Tracy P. Hamilton
Posts: 1239
Joined: May 2006
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| Quote (Lou FCD @ Sep. 24 2008,20:56) | | Quote (Tracy P. Hamilton @ Sep. 24 2008,21:39) | | Quote (Lou FCD @ Sep. 24 2008,19:38) | Ok, by "spin", are we talking about a physical spin, a rotation of the electron about a given spatial axis? Or is "spin" something more esoteric?
If the former, is that spacial axis relative to the nucleus, or is it more absolute, or neither? |
Yes. 
Seriously the electron has no size, so no axis to spin around. The value of its spin angular momentum cannot be changed, to do so would mean it is not an electron.
If the electrons spin was an integer by the way, there is no Pauli exclusion principle, all electrons could be in the lowest orbital (like 1s^6 for carbon) and there would be no chemistry. |
Wait. "No size" like in 0? It has mass, so wouldn't it then be a little black hole, infinite density, etc?
The rest of that is crazy talk, over my head still.
First you say "yes" then you say "no" and then you're talking about angular momentum in reference to an object you just asserted has no size, so I'm really confused now. |
Physicists don't let trivialities such as infinity bother them, the just renormalize things. 
If a particle is not made up of anything (a fundamental particle like the electron for example) , but has a finite size, we could make out a top half. What is that top half made out of? Wikipedia "point particle".
An example of the infinity business, in quantum field theory the electron interacts with itself. Now via coulombs law, the energy is infinite since the electron distance from itself is zero.
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"Following what I just wrote about fitness, you’re taking refuge in what we see in the world." PaV
"The simple equation F = MA leads to the concept of four-dimensional space." GilDodgen
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