem The answer depents on the viewpoint of the observer. oscillation is a factor of time-mass-energy all of which are distorted relativisticaly. you are probably looking at an inverse square solution.\n\nContrary to popular belief electrons do not travel at relativistic velocities only their electromagnetic wave. This problem is further out there than you think.
1111040
According to quantum mechanics, electrons can be represented by wavefunctions, from which the electron density can be determined. Each electron has its own wavefunction, which is called an orbital. The exact momentum and position of an electron cannot be simultaneously determined. This is a limitation described by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which, in this instance, simply states that the more accurately we know a particle's position, the less accurately we can know its momentum, and vice versa.  So, exact postion of an electron impossible to determine.  Thus electron can be two places at ones.
779218
Here's a great and simple explaination from Wikiopedia: \n\nIn atomic physics and quantum chemistry, the electron configuration is the arrangement of electrons in an atom, molecule, or other physical structure (eg, a crystal).\n\nLike other elementary particles, the electron is subject to the laws of quantum mechanics, and exhibits both particle-like and wave-like properties. Formally, the quantum state of a particular electron is defined by its wavefunction, a complex-valued function of space and time. According to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, a particular electron is both "nowhere at all" and "everywhere all at once" until an act of measurement causes it to be detected. The probability that the act of measurement will detect the electron at a particular point in space is proportional to the square of the absolute value of the wavefunction at that point.\n\nElectrons are able to jump from one energy level to another by emission or absorption of a quantum of energy, in the form of a photon. Because of the Pauli exclusion principle, no more than two electrons may exist in a given atomic orbital; therefore an electron may only leap to another orbital if there is a vacancy there.\n\nKnowledge of the electron configuration of different atoms helps us understand the structure of the periodic table of elements. The concept is also useful for describing the chemical bonds that hold molecules together. And in a macro sense this same idea helps explain the peculiar properties of lasers and semiconductors\n\n\nThe other links are also good sources for review and expaination\n\nGood luck
715376
It means that electrons have both particle-like and wave-like behaviour (for example they demonstrate interference).\n\nwavelength = planck's constant/(mass x velocity)
954846
Actually, electrons do have wave properties.  The wavelength is equal to h/mv, where h is Planck's constant, m is the mass, v is velocity.  With this equation you can find the wavelength of any matter.\nAlthough the wavelength of an electron is usually less than a nanometer, we can still detect it.