Talk:Electron

message: :"Condensed-matter physicists managed to detect the third constituent of an electron — its 'orbiton'. Isolated electrons cannot be split into smaller components, earning them the designation of a fundamental particle. But in the 1980s, physicists predicted that electrons in a one-dimensional chain of atoms could be split into three quasiparticles: a 'holon' carrying the electron's charge, a 'spinon' carrying its spin and an 'orbiton' carrying its orbital location. In 1996, physicists split an electron into a holon and spinon. Now, van den Brink and his colleagues have an electron into an orbiton and a spinon (abstract). Orbitons could also aid the quest to build a quantum computer — one stumbling block has been that quantum effects are typically destroyed before calculations can be performed. But as orbital transitions are extremely fast, encoding information in orbitons could be one way to overcome that hurdle." 
Shouldn't the article's initial part include something about this? 83.14.232.226 (talk) 06:48, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: One caution: when solid-state physicists speak of a "particle" they are talking about a mathematical construction describing the collective behavior of electrons moving through matter. That isn't to say that the phenomena they're presenting are fake or insignificant -- it's probably good work.  It's just that the quasiparticles are not fundamental particles in the sense of an electron or tau-neutrino.  They're using electrons to do something cool, not creating new particles.  Spiel496 (talk) 21:58, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

text: According to quasiparticles, no.  Spiel496 (talk) 17:43, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Elementary/Can't be split? 

message: 1. This statement ("The ancient Greeks noticed that amber attracted small objects when rubbed with fur. Apart from lightning, this phenomenon is humanity's earliest recorded experience with electricity.") seems to contradict information in the Wikipedia Electricity article, which states that the ancient Egyptians documented their experiences with electric fish long before the ancient Greeks came around.  (History of electromagnetism suggests that the amber effect may have been experienced by prehistoric humans before electric fish, but that seems not to have been a "recorded experience," and in any case, that still pre-dates the ancient Greeks.)  If the Electricity article is, in fact, correct, then I would suggest that the above-mentioned assertion needs to be revised, and further suggest that if the cited reference (Shipley) backs up the erroneous assertion (I haven't checked it), then that reference should be regarded as being somewhat less than reliable.
2. "In 1737, C. F. du Fay and Hawksbee independently discovered...", who is Hawksbee?  It would seem to be Francis Hauksbee the elder, but the cited reference (Keithley) shows that he died in 1713.  So how could he have done anything in 1737?  Britannica.com shows there was also a Francis Hauksbee the Younger, who was also a scientist, but that's not enough to show his relationship to this subject matter.  Further confusing the matter is English Cyclopedia by Charles Knight which seems to have mixed up the two Hauksbees, perhaps regarding them as one person.  Also, the Keithley citation incorrectly points to page 207, which is about events of the 1800s, not 1700s.  Hauksbee (the elder) is discussed starting on page 15 (where it says he performed a demonstration relevant to this subject matter in 1706, not 1737), and Du Fay is discussed starting on page 19.  Perhaps they meant to point to page 20 (which I can't access)?  Could someone who knows the subject matter help straighten all this out?
3. "Franklin thought that the charge carrier was positive."  Presumably, this means "incorrectly thought."  Since Franklin arbitrarily labeled the two aspects as positive and negative (apparently), is it correct to say that he "thought" the charge carrier was positive?  Or would it be more correct to say, "Franklin thought of the charge carrier as being positive, but he did not correctly identify which situation was a surplus of the charge carrier, and which situation was a deficit."  It may also be interesting to note (if this is true, but I'm not an expert) that this decision on his part is what led to electrons being assigned a negative charge value and that likewise positive current is regarded as opposite to the flow of electrons (i.e., due to Franklin's arbitrary assignment).
4.  I don't get why "fast-moving" was changed to "quickly-moving" (31 May 2012,‎ 129.173.102.179).  The former ("fast-moving") is correct English, and sounds better.  The same paragraph also has "fast moving" which should probably be "fast-moving" as well. -- HLachman (talk) 16:38, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: If nobody has any input on the above questions, I may go ahead and make relevant edits sometime soon. -- HLachman (talk) 08:51, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

text: I went ahead and made the 4 edits suggested above. -- HLachman (talk) 11:59, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Questions regarding History section 

message: I think the electron mass in u is wrong. It should be something like 1/1830 u, which is 5.5e-4  u rather than the "1,822.88e-1 u" that has been posted in the info-bar. 
Dha250 (talk) 09:38, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: That's what it says in the info box: 5.5×10−4 u or [1,823]−1 u. Note the difference between 1,823e-1 (which is 182.3) and [1,823]−1 (which is 1/1823). — HHHIPPO 17:54, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

text: Sorry, I expected scientific notation rather than a fraction. Regards, Dha250 (talk) 09:37, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Electron mass is wrong 

message: Assuming that our developed concepts related to the magnetic and electrical properties are essentially correct, where is it established that the ratio of electrons to protons has to be exactly one to one? If it is, how do we explain how the individual proton inside the nucleus is able to manage its delegated individual electron? Since the electrostatic field of the sum of the protons is a summarized value, how does the loss or change in binding energy value of an individual electron result in a condition of ionization of the electrostatic charge of the atom. These questions make the data concerning the difference between the stability of the isotopes, such as: (OE53I127 (stable, -88983Nubase), and (EO54Xe127 ec, 36.345days, -88321Nubase) hard to explain and understand.WFPM (talk) 02:15, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Ratio of electrons to protons

message: The etymology given is incorrect. Electron is not "a combination of the word electric(icity) and the Greek suffix "tron", meaning roughly 'the means by which it is done'"; it comes from the word "elektron" in Greek which means "amber". Here's proof: http://artflx.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/efts/dicos/woodhouse_test.pl?keyword=^Amber,%20subs. 66.108.43.59 (talk) 00:26, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly. It's a semi coincidence that the Greek words for amber and "going" (ion) both end with "on", but this is a common Greek word ending associated with neuter nouns and present participial case verbs. So here a compound or portmanteau word happened to be the same as one of its original roots. But it came from two words anyway. Also the date for coinage was 1891 not 1894 and I will fix that. SBHarris 16:14, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology of electron 

message: 5.48579909067 e-4 amu.  Measured by S. Sturm,	 F. Köhler,	 J. Zatorski,	 A. Wagner,	 Z. Harman,	 G. Werth,	 W. Quint,	 C. H. Keitel	 & K. Blaum. Paywalled cite of their published article is here http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13026.html, but it doesn't show the value in the abstract. The value comes from other linking websites. No reachable cites have an error term, so I'm not going to add it to the article.  Ironically, the error term on the value in the article doesn't contain the mean value given here.  Welcome to science; mind the gap. 68.2.82.231 (talk) 06:34, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  New mass 

message: My understanding is that Zitterbewegung is inherent in the Dirac equation, and that spin was generally agreed upon to be an elementary/irreducible concept...but both of these seem to be contradicted in the last paragraph of the Virtual Particles section:
:: The apparent paradox (mentioned above in the properties subsection) of a point particle electron having intrinsic angular momentum and magnetic moment can be explained by the formation of virtual photons in the electric field generated by the electron. These photons cause the electron to shift about in a jittery fashion (known as zitterbewegung),[89] which results in a net circular motion with precession. This motion produces both the spin and the magnetic moment of the electron.[9][90] In atoms, this creation of virtual photons explains the Lamb shift observed in spectral lines.[83]
I've yet to get past the source's abstract (http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.0985), but it sounds like it's a historical survey of different (and mutually-contradictory) ideas about Zitterbewegung.
So, is it a controversial/unsubstantiated interpretation being presented as fact, or am I an ignoramus (or both)?
15:38, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Update - got through the source, which in turn cites for the interpretation at issue Huang's Statistical Mechanics, page 75...I happened to have a copy of the second edition on my shelf, and  I'm not seeing this on or around page 75, and there's no entry for Zitterbewegung or Dirac equation or Spin or Electron in the index (nor do I recall this from when I plowed through it last year, though I wasn't exactly thorough); obviously this refers to a different edition, so perhaps it was removed?  67.180.84.49 (talk) 18:43, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps the original articles by Foldy and Wouthuisen or the book reference should be checked for details.--89.120.32.251 (talk) 12:47, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Virtual Particles: Zitterbewegung "caused by" virtual photons, "causes" spin? 

message: I've noted that the articles for neutron, proton, and this article, have disparate article organizations.  I've been raising
the notion of standardizing the organization of these key articles to some extent.  So far, I suggest that after the Introduction,
there be a brief Summary or Description section summarizing the main characteristics of the particle, followed by the History
section, then other sections as needed.  The Summary section is to provide readers with the essentials (a Cliff Notes of the
article, if you will), while the History section provides not only the history, but oftentimes key details for understanding the
particles.  This article could likely benefit from a brief Description section at its start - many readers will just want to know
some of the basic facts up front, and prefer not to have to read the entire article and glean the main points only after some labor.
Seems to me that all of these articles can be made better by synchronizing them about their relative strengths.  It would
be hopeless to attempt complete standardization; but these articles should at least have a similar look about them!  Bdushaw (talk) 02:35, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Standardize subatomic particle organization? 

message: I don't know if there is a template for this request but anyway... Lately there has been no useful edits by IPs. Most, if not all of them, have been reverted by Materialscientist, so I wanna know whether you agree to semi-protect this page Tetra quark (talk) 14:09, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request: Make this page semi-protected 

message: If I understand correctly, only left-handed electrons interact via the weak force. If correct, its pretty important and should be included here. Probably both in the RH Table, and in the missing text discussion of spin, chirality, isospin and weak isospin; imho.Abitslow (talk) 20:02, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weak Isospin 

message: I believe the solar cell, the radio, vision and the incandescent light are examples of the electron to photon process. I do not know the mechanics of this process. I just accept what appears to be obvious and go from there.Does anyone share this view?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.95.0.253 (talk) 15:35, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: No, this is not correct. These processes are all well-understood in physics, and cannot be described as an "electron-to-photon conversion". —Quondum 16:52, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  electron to photon conversion 

message: From lead:
:Like all matter, electrons have properties of both particles and waves, and so can collide with other particles and can be diffracted like light.
I don't think that in present day theories electrons ever collides in any process. It is always a matter of absorption or emission of bosons. Can the statement be reformulated better? YohanN7 (talk) 17:00, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nit-picking 

message: I didn't find any citation about how many quarks up and quarks down does have an Electron.
Dorivaldo de C. M. dos Santos (talk) 13:46, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Electrons are not made up of up and down quarks. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:52, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: That is a bizarre statement, because the charge of the electron and the proton are opposite equals, as measured down to 10^-21 precision, yet protons have 3 quarks inside of them (according to currently standing scientific theory). It is a "deus ex machina" claim to say that solid-cast or size-less (point-like) electrons, i.e. elementary particles sans internal structure have perfectly equal opposite charge of the composite proton particle, just because. That kind coincidence is very suspicious to theoretical physicists, who like elegant solutions without hidden variables and magic constants such as 1/137. It even makes more sense to say the electron is a black hole, tiny as seen from the outside but with a large enough interior to contain a sub-structure or even a mini universe. 78.131.76.15 (talk) 19:40, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  How many quarks up and down does have an Electron? 

message: "Quantum properties" section states that an electron can pass through two slits simultaneously. Is this a commonly accepted theory? In recent experiment on a double-slit electron diffraction https://arxiv.org/abs/1210.6243 each electron did not create a diffraction when 2 slits were open, but rather hit the wall at a particular point. A diffraction picture was created only after many hits happened. For me it seems this rather means that each electron passed through one slit only. However, I am not a physicist and might miss something. Artem149598 (talk) 15:07, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Passing through two slits simultaneously 

message: Can someone access the following article by S. J. Brodsky and S. D. Drell Physical Review D 22, 2236 (1980) and add to article details about internal structure probing of the electron?--82.137.15.238 (talk) 14:08, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source - Brodsky and Drell 1982 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: It says in the lead "Like all matter, electrons have properties of both particles and waves". I'm no pysicist but shouldn't this read "Like all elementary particles, electrons exhibit properties of both particles and waves? Everything we see around us is made up of matter but it doesn't exhibit wave-particle duality, or am I missing something? And "have properties" seems like pretty poor grammar. Richerman   (talk) 15:02, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  All matter exhibits wave-particle duality? 

message: While an electron is a subatomic particle, it is more specifically an elementary particle. The subatomic particle definition includes both elementary and composite particles under the definition.  I choose to specify the electron as an elementary [article to be more precise.
I liked a well defined section in a sentence for symbols, abbreviations, or units in a sentence for a definition.  I put the symbols in a parenthesis and wrote denoted to show a direct relationship to the term and separate symbols from a sentence. Although I think there is a better way to do this on each part, it would be helpful to have units or symbols better clarified in text.
I believe the Standard Model should be mentioned in the introduction, because it provides a direct connection to fermions, leptons, and electrons.  Mentioning the Standard Model creates a logical process for the explanation of the behavior of the electron and a provides curious readers an opportunity to connect terms to understand the electron's place in quantum mechanics.
While I do believe my bold edits did not keep important relationships that the original sentences provided, I found the paragraph all over the place and lacking structure!
I think the mention of quantum mechanics for the electron should be written with more unity and cohesion to provide the reader with a clear picture.
It seemed that the electron's Standard Model definition should follow a logical structure, with a careful step-wise analysis of the electron's properties associated with each step/level.
My main concerns were flow and clarity in regards to the edits.
I am new to wikipedia editing and wished my contributions were better executed and improved the article.
Account Create (talk) 05:13, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reasons for edits 

message: At present there is a very nice looking diagram illustrating the process of photon converting to an electron-positron pair in the vicinity of a nucleus. Unfortunately it has two problems.
Firstly, it implies the photon hits the nucleus. This is incorrect. If it were true the electron and positron would lose lots of energy escaping from the nucleus. Also the collision rate (cross section) would be very small as nuclei are tiny objects. In reality the photon only needs to be in the vicinity of a nucleus so as to give it a small kick. Another way of thinking about the process is to consider the photon collides with a virtual electron-positron pair in the electric field of the nucleus. (It can also occur near an electron orbiting the nucleus.)
Secondly it implies the electron and also the positron emerge at a finite angle theta. In reality the opening angle for the pair is close to zero degrees.
I have created a new diagram to replace the existing one. The replacement will take place within a week.
Chriskb19 (talk) 18:03, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: See  at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics. DVdm (talk) 18:41, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Replacement figure about photon to electron-positron conversion in the vicinity of a nucleus 

message: "Arthur Schuster expanded upon Crookes' experiments by placing metal plates parallel to the cathode rays and applying an electric potential between the plates. The field deflected the rays toward the positively charged plate, providing further evidence that the rays carried negative charge. By measuring the amount of deflection for a given level of current, in 1890 Schuster was able to estimate the charge-to-mass ratio". It was the voltage he was varying. Keith McClary (talk) 04:43, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: So what? Text is correct. Xxanthippe (talk) 06:19, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Schuster: should be "voltage", not "current" 

message: From the 2019 redefinition of SI base units, that took effect on 20 May 2019, its value is exactly 1.602176634×10−19 C by definition of the coulomb.
See https://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/Value?e   ----    NIST is not the International Authority; but in such matters it is always very careful to be exactly right.
Therefore, the values in the article should now be as above, and the uncertainties removed.  94.30.84.71 (talk) 10:11, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Charge defined, from 2019-05-20 

message: I'm recording a reading of this article for Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia. Probably done within the next week or so. Timeroot (talk) 20:52, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spoken article 

message: > The issue of the radius of the electron is a challenging problem of modern theoretical physics. The admission of the hypothesis of a finite radius of the electron is incompatible to the premises of the theory of relativity. On the other hand, a point-like electron (zero radius) generates serious mathematical difficulties due to the self-energy of the electron tending to infinity. Observation of a single electron in a Penning trap suggests the upper limit of the particle's radius to be 10−22 meters.
The article could possibly mention here the rather controversial theory of electrons being "pocket blackholes" which allegedly explains the radius duality problem - through a true size of singularity (i.e. zero) vs a measurable event horizont-ish size. 94.21.237.197 (talk) 11:22, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: To 2 edit spa: Please do not use Wikipedia talk pages to discuss your own views of physics WP:NOTFORUM. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:21, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Black dot theory of electrons not mentioned? 

message: Should it be "The electron is..." or "An electron is..."? Professor Penguino (talk) 21:02, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lede 

message: Shouldn't the mass display as 0.9ish rontograms? Kilograms feels like a very bad unit here Nilederg (talk) 19:35, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mass in kg?