I am having a problem with this… I want to make a web page and use an electron as a logo… but, other than the typical diffused spheroid with a negative sing in it I cant come up with much.
You have a lot of artistic freedom on this one as no-one knows what an electron looks like. They can’t even tell you where to find one sure.
If you can find someway to make a ball look like a wave, and then show it constrained near a proton by force lines, then you have it I think.
What ever you come up with, I think it should come equipped with arms and a face like the paperclip MicroSoft uses.
Well, the classical Rutherfordian electron was a light gray sphere with a dark gray e[sup]-[/sup] painted on it. If rendered on a computer, you could see light sources reflected on the electron’s surface. They orbited the nucleus on yellow, ribbon-like orbitals. Relativistic electrons have red lines coming out of them to mark their path, or maybe even fire like an object entering the atmosphere. For highly relativistic electrons, the lines were blue.
They’re anywhere from 3 to 9 inches long, hard, and… what?
Oh, sorry. Never mind.
You’re better off thinking of something creative and artistic, rather than realistic. As billy said, no one has any idea what an electron looks like. In fact, the question has no meaning in the quantum scheme of things.
And I thought I was a smartass…
Electrons in atoms and molecules hang out in oddly shaped probability clouds called orbitals. Here are some nice pictures of hybrid orbitals. More pictures are available under Molecular orbitals.
-Light gray sphere… 
Electrons aren’t really there the way balls and bricks are there. They exist as probabilities, and can therefore `exist’ at any point in space at once.
It works like this: If a scientist takes a hydrogen atom, he knows he only has one electron to work with. By reading up on his theory and mesuring how excited that atom is, he knows where in relation to the proton the orbit is. But that’s a spherical shell with a set radius and thickness, not a point. He can measure any point within that orbit and have n percent chance of seeing that proton. Period.
It isn’t as if the electron rushed to meet him. The electron exists at every point at once, and when he collapses the waveform' by measuring it at a certain point, the electron chooses,’ based on the probability at that point, whether or not to appear. No travel is involved, just probabilites.
Short answer: You can’t model an electron, you can only model orbits.
this is an artisitic endeavor… you will have to indulge me and my quest to visualize an atom.
A pretty good way to visualize an atom is a small pinpoint (representing the nucleus) surrounded at some distance by a grey `donut’ that fades around the edges (representing the electron shell). There: A hydrogen atom in cross-section.
Can’t you just use a bee as your logo, instead? They’re much simpler.
How about a little black sphere (maybe with an e[sup]-[/sup] label) being ‘chased’ by a zagging yellow lightning bolt (indicating the electron’s involvement in electricity)? Or maybe a sphere with a frowny face (that is, a negative sphere : :mad:, whereas the proton would be ).
Well, if this is an artistic endeavor, then you should probably just stick to the standard electron-as-spheres-orbiting-the-nucleus model that most people are familiar with. Because unless you’re aiming at a very specific crowd, most “average” people aren’t very aware of orbitals or particle/wave duality.
<bad joke>
Two atoms were walking down the street one day, just chatting and generally minding their own business. Suddenly, out of nowhere, an ion rushes up and bumps into one of the atoms. The ion offers his apologies, and then hurries on his way. A moment later, the atom that was bumped into exclaims,
“Hey! I think that ion was a pickpocket! He just stole one of my electrons!”
Asked his friend, “Are you sure?”
The first atom thought for a moment, and then said, “Yeah, I’m positive!”
</bad joke>
A neutron walks into a bar, orders a beer. Asks the bartender how much it’ll be. Bartender says “for you, no charge.”
:wince:
Well, you can’t see them because they’re smaller than light waves. And then there’s the issue that you can’t know both the position and the momentum, (IANA physicist, but that’s the basic gist of Heisenberg, right?) and its implications…
So make it a little sphere with a cartoony face and lightning-bolt ears.
No, no, no!!
They are leptons
Is that a photon in your pants, or are you just happy to C me?