Question
How does an electron maintain its orbit around the nucleus despite having less potential and more kinetic energy in its bound state?
Solution
Let me break this down for you in a way you will understand it:
In classical physics, you would expect the electron to lose energy and fall into the nucleus. However, that is not what happens in the quantum world. Electrons don’t “orbit” the nucleus like planets around the sun. Instead, they exist in certain energy levels or orbitals. These orbitals are not places the electron travels through; they are more like clouds where the electron is likely to be found.
What I want you to understand here, is this, electrons are bound to the nucleus by the attractive force between the positive nucleus and the negative electron, but they stay in place due to a balance between their kinetic and potential energies. The electron has more kinetic energy, and this energy keeps it from collapsing into the nucleus, and less potential energy, which in turn keeps it bound to the atom.
Why doesn’t it spiral into the nucleus? Well, electrons follow the rules of quantum mechanics, not classical mechanics. In quantum mechanics, energy levels are quantized, meaning the electron can only occupy certain orbits with specific energy. It can’t just gradually lose energy and fall into the nucleus. To move closer or further from the nucleus, it has to jump between energy levels by gaining or losing a specific amount of energy.
Therefore, the electron stays in its orbital, with a perfect balance of energy that keeps it bound to the nucleus but prevents it from collapsing into it. It’s not about orbits and spirals—it’s about the strange and beautiful rules of quantum mechanics!