What does an electron consist of? Mass and charge of an electron

Electron is a fundamental particle, one of those that are structural units of matter. By classification it is a fermion (a particle with a half-integer spin, named after the physicist E. Fermi) and a lepton (particles with a half-integer spin that are not involved in strong interaction, one of the four basic in physics). The baryon number of an electron is equal to zero, as well as of other leptons.

Until recently, it was believed that the electron is an elementary, that is, an indivisible, particleless structure, but scientists are now of a different opinion. What does the electron consist of according to the ideas of modern physicists?

Title History

Even in ancient Greece, naturalists noticed that amber, previously wooled, attracts small objects to itself, that is, exhibits electromagnetic properties. Its name was received by the electron from the Greek ἤλεκτρον, which means "amber". The term was suggested by J. Stoney in 1894, although the particle itself was discovered by J. Thompson in 1897. Detect it was difficult, the reason for this is a small mass, and the charge of the electron was in the experience of finding the decisive. The first images of the particle were obtained by Charles Wilson using a special camera, which is used even in modern experiments and named in his honor.

An interesting fact is that one of the prerequisites for the discovery of an electron is the saying of Benjamin Franklin. In 1749, he developed a hypothesis that electricity is a material substance. It was in his works that such terms as positive and negative charges, a capacitor, a discharge, a battery and a particle of electricity were first used. The specific charge of an electron is considered to be negative, and the proton is assumed to be positive.

The discovery of the electron

In 1846 the concept of "atom of electricity" began to be used in his works by the German physicist Wilhelm Weber. Michael Faraday discovered the term "ion", which now, perhaps, they still know from the school bench. A lot of eminent scientists, such as the German physicist and mathematician Julius Plukker, Jean Perren, the English physicist William Crookes, Ernst Rutherford and others have been involved in the nature of electricity.

Thus, before Joseph Thompson successfully completed his famous experience and proved the existence of a particle smaller than an atom, many scientists worked in this sphere, and the discovery would be impossible, if they did not do this colossal work.

In 1906, Joseph Thompson received the Nobel Prize. The experiment was as follows: through the parallel metal plates that created the electric field, cathode ray beams were passed. Then they had to do the same way, but already through a system of coils that created a magnetic field. Thompson found that the rays deflected under the action of the electric field, and the same was observed with magnetic action, but the cathode ray beams did not change the trajectory if they were acted upon by both fields in certain ratios, which depended on the velocity of the particles.

After calculations, Thompson learned that the velocity of these particles was significantly lower than the speed of light, which meant that they had mass. Since that moment, physicists have come to believe that the open particles of matter are part of the atom, which was subsequently confirmed by Rutherford 's experiments. He called it the "planetary model of the atom."

Paradoxes of the Quantum World

The question of what the electron consists of is quite complex, at least at this stage of the development of science. Before considering it, one must turn to one of the paradoxes of quantum physics, which even scientists themselves can not explain. This is a famous experiment with two slots, explaining the dual nature of the electron.

Its essence lies in the fact that before the "gun" firing particles, a frame with a vertical rectangular hole is installed. Behind it there is a wall on which traces from hits will be observed. So first we need to understand how matter behaves. The easiest way to imagine how the tennis balls are launched by the machine. Some of the balls fall into the hole, and the traces of hits on the wall are added to one vertical strip. If at some distance to add another one of the same hole, the traces will form, respectively, two bands.

Waves in this situation behave differently. If there are signs of a collision with a wave on the wall, then in the case of one hole, the strip will also be one. However, everything changes in the case of two slits. The wave, passing through the holes, is divided in half. If the top of one of the waves meets the lower part of the other, they quench each other, and an interference pattern appears on the wall (several vertical bands). The places at the intersection of the waves will leave a trace, but there are no places where there was mutual extinguishment.

Amazing discovery

With the help of the experiment described above, scientists can visually demonstrate to the world the difference between quantum and classical physics. When they began to bombard the wall with electrons, it showed a normal vertical trace: some particles, just like tennis balls, fell into the gap, and some did not. But everything changed when the second hole appeared. An interference pattern appeared on the wall! At first, physicists decided that the electrons interfere with each other, and they decided to let them out one at a time. However, after a couple of hours (the speed of moving electrons is still much lower than the speed of light), an interference pattern again appeared.

Unexpected turn

The electron, together with some other particles, such as photons, manifests a corpuscular-wave dualism (the term "quantum-wave dualism" is also used). Like the Schrodinger cat, which is both alive and dead, the state of the electron can be both corpuscular and wave.

However, the next step in this experiment gave rise to even more mysteries: a fundamental particle, which everyone seemed to know, gave an incredible surprise. Physicists decided to install at the apertures an observation device to fix, through which slot the particles pass, and how they manifest themselves as a wave. But as soon as the observation mechanism was placed, only two bands appeared on the wall, corresponding to two holes, and no interference pattern! As soon as the "shadowing" was removed, the particle again began to exhibit wave properties, as if it knew that no one was watching after it.

Another theory

The physicist Bourne suggested that the particle does not become a wave in the literal sense of the word. The electron "contains" a probability wave in itself, it gives an interference pattern. These particles have the property of superposition, that is, they can be in any place with a certain probability, so they can be accompanied by a similar "wave".

Nevertheless, the result is obvious: the very presence of an observer affects the result of the experiment. It seems incredible, but this is not the only example of this kind. Physicists also conducted experiments on larger parts of matter, once the object was a thin section of aluminum foil. The scientists noted that the fact that certain measurements influenced the temperature of the object alone. The nature of such phenomena, they still can not explain.

Structure

But what does an electron consist of? At the moment, modern science can not answer this question. Until recently, it was considered an indivisible fundamental particle, now scientists are inclined to the fact that it consists of even smaller structures.

The electron specific charge was also considered elementary, but quarks having a fractional charge are now open. There are several theories as to what the electron consists of.

Today you can see the articles in which it is stated that the scientists managed to separate the electron. However, this is only partly true.

New Experiments

Soviet scientists already in the eighties of the last century suggested that an electron might be divided into three quasiparticles. In 1996, it was possible to divide it into spinon and holon, and recently physicist Van den Brink and his team had a particle divided into a spinon and an orbiton. However, splitting can be achieved only under special conditions. The experiment can be carried out at extremely low temperatures.

When the electrons "cool down" to absolute zero, and this is about -275 degrees Celsius, they practically stop and form a sort of matter among themselves, like merging into one particle. Under such conditions, physicists manage to observe quasiparticles, of which the electron "consists".

Information carriers

The radius of the electron is very small, it is 2.81794 ^. 10 ^-13 cm, but it turns out that its components are much smaller. Each of the three parts, which were able to "divide" the electron, carries information about it. Orbiton, as the name suggests, contains data on the orbital wave of a particle. Spinon is responsible for the spin of the electron, and the holon tells us about the charge. Thus, physicists can observe separately the different states of electrons in a strongly chilled substance. They were able to trace pairs of "holon-spinon" and "spinon-orbiton", but not all three together.

New technologies

Physicists who discovered the electron had to wait several dozen years until their discovery was applied in practice. In our time, technology is used in a few years, just remember graphene - an amazing material, consisting of carbon atoms in one layer. What will be useful for the splitting of an electron? Scientists predict the creation of a quantum computer, whose speed, in their opinion, is several dozen times greater than that of the most powerful modern computers.

What is the secret of quantum computer technology? This can be called simple optimization. In a familiar computer, a minimal, indivisible piece of information is a bit. And if we consider the data to be something visual, then there are only two options for the machine. A bit can contain either zero or one, that is, parts of the binary code.

New method

Now let's imagine that the bit contains zero, and the unit is a "quantum bit", or "cuebit." The role of simple variables will be played by the electron spin (it can rotate either clockwise or counterclockwise). Unlike a simple bit, the cuebit can perform several functions simultaneously, due to this, and there will be an increase in the speed of operation, the small mass and charge of an electron here do not matter.

You can explain this with the example of a labyrinth. To get out of it, you need to try a lot of different options, from which only one will be correct. A traditional computer can solve problems quickly, but at any one time it can only work on one single problem. He will go one by one all the variants of the paths, and eventually he will find out. A quantum computer, thanks to the duality of cuebits, can solve many problems simultaneously. He will reconsider all possible options, not in turn, but at a single point in time, and he will also solve the problem. The difficulty so far is only to force a lot of quanta to work on one task - this will be the basis of a new generation computer.

Application

Most people use a computer at a household level. With this, while conventional PCs are also doing fine, however, to predict events that depend on thousands, and maybe hundreds of thousands of variables, the machine should be simply huge. A quantum computer can easily cope with such things as forecasting the weather for a month, processing data on natural disasters and predicting them, and also performing complex mathematical calculations with many variables in a split second, all with a processor of several atoms. So maybe, very soon our most powerful computers will be thick with a sheet of paper.

Preservation of health

Quantum computer technology will make a huge contribution to medicine. Mankind will have the opportunity to create nanomechanisms with the most powerful potential, with their help it will be possible not only to diagnose diseases simply by looking at the entire body from the inside, but also to provide medical assistance without surgical intervention: the smallest robots with the "brains" of an excellent computer will be able to perform all operations.

The revolution in the sphere of computer games is inevitable. Powerful machines capable of instantly solving problems will be able to play games with incredibly realistic graphics, not far off already computer worlds with full immersion.