# The Shape of an Electron

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-an-electron/792893>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 6, 2017, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-an-electron/792893 "2017-08-06T05:38:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![abashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c6cbf5/32.png) [@abashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abashed)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2017, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-an-electron/792893/1 "2017-08-06T05:38:18Z")

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I always assumed an electron was perfectly spherical, but it’s not quite that simple it seems. So what shape is an electron?

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**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2017, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-an-electron/792893/2 "2017-08-06T05:52:09Z")

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It’s definitely not that simple, but as I understand it you’re basically right.

Electrons don’t really have a shape since they are basically a point particle. However, you can measure the charge distribution around the electron, and I remember reading a few years ago when they did these measurements they found that the electron was surprisingly spherical.

This has some implications in quantum mechanics that I have to admit I do not understand, but one of the predictions was that it would not be so spherical.

It’s been a few years since I read this, so there may be newer info out there somewhere. One of our dopers with a better understanding of physics than I have may also be able to shed some light on the implications of the electron’s spherical shape.

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**Author:** ![abashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c6cbf5/32.png) [@abashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abashed)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2017, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-an-electron/792893/3 "2017-08-06T06:04:27Z")

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> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#):
>
> It’s definitely not that simple, but as I understand it you’re basically right.
> 
> Electrons don’t really have a shape since they are basically a point particle. However, you can measure the charge distribution around the electron, and I remember reading a few years ago when they did these measurements they found that the electron was surprisingly spherical.
> 
> This has some implications in quantum mechanics that I have to admit I do not understand, but one of the predictions was that it would not be so spherical.
> 
> It’s been a few years since I read this, so there may be newer info out there somewhere. One of our dopers with a better understanding of physics than I have may also be able to shed some light on the implications of the electron’s spherical shape.

Okay, thanks. 🙂

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2017, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-an-electron/792893/4 "2017-08-06T12:25:18Z")

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Well, not all aspects of the electron are spherically symmetric. It does have an angular momentum and a magnetic dipole moment (which incidentally are not related in the way that classical physics would predict, but _are_ related, to a ludicrous degree of precision, in the way that quantum field theory predicts). So when you ask how symmetric an electron is, it depends on what you’re measuring.