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.

* Atoms in their pristine state are neutral, but are regularly found with fewer or more electrons than normal; they are (partially) ionized, and known as ions.

* Atoms generally want (enjoy lower energy states via) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valence_bond_theory valence full shells] more than they want to be electrically neutral.

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_orbital_theory Molecules] often provide the best of both worlds: full (to first order) chewy shell centers plus neutral (to first order) combined form.

** Noble gases (aerogens) enjoy this happy state naturally.

* 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.

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.
+* Atoms in their pristine state are neutral, but are regularly found with fewer or more electrons than normal; they are (partially) ionized, and known as ions.
+* Atoms generally want (enjoy lower energy states via) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valence_bond_theory valence full shells] more than they want to be electrically neutral.
+* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_orbital_theory Molecules] often provide the best of both worlds: full (to first order) chewy shell centers plus neutral (to first order) combined form.
+** Noble gases (aerogens) enjoy this happy state naturally.
 * 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.