51
Nobody really knows. Using the naive Bohr model of the atom, we run into trouble around $Z=137$ as the innermost electrons would have to be moving above the speed of light. This result is because the Bohr model doesn't take into account relativity. Solving the Dirac equation, which comes from relativistic quantum mechanics, and taking into account that the ...
41
Theoretically, a radioactive material will still be radioactive at absolute zero, and its rate of decay will be $100.00\%$ of that at room temperature. Practically, at the lowest achievable temperatures we observe the same thing: radioactivity is still there, not affected the slightest bit.
Nuclear motion does not slow down as we approach absolute zero, ...
40
Neutrons bind with protons and one another in the nucleus through the strong force, effectively moderating the repulsive forces between the protons and stabilizing the nucleus.$^{[1]}$
$\ce{^2He}$ (2 protons, 0 neutrons) is extremely unstable, though according to theoretical calculations would be much more stable if the strong force were 2% stronger. Its ...
35
I have searched and searched, oh how I have searched.
Do you know what I always tell my mom when she asks me to find something in the Internet she was not able to find herself? I ask her: "Are you sure that the thing you are looking for even exists?"
I am looking for a 3 dimensional visualization of a whole (moderately
complex, hydrogen is just a ball) ...
25
Simply speaking, because it's an appropriate unit to use.
Let's imagine I wanted to measure the length of a rope. What would be an appropriate length to use? Inches? Centimeters? Feet, maybe? It would really be awkward to express it as 0.000189393 miles, or as 304,800,000 nanometers.
(Note: if you can't see why these units are awkward, take any page ...
25
It is possible to modify nuclear decay rates using chemistry, though it is rare and the effect is usually very small. Here I summarize the information available in this link. You may want to see the references within.
There is a type of nuclear decay called electron capture, where a nuclide directly captures an electron from the innermost electron shells ...
22
In a few more words, physicists right now are confident in saying that there are four fundamental things that happen:
Protons and neutrons stick together. (The "strong nuclear interaction".)
Neutrons sometimes "fall apart" into a proton, electron, and antineutrino. Sometimes this can happen in reverse, too. (The "weak nuclear interaction", also known as "...
21
Yes, according to the Arrhenius theory, acids dissociate in aqueous solution and release a proton ($\ce{H+}$). The Brønsted–Lowry defines acids ($\ce{HA}$) and bases ($\ce{B}$) in such a way that their interaction is characterized by the exchange of a proton according to $\ce{HA + B <=> A- + HB}$.
However, this is about the reaction of molecules in ...
answered Mar 11 '17 at 7:07
Klaus-Dieter Warzecha
41.8k8 gold badges87 silver badges151 bronze badges
20
It depends how you define the surface of an atom. Atoms maintain no surface in the normal sense; only regions of space where you have a better chance of finding electrons. So in fact it is not correct to say they have a true shape at all.
Shapes of Atomic Orbitals
However if you plot the region of higher probability of finding electrons in an atom you can ...
20
s, p, d, f and so on are the names given to the orbitals that hold the electrons in atoms. These orbitals have different shapes (e.g. electron density distributions in space) and energies (e.g. 1s is lower energy than 2s which is lower energy than 3s; 2s is lower energy than 2p).
(image source)
So for example,
a hydrogen atom with one electron would be ...
18
You are attaching too much importance to Lewis structures. The 8-electron rule and Lewis structures which are derived from it are only rough guidelines for working out the electronic structure of a compound in very broad strokes. Often these broad strokes are accurate enough to make some meaningful statements about molecular properties but it does not ...
18
It is all about minimizing the energy of a molecule.
In the case of carbon, the only molecule that adopts a perfect hexagonal geometry in its ground state is benzene (and its derivatives that possess a 6-fold rotational axis). In this case the hexagonal geometry is adopted because all of the carbons are $\ce{sp^2}$ hybridized. The ideal geometry (lowest ...
18
This is due to the mass-energy equivalence and a phenomenon called binding energy.
Forming a nucleus releases energy because the nucleons are falling into a potential energy well. Due to Einstein's mass energy equivalence this results in the mass of the new nucleus being less than that of the particles that formed it.
The binding energy of carbon-12 is ...
18
The synthetic trans-uranic elements (the "modern era" elements as you call them) are synthesized by bombarding a certain isotope of one element with a certain isotope of another element with a lot of energy in order to get nuclear fusion. The reason they are "out of order" is that the building blocks of these elements have to be very specific isotopes (extra ...
17
Since the stratosphere is nowhere near a closed system, a chlorine atom will eventually leave it. Look at the phrasing again:
It is estimated that one chlorine atom can destroy over 100,000 ozone molecules before it is removed from the stratosphere.
It is not stated, that it looses its potential, it just leaves the region, where there is sufficient ozone ...
16
I am looking for a 3 dimensional visualization of a whole (moderately complex, hydrogen is just a ball) atom that includes 3 dimensional orbital geometry.
3 dimensions is only enough to represent the probability density function of hydrogen. Given that the origin is the location of the nucleus, each point in 3-dimensional space will have a corresponding ...
16
But in the case of protons, we are kind of certain about their
position in the atom.
Well, yeah, kind of certain. The very notion of molecular geometry arises in the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. Nuclei are much heavier than electrons so that when solving the electronic Schrödinger equation they can be assumed to be stationary. This clearly violates the ...
16
Please do not underestimate the scientists of 19th century. They were as creative, intelligent and perhaps more genuinely dedicated to science than the scientists of the 21st century. Spectroscopy was the tool of the trade to identify and verify that a given substance is not a mixture.
The original reference which established that Didymium was a mixture is ...
15
If I understand the question correctly, OP is somewhat surprised that Coulomb's law is used to describe the interaction between an electron and a nucleus, although it is usually pictured that electrons are moving and Coulomb's law describes interaction between static particles. Should not then the Lorentz law be used instead Coulomb's one?
First note, that ...
14
Let me see if I can get at some of your questions. As mentioned above, it's much easier when you ask individual specific questions.
One problem with books on introductory quantum mechanics is that, put simply, the language of quantum mechanics is math. Specifically, most people use the Schrödinger equation which involves second derivatives and differential ...
14
In non-nuclear chemistry, everything is electrostatic interactions. This is why you can learn and predict so much just by "following the electrons"
Covalent bonds are also formed because of electrostatic interactions - they are just more complicated conceptually than ionic (actually, ionic bonds are more accurately described by wavefunctions, we just try to ...
14
One key problem with astatine is that it's incredibly unstable. There are no known stable isotopes, and the longest-lived has a half-life of ~8 hours. So no one has been able to (yet) prepare enough to make real measurements. Thus, we don't know for sure whether solid At is diatomic (like the other halogens) or monatomic.
On the other hand, high-level first-...
14
The valence orbitals of atoms are composed of suborbitals (s and p) there is 1 s suborbital which is spherical and can hold 2 electrons (one with up spin and one with down spin). There are 3 p suborbitals which are dumbbell shaped (look like two balloons tied together at the ends) and align along the x,y&z axies and hold a total of 6 electrons (2 per ...
14
See, what the Geiger-Marsden-Rutherford experiment achieved was the following: by bombarding (with alpha particles) a one-atom thick gold sheet and counting how many alpha particles passed through, they were able to relate the already known atomic radius with the actual area that could get collided by alpha particles.
Figure 1 shows a sketch of the apparatus....
answered Mar 12 '17 at 17:19
Felipe S. S. Schneider
2,6772 gold badges17 silver badges37 bronze badges
14
Usually when adding electrons based on the Aufbau principle, you go from one element to the next highest one, e.g. from $\ce{Ti}: \ce{[Ar] 4s^2 3d^2}$ to $\ce{V: [Ar] 4s^2 3d^3}$. Thus you add not only an electron but also a proton to your atom.
When you remove electrons to get to a cation, you only remove electrons. Thus it is a different situation, with ...
14
Authors may be sloppy about notation in this matter. I recommend considering $R_\ce{H} \approx \pu{10973 cm-1}$ and $Ry \approx \pu{2.18e-18 J}$, noting $Ry = hc \cdot R_\ce{H}$. Units of wavenumbers $(\pu{cm-1})$ and energy are often considered interchangeable in practice because they are proportional to each other by the constant value $hc$.
In my notes, ...
14
This is a very fundamental question and for really understanding the "why" some advanced physics is involved. I will describe the process rather superficially.
As you might know, the level energies of atoms and molecules can be calculated (in principle) using quantum mechanics. The simplest system is the hydrogen atom as it consists of a single ...
13
The mass scale has changed over time, largely due to different isotopes of the "baseline." Not surprisingly, there's a good Wikipedia article on the matter.
In the 20th century, until the 1960s chemists and physicists used two different atomic-mass scales. The chemists used a "atomic mass unit" (amu) scale such that the natural mixture of oxygen isotopes ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
