Electronics

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* In a normal environment, electrons and protons carry a charge, equal in magnitude and opposite in sign, neutrons do not carry a charge, and everything else that might carry a charge (muons, taus, electron-like antileptons, some mesons, heavy quarks, W bosons) is vanishingly rare (and decaying very soon).

** Photons do not carry a charge, but they do carry energy, and are the mediators of the electromagnetic interaction.

* At the atomic scale, one need deal with quantization of angular momentum, and solve for lowest energies with the Schrödinger equation, and the electromagnetic interaction is described by QED, and the Heisenberg principle applies. Suffice to know that electrons do not slam into the nucleus, ~~despite~~ the fact that at larger scales:

* At the atomic scale, one need deal with quantization of angular momentum, and solve for lowest energies with the Schrödinger equation, and the electromagnetic interaction is described by QED, and the Heisenberg principle applies. Suffice to know that electrons do not slam into the nucleus.

** Most of the time. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_capture Electron capture] sees an electron combine with a proton, yielding a neutron and an electron neutrino, but this is actually a weak interaction, not an electromagnetic one! The electron exchanges a W boson with an up quark in the proton, changing it to a (heavier) down quark (and ν<sub>e</sub>), but reducing total energy of the bound system.

* Despite the fact that at larger scales:

** Charges of equal sign repel, while charges of opposite sign attract, and

** the effect of charge between two charged bodies falls off with the square of the distance, and

Electronics: Difference between revisions

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 * In a normal environment, electrons and protons carry a charge, equal in magnitude and opposite in sign, neutrons do not carry a charge, and everything else that might carry a charge (muons, taus, electron-like antileptons, some mesons, heavy quarks, W bosons) is vanishingly rare (and decaying very soon).
 ** Photons do not carry a charge, but they do carry energy, and are the mediators of the electromagnetic interaction.
-* At the atomic scale, one need deal with quantization of angular momentum, and solve for lowest energies with the Schrödinger equation, and the electromagnetic interaction is described by QED, and the Heisenberg principle applies. Suffice to know that electrons do not slam into the nucleus, despite the fact that at larger scales:
+* At the atomic scale, one need deal with quantization of angular momentum, and solve for lowest energies with the Schrödinger equation, and the electromagnetic interaction is described by QED, and the Heisenberg principle applies. Suffice to know that electrons do not slam into the nucleus.
+** Most of the time. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_capture Electron capture] sees an electron combine with a proton, yielding a neutron and an electron neutrino, but this is actually a weak interaction, not an electromagnetic one! The electron exchanges a W boson with an up quark in the proton, changing it to a (heavier) down quark (and ν<sub>e</sub>), but reducing total energy of the bound system.
+* Despite the fact that at larger scales:
 ** Charges of equal sign repel, while charges of opposite sign attract, and
 ** the effect of charge between two charged bodies falls off with the square of the distance, and