Electrons - Sixty Symbols

Most people know what an electron is - or do they? More physics at www.sixtysymbol...
With Philip Moriarty and Martyn Poliakoff

[@ericgremmer9911]

colleagues next door: "ah,electron time again" :)

[@d9e240]

Eric Gremmer I was thinking the exact same thing. Whoever is in the office next door, is familiar with “tap”, “tap”, “tap”... shaking their head and thinking; “he gets so ‘excited’ with electrons”.

[@hi_im_angelatrainor]

Wouldn’t the particle that is the electron be moving so fast that it could only be measured as a wave?

[@dreamingpixles]

Did anyone else enjoy the description, at 4:50, of trying to wrap your mind around electrons as particles and waves? "You don't actually *like* it, you just get used to it and learn to live with it."

[@risili5446]

Kiri Laing Yes, quite true. Also, "learn to live with it" is not a compromise or any such negative thing. As Feynman wrote in his little book "QED", the theory of quantum electrodynamics has been a very successful theory that explains precisely all kinds of experimental observations involving electrons and photons. It's beautiful when you learn to put aside vague, common-sense preconceptions of particles and waves.

[@chriscapar8542]

jjkyûûuukuulkkkuukukkukykukkkkûkuykujlkulykuykuyykyjkykjj

[@Spudcore]

I thought it was pretty funny.

[@Asidders]

You're not allowed to like it. Turn back.

[@felicityc]

​@pyropulse Gravity remains the issue.

[@sixtysymbols]

Blame me for any shortcomings in this film - not the Professors... Did some pretty severe editing to fit a lot in a short space. Professor Poliakoff's entire electron interview is uncut at our behind-the-scenes channel, nottinghamscience, with some extra bits people might like.

[@vicksr3662]

Scientists: Light is a wave Einstein: Photoelectric effect. *Drops Mic* *Receives Nobel Prize* Scientists: Light is a particle and a wave deBroglie: So is matter *Drops Mic* *Receives Nobel Prize*

[@SAYALI9847]

Hahaha

[@maggsgorilla]

i liked this. However it felt like half a video or a preview to a longer presentation.

[@hollygreenwood5534]

I love his concept of physics when you’re 18 being totally different

[@metabog]

I bet you get so many more students wanting to come to Nottingham now over places like Cambridge. To be honest before I saw these videos I didn't know anything about this university, but now I have almost a profound respect for it. Nice job.

[@yellowcatcat3285]

Thank Sixty Symbols scientists for showing simple understandable scientific explaination of physics and reality. I am gracefully appreciated.

[@enriqueDFTL]

I learned in my quantum physics class that all objects with mass have a wave associated with them, called a deBroglie wave. So this mean that even you as you travel along space have an associated deBroglie wave that propagates with you, which could theoretically, but not probably, allow you to diffract when passing through slits (much bigger ones like say a doorway). Crazy stuff.

[@utinam4041]

Answer to to Birhan 2006. You're wrong on two points: (i) the guy with the Scottish accent has an Irish (Dublin area) accent. It's quite a differtent thing from a Scottish accent. (ii) And he's a gifted teacher.

[@ZenMasterChip]

It takes american's or people from outside the country having a very well trained ear to hear the difference; like telling twins apart from one another. Sometimes it's obvious, and at other times... not so easy. For myself, I find there are very distinct regional dialects. Some actually a combination of two apparently separate regions, but in actuality located between two distinct regions. Like central London, and an Eastender. Or Oxford, and London. I find that if one treats London as a central dialect, one can often easily tell from which cardinal direction the person was raised. Mine is from all over the states; and yet, some, very few, people can still pick with amazing accuracy my state of origin, or one of two other places I spent a majority of my life.

[@RealRaynedance]

You know... I have almost no idea what people say in these videos but I like watching them... Whenever I'm given any physics or chemistry, I can always count on sixtysymbols and periodicvideos.

[@l0rd0f0blivi0n]

photons are 'packets' of energy, it is simply a term used to describe how electromagnetic radiation travels in segmented parts, which gives the radiation it's particle like qualities, while still remaining a wave.

[@TheLordZixx]

I can't stop watching these! I have 2 projects that I have to finish right now, and they're due tomorrow, AND I CAN'T STOP WATCHING THESE

[@ashwinarora7561]

here we are trying to understand atoms, our brains too are made of atoms does that mean atoms are trying to understand atoms

[@d9e240]

It’s obviously very complicated but yes, you are correct.

[@djskippimusic]

0:32 -thump thump thump thump- neighbouring professor: "ugh, he's explaining electrons again"

[@Zlynkyx]

0:46 This guy. This guy IS science.

[@Tesla_Death_Ray]

im a big fan of this channel, but your comment got me closer to understanding electrons than the video.

[@MrTommyHodge]

The deference between what you are saying and what is being explained here is that a water wave is the behavior of millions of particles on a macro scale, whereas an electron will show wave like behavior (when not being observed) despite the fact it is a singular particle.

[@johns1307]

He mentioned this, white light has photons being emitted randomly whereas a laser of a specific frequency has them in line, allowing for a more controlled and clean experiement

[@Jokker88]

It's the particle-wave duality. Essentially all particles have wave like properties, not just the electron and photon.

[@aluisious]

It's a probability wave thing. The wave of each electron, when it interferes, affects where it will "show up." And really that's no different than sound waves. Remember a sound wave is just a wave of energy moving around particles in a medium. The wave cancels itself out in places, but the wave doesn't go away, it keeps traveling somewhere. And the particles it moves that are actually the sound don't go away. Nothing is lost at any point.

[@TheBananular]

@Swiftynine The electron was discovered before the positron and the neutron, and was then only known as cathode ray particles and later "corpuscles". George Fitzgerald suggested the name electron, probably because of its electrical properties, and the name stuck. At the time, they didn't know of the positive counter-part, positron, so naming the particle "negatron" was not something people considered.

[@maksimbanin]

Ground state atoms can move. Atoms can move even after losing all its electorns, like in plasma. Atom as a system can gain energy via having all its particles accelerated together, or via "internal" energy of electorns-core attraction. Like you could throw or stretch a slikny, and both would increase its potential energy.

[@chrisofnottingham]

Thanks, glad to have helped. I tend to think that QM is mysterious enough without adding an unnecessary layer of wave particle duality. Feynman was adamant that "wave particle duality" was a description for the confused state of mind of physicists in the 1920's before they discovered the proper rules for QM, and it appeared to them that electrons were sometimes waves and sometimes particles. But as he put it, Electrons are particles; When you detect them, they are always particles.

[@simaomj]

it's because lasers are a coherent source of light. What that means is that the light waves are all in the same phase as they come out, it's why it's easier to see the pattern. With a regular white light, all the waves are "out of synch", out of phase. The same phenomenom still occurs, but it's not noticeable because it's on such a smaller scale.

[@daflamer]

word ! these channels are the finest of youtube

[@kurtilein3]

about those waves: it is important to understand that they only exist in the future and collapse at present time. according to quantum mechanics, thats how you differentiate between past and future. so when you look at such a wave and try to figure out where the electron might be then you are looking at an event where the outcome is unclear because its still in the future. in the present, the electron reappears, and in retrospect the second law of thermodynamics makes sense again.

[@DeoMachina]

Moriarty just MARCHES down those corridors. Man on a mission.

[@42x42x42x42]

Not only fundamental particles, but molecules like C60 or any object have a wave-particle duality : wavelength of an electron at 5.31 x 106 m/s : 1.37 x 10^-10 m of a buckyball at 100m/s : 5.537 x 10^-12 m of a 5.00 ounce baseball traveling at 100.0 miles per hour : 1.046 x 10^-34 m Physics is phun! =D

[@JusticeRetroHunter]

It has wave like properties. Liquids also have wave like properties. but doesn't mean the electron is a type of liquid. since u dont have "gas" electrons or "solid" electrons (although it would be cool to think so.) atoms as a collective can make a liquid, but not one individual part of an atom can be a liquid by itself.

[@topilinkala1594]

I was 15 when wave-particle dualism was introduced to me in school. That was in 1975 in Helsinki, Finland. Our chemistry books described electron orbitals as probability waves of the postion of electrons and everything made sense. It could be that teenager male brains at 15 are readily able to get these things but at 18 you are too into girls to get it.

[@erictaylor5462]

Has anyone ever considered the possibility that the electron is not a wave OR a particle, but some other type of object we don't encounter in the macroscopic world?

[@TCHRacoon]

Pretty much every modern physicist would say that

[@erictaylor5462]

Torben It's efferently not normal. At least not what we, big awkward things that we are, would consider normal.

[@richardaversa7128]

That is exactly the truth. Any time a scientist says "light is a wave" or "light is a particle", they are speaking casually and erroneously. We may *model* light (and electrons) as waves or particles, but the true entities are simply what they are, fundamental objects of nature for which we have no true analogy.

[@deluxeassortment]

Waves and particles have sort of opposite behavior in this sense. Because it can act like a particle in one instance and a wave in another, we say it is a particle and a wave. It doesn't do both at the same time. But the duality of the electron DEFINITELY is a characteristic that we have no words for.

[@jojolafrite90]

String theory? But yeah, it's still made of something that makes sense from the macroscopic point of view.

[@alexanderhugestrand]

Everyone usually think about waves as linear, where you can add the amplitude of one to another and get the interference. But could it be that all "particles" are actually nonlinear waves and not particles at all, and that the problem is our understanding of what an observation is in this nonlinear medium? Also, could it be that a particle is a trapped, high frequency standing wave, bouncing back and forth between two nodes of a low frequency wave?

[@lifeunderthemic]

These people deny the medium. They deny the field.

[@Christophe_L]

What baffles me is that electrons fired separately (in time) _still_ show the same pattern. I can't get my head around this, and is currently the most amazing piece of science I've found, along with entanglement. It's as if the wave is not only present through space but through time. I don't understand.

[@TrevM]

@JoeyMars1 They're identical in every respect that I know other than they can be either "spin up" or "spin down" electrons. (but im no expert, perhaps there are other aspects that differ that I am unaware of. As far as weight and size go they will be identical)

[@MrTommyHodge]

Yes correct we do not know what medium light passes through, but that isn't what this video is about. Electrons on the other hand are particles moving through space. When they are moving unobserved they form a wave-function that spreads the probablity of finding an the electron in any one place. This causes the electron to pass through both slits and effectively interfere with itself, causing an interference pattern. Therefore acting like a wave. Wave/Particle duality.

[@Norfeldt]

This is the best explanation of electrons that I ever got! And I had studiet chemistry for guite a while now..

[@hamaszg]

Gotta love George

[@Spadie1]

@Moriarty2112 thanks for the reply, I had a read about the Hitachi experiment and its interesting stuff. The sixtysymbols videos are great btw so thanks for them too!

[@Xeroxias]

Is it right to say that a wave kind of defines the path and distribution, but it actually collides as a particle? For electrons, the wave diffraction pattern determines where a collision can occur, but when a collision occurs, it only occurs in one specific location. It travels as a wave, but collides as a particle. In an atom there are nodes where the probability of finding an electron is minimal and where I assume electrons destructively interfere. The waves define electron distribution.

[@stevenos100]

how do electron-positron pairs produce mostly electrons 1/r^2 = 1/n^2 - 1/m^2 where n < m we are a pseudo-analog digital universe It's fuzzy energy until one sees it at a moment = as an observer until it's phase frozen by observation it's fuzzy pseudo-analog digital waves

[@stumbling]

Is this like how when a propeller spins it appears to be a disc, but also at certain intervals banding appears?

[@BGenerous]

Comparing to the uncut, I thought you made some good cuts to keep it focused on the particle/wave duality. Good inserts too, especially the atom with the electron wave orbits.

[@mrtoastyman07]

everyone looks so young.... amazing.

[@songmoshan1]

Perhaps Mendelev was correct, in that the electron is an "Extension-Modulation" of the Proton-ray.

[@Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time]

Could wave particle duality be forming what we see and feel as the flow of time? The wave-function or wave-particle duality of light is collapsing and reforming continuously. We see and feel this process as the forward passage of time itself photon by photon, moment by moment. Therefore the future is always uncertain because we have an uncertainty between energy and time ∆E ∆t ≥ h/2π and position and momentum ∆×∆p×≥h/4π.

[@arik9112]

it was a surprise to see Martyn here

[@chrisofnottingham]

All fundamental particles (which includes neutrons) appear to be like this. They all travel as if a spreading probability wavefunction eminates out, and arrive somewhere randomly according to the probability distribution generated by that wave, as a particle. Travel as a wave, arrive as a particle, apart from being impossible to physically interpret, it really isn't as bad as it is made out to be

[@PrivateSi]

Electrons are particles that make waves in the EM charge streams that entangle all matter that in turn effect an electron's path... Bohmian viewpoint with added conjecture.

[@StephanvanIngen]

What about this: when the electron leaves the atom (a1), it also leaves its mass behind in pursuit for a new mass somewhere else, therefore in-between acting as a wave & therefore other atoms (lacking an electron) pleased to accept the new electron to pass its 'too much' mass-thing to the incoming electron which from then on acts as a particle again...?

[@santoshpoudel5211]

I so love this channel

[@isrealjason]

0:42 best hair cut ever

[@s07561277]

Man. It's like a ballet how they tip-toe around quantum mechanics XD

[@jmitterii2]

+RyanBLOWSyourmind That's because it's weird. Lot's of potential things that we're not yet aware of going on, possibly other spacial dimensions, or other oddities. I just take QM Field theory as all particles being an excitation in a field that fills all of space-time. And that explanation, while still gaps, helps me at least kind of understand it, at least in a way that makes some sense.

[@arbitrage2141]

They have a lot of pressure riding on them throughout these interviews, their representing the a university if they say something wrong it could bring some bad rep to them.

[@Xeroxias]

Don't confuse me with someone who knows what he's talking about, but seems to me that electrons won't get the chance to cancel out. The wave diffraction patterns redistribute where the electrons travel, so you're not canceling electrons, you're cancelling where the electrons can be found. You'll find that an atom has nodes where no electrons can be found. In wave parlance, nodes are where standing waves destructively interfere, so those would be the areas you're asking about.

[@BruceNJeffAreMyFlies]

Yes Professor Poliakoff in 60 symbols! So happy!

[@sitarnut]

'' The problem is, you have to explain the thing mathematically.'' That leaves me out.

[@jacoman1234567]

Great video again! It's cool to see these things again.

[@cumlonimbus]

i liked how you used the phrase "out of synch"! thanks just enough for an answer. thanks alot :)

[@MrTommyHodge]

And also it should be mentioned that the millions of particles in a water wave interfere with each other. An electron beam will show an interference pattern when the electrons pass through the slits one at a time.

[@didaloca]

Do electrons have a specific frequency? Is it a variable frequency like EMR? What are the consequences or varying frequencies?

[@insu_na]

Hmm, that raises a question for me: Lets take soundwaves for example: If you have Speakers making the opposite sounds simultaneously opposing each other at close proximity, the waves cancel each other out. Now if electrons are waves and all have the same frequency, isn't it possible that two electrons of the same atom do have the exact opposite amplitude. and if it were possible, could they cancel each other out? Or is then one of these electorns considered a positron? or is that something diff.

[@Savalandan]

In this video two physicists explain the duality nature of electron in a simple manner. Recommended to students as well as educators of physics.

[@chrisofnottingham]

Yes, I don't know why I put that. What I meant was that you can also do stuff like diffract neutrons as well as photons or electrons.

[@chrisofnottingham]

How? The arrival of each particle *is* the collapse of the wave function. You can't see the actual waves. BTW, the stuff at like 3:15 is either just a diagram to aid thinking, or, it is a pattern made from billions of particles, each one of which has collapsed somewhere individually. So we can deduce the uncollapsed wave over time, but we never see it collapse. In fact this is Copenhagen Interpretation thinking. It may be that there is no collapse, we just split off into one outcome of many.

[@Olucatei]

No. A single electron has a wave like characteristic. The double slit experiment works even when firing them one at a time. The "wave" in my feeble understanding is a distribution of probabilities of where the electron likely is. Large objects lose this property because it becomes extremely unlikely that all of the particles they are composed of conspire in unison to wander far from the average, or so I think, but I'm probably wrong.

[@graemeweir1948]

These videos are amazing. Very well made. Thanks!

[@LadyTink]

HEY THE PROFESSOR :D Any video with those 2 people is a good video :)

[@xXwilli50Xx]

Ok, can we just stop this dicussion? You are correct and there is no more to argue about.

[@MysterMysteryHunter]

@mcRioRemedy Correct. Didn't have a laser handy, so I used an LED.

[@xXwilli50Xx]

Ok lets walk you trough this. Stone is a solid right(at room tempratures atleast)? And sand is still stones just small right? And if you take a huge amount of sand and pour it of a cliff it will pour in a sort of way and thats how everything that is a particle (or small stone) can behave like a wave. Got it? (Cuz if nt u nid 2 chk ur phzx)

[@Draxis32]

Seems that the faster a particle moves, It's more likely to act as a wave. I then wonder why, electrons sometimes acts as a wave(not being able to find where it is in a certain time) but you can actually determinate it's mass, but the photons, even though you know they have momentum, and you can't determinate their mass. And what about neutrinos and other sub-atomic particles... I guess the universe is just too complex, right now, for we to understand it.

[@MysterMysteryHunter]

Or..the mass of the particle creates a wake, and it is this which creates the pattern and defracts the light. I did a similar experiment with an LED in a tube with 2 slots cut into the end of the closed side. All I got were 2 bright lines on my wall...very disappointing ;) Could this indicate that light can indeed travel at different velocities, depending upon the source?

[@Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time]

Nice video! This is an invitation to see an artist theory on the physics of light and time! This theory is based on two postulates 1. Is that the quantum wave particle function Ψ represents the forward passage of time ∆E ∆t ≥ h/2π itself 2. Is that Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle ∆×∆p×≥h/4π that is formed by the w- function is the same uncertainty we have with any future event that we can interact with turning the possible into the actual!

[@deluxeassortment]

Why does no one address they fact that when you "observe" the electron, you remove energy from it? Why couldn't we test whether that is removing the wavefront?

[@aluisious]

Electrons do not annihilate each other. If they did I'd be out of a job. The way they get them moving is a thing called an electron gun. In this case probably a heated tungsten filament and a strong electric potential. To put it in layman's terms, the electrons start hopping on and off the filament due to the heat, and then they see the high potential and go screaming off down the gun instead of returning to the filament. They'll all come out with sort of the same energy due to the field.

[@ktx49]

completely ignorant question...but is it possible in any way that there is no wave/particle duality and the wavelike characteristics are actually caused by space-time itself vibrating/oscillating/moving? just a noob observation dont be too hard on me

[@BiggyJimbo]

i love it when the professors hair moves slightly to the side

[@johnmc2k]

Could you please further this video to address what happens when you add a observation device to see which slit the electron is going through? Is it true it then returns to acting like a single unit instead of a wave making two lines instead of an interference pattern?

[@IamGrimalkin]

1:25 I was under the understanding that, in a perfact situation, there are points where the wavefunction of the electrons (and therefore the electron probability density) is exactly zero.

[@allyourcode]

+IamGrimalkin That is not inconsistent with what he said.

[@RandomNullpointer]

It never gets to zero, mathematically speaking. The probability is spread across space to infinity, but it's just so small.

[@johns1307]

Well, Einstein himself was eager to reduce the most complex of issues to a simple and elegant explanation, so moving in this vein I think I'm quite reasonable in looking for a way to explain them in a simple way ^.^ I also might add that I share my birthday with Albert, which also happens to be 3.14 (March 14th)

[@theartificialsociety3373]

Question, so in case of single slit diffraction pattern for photons, can you ignore any interactions between photons and just use a single particle methodology for the equations or rather is there a photon photon interaction? And for electrons, they surely repel each other. So for single slit electron diffraction pattern, must you consider the electron electron interactions or can you just go along with the particle just interfering with itself for the wave equations? Surely if the electron density becomes large enough, then that would start to simulate lightning behavior which may have particle particle interactions? Can you shed some light on the particle particle interactions required for complete wave equation analysis?

[@88pampa]

Me: I've watched litterally every Sixty Symbols video KZbin: Figuratively. You've figuratively watched every Sixty Symbols Video. Here's one from 10 years ago. Me:

[@elementalsheep2672]

This video is 9 years old. I was 10 when it released. Wow I’m old.

[@jojolafrite90]

No...

[@geoffreytylerpayne]

in his example bouncing individual electrons off the desk... I would assume that you would not get bands like in the double slit experiment. Firstly, would the bounce off the desk collapse the wavefunction? And second, I assume that the two slits limit the possible paths and result in band-like interference present in the detection. Without the slits, it would be calculating a more evenly distributed range of possible paths. Anyone know?

[@jojolafrite90]

The fact of measuring the result of any experience collapses the wave function. And yes, you still get the interference pattern... That"'s the actual experience.

[@maksimbanin]

Yes they can, all of them are governed by the same set of equations, as far as we know, and show particle-wave duality.

[@rogerdotlee]

Don't confuse a particle's charge with it's wave-like properties. An electron will immediately and permanently(*) annihilate each other upon contact. Also, remember, these diffraction patterns are being done with electrons, not whole atoms. How (or if) they make the electrons come out 'in step' ala LASER, I'm not sure. I'll let someone else detail why they won't cancel each other out. I understand, but probably not well enough. (*) Well, as permanent as anything in quantum physics.

[@Spadie1]

Is it just me or did he miss out at the beginning the fact that the bands (interference patterns) are only found if the electrons passed through a slit, this wouldn't occur if you just "fired" electrons at the wall.

[@sidewaysfcs0718]

question if a neutral Hydrogen atom absorbs a photon, of a certain wavelenght that makes it's electron jump a shell , does the atom accelerate? or does it maintain it's previous state? this question keeps me up at night. because i know when particle absorb photons, they should accelerate, but then if you have a ground state atom, would this imply the ground state atom is stationary? but how can it be? because a moving observer will deduce it as non-stationary (without measuring it )

[@melitamann1983]

I wonder what pattern we get when we use three slits and measure. As measuring make the wave pattern to collaps. Would we get both pattern?

[@Goodwithwood69]

I'll stick to carpentry thanks!

[@bluecrossings5942]

Matthew Smith Hahaha

[@Vagabond-Cosmique]

Your loss.

[@DexterGoneWild]

Where's the part where you add the observer and then the electron starts acting like a partical again?

[@GlowingEagle]

0:04 that office chair looks weird?

[@caveatemp]

I love how physicists tell us that our language is not able to accurately describe the world of atoms and electrons without lapsing into antinomy. They tell us the universe is all made of these particle/waves and yet their paradoxical nature doesn't affect us on the macro level. Very funny!

[@cumlonimbus]

why did he specifically use a laser? can that experiment be done by white light?

[@smellslikefries]

"A New Kind Of Science" is on Irish Prof's bookself ... what are 60symbols' thoughts on Wolfram's FA theory of every(/no)thing?

[@Akandos]

a part from electron and photon that behave as wave and particle at the same time, is there any other elementary particle show the same property? can proton and neutron show to same property?

[@WelcomeToTheFreekSho]

This isn't hard to understand, it's just hard to visualise. But visualising it is trying to get a picture of something that's invisible...

[@Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time]

Could the wave particle duality of electromagnetic spectrum or light represent a process of continuous energy exchange that we see and feel as the flow of time? Based on: 1 The quantum w-particle function Ψ represents the forward passage of time itself with the future coming into existence photon by photon. 2 Is that quantum uncertainty ∆×∆p×≥h/4π is the same uncertainty we have with any future event within our own ref-frame that we can interact with turning the possible into the actual!

[@henrikl...1264]

I got on this video to see if they would describe how Mr J.J Thomson first theorized the electron. And they didn't even mention him.

[@lifeunderthemic]

These are the new class of propagandists. They provide particle nonsense and deny a field. Even Thompson had to be coaxed into the concept of an electron by the Nobel Prize.

[@Ethernet3]

so electricity doesnt flow from + to - but from - to + ?