what's with all the circles?

[mytheory]

what is the significance of repeated circular motion of objects throughout the universe. It appears to be a constant every where you look around us. Here are a few that I thought of, off the top of my head. I'm probably forgetting some, but feel free to add on others.<br /><br />-Electrons go around the nucleus of an atom. <br /><br />-The moon goes around the earth <br /><br />-The earth (planets) circle the sun. <br /><br />-Comets move in a semi-circle around the Sun <br /><br />-Stars and/or solar systems rotate around the center of their galaxy. <br /><br />If this pattern were to continue what would galaxies rotate around, Themselves? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <span style="font-weight:bold" class="Apple-style-span">@LEX</span> </div>

 

[origin]

<b>Electrons go around the nucleus of an atom.</b><br />An electron actually forms a sort of shell around the atom.<br /><br />The orbits of celestial bodies are not circular but are elliptical and it is a natural result of gravity.<br /><br />And yes galaxies Do rotate around other galaxies or clusters or super cluseters of galaxies. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[kmarinas86]

Attraction -> Rotation -> Mass differences -> Translation

 

[MeteorWayne]

I was going to comment, but you summed it up very quickly.<br /><br />The only thing I could add is that many of the electron shells around a nucleus (in fact most) are not circular, or even spherical. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[pyoko]

Common high-school science books, especially older ones, depict the atom as a sphere with little spheres (e-) wizzing around it. It is a misconception that comes from taking the diagram literally, whereas it is just a depiction.<br />In fact, you cannot say where an electron is. You can only say the probability of it being somewhere. <br /><br />As for the others, I think other posters did a good job already. I'll just add: why is a bubble a sphere? Because everything tends towards a state of least energy. More energy would have to be involved to hold a bubble in a cubic shape, so things naturally just allow themselves to settle on the least.<br />An apple will fall to the ground because to float in the air would take more energy than being on the ground.<br /><br />If you are looking for something esoteric to do with circles, that's another thing. Nothing to do with orbits etc., but rather to do with religion and philosophy (eg. Circle of Samsara etc.). <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p><p><span style="color:#ff9900" class="Apple-style-span">-pyoko</span> <span style="color:#333333" class="Apple-style-span">the</span> <span style="color:#339966" class="Apple-style-span">duck </span></p><p><span style="color:#339966" class="Apple-style-span"><span style="color:#808080;font-style:italic" class="Apple-style-span">It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.</span></span></p> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

"I'll just add: why is a bubble a sphere? "<br /><br />And that's a real point regarding atoms, the "shells" are not spheres because there is energy being stored there. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[heyscottie]

Others mentioned that these are not really circular, but I want to make sure you understand what is going on here. These are not a bunch of cooincidences. You showed examples of two forces at work -- electromagnetism and gravity. They are both forces that diminish with the square of distance and depend upon the masses (or charges) of the objects.<br /><br />Massive objects MUST orbit each other if they are close enough and moving the right velocities.<br /><br />Galaxies rotate around themselves, yes. Of course, this just means that stars revolve around the center of the galaxy. Different galaxies can orbit each other, as well. These are all manifestations of the same effect.

 

[mytheory]

I'm starting to doubt some of the things I was taught in high school after reading responses from several people in different forums. This is the first time I've thought of an electron moving around an atom in a 3D sphericle motion. I learned something new today. Thanks for clarifying the differences between the two types of rotations. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <span style="font-weight:bold" class="Apple-style-span">@LEX</span> </div>

 

[vandivx]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p><br />"I'll just add: why is a bubble a sphere? "<br /><br />And that's a real point regarding atoms, the "shells" are not spheres because there is energy being stored there.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br /><br />look, you guys are using the word 'sphere' in two different senses - sphere as in a (billiard like) ball and sphere in the sense of hollow sphere - and I have hard times making sense of what is being said here and especially your post is dense to extreme (because you use shell and spherical together and it is common convention to talk about spherical shells... I had to read it several times to make sense of it and even then I am not sure if I got what you are saying there) especially considering that some people here evidently are still learning about all this, I don't feel your cryptical answer is helping things<br /><br />of course when it comes to atoms there is no orbiting going on in there but on macro scales it is all about orbiting and hence the circles (elipses are kind of circles in this context, no need to be so technical)<br /><br />it is actually interesting question and excercise in classical mechanics to figure out how you get all this orbiting of bodies and angular momentum build up from the initial conditions of cosmic gas cloud that may not rotate intially<br /><br />being no expert by any means in this field I suppose the orbits build up when two bodies are attracted by gravitation and miss each other (miss their center of mass) when coming together, if they are large bodies with significan gravitation and they make clear but narrow miss they might get cought in mutual orbit (typically large mass catches smaller one which is then said to orbit the larger one)<br /><br />given that the angular momentum of the whole cloud is conserved meaning that if one rules out outside influences then bodies resulting from the gas cloud collapse should in their sum of angular momenta reflect the initial angular m <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

It's not cryptic, but I didn't explain it well becasue there was 12 hours between the start of the reply and the end <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />The lowest energy shell around a nucleus is sphere shaped, called the s shell.<br /><br />As more electrons (or energy) is added the shells have much more complex shapes. Since only 1 electron can inhabit the s shell, any more must take up the P or D (and so on) shells, which are not spherical. <br />If you add energy to the hydrogen atom, the electron moves from the s shell to the higher energy shells.<br /><br />I looked around for s good way to visualize it, this is one of the best that shows the 3D shape of the shells of copper.<br /><br /> link <br /><br />Give it a look and see if this helps.<br /><br />The point is, only the first, lowest energy shell around a nucleus is spherical. All the rest have much more complicated shapes. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[vandivx]

neat page except the quick time pluggin is doing some 'illegal operation' on my browser <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br />they talk about electron orbitals and that is confusing to those to whom such pages are directed, personally I don't get phased by that but if one is learning about all this it is not exactly helping <br /><br />I suppose we still talk about orbitals for historical reasons but it strikes me as sticking with Ptolemaic cosmos description terminology in post Kopernican times<br /><br />indeed all those surviving pictures of atoms showing the electrons orbiting nucleus are trully analogous equivalent to the Ptolemaic universe<br /><br />standard view today is that unpalatable QM view that electrons are replaced by some abstract 'statistical distribution' of them (more precisely of their location) around the nucleus in whatever shapes for particular shells as that website to which you provided the link depicts<br /><br />some physicists have speculatively talked about physical smearing of electrons into the shape of those shells and that is my actual personal view (I admit it is maveric view)<br /><br />in any case there is no orbiting motion of any kind involved when it comes to atoms and their make up (spin has nothing to do with angular momentum) and it should be stressed very strongly starting in high schools and up<br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[emperor_of_localgroup]

Another good question. I raised similar questions in the past in a forgotten thread. I think many of the posters misinterpreted the main point. The argument is not about circular path or elliptical paths, but about cyclic or repetitive motions of objects. Following almost the same path again and again. It is surprising that most people don't find this perpetual repeated motions strange because motions follow certain math formula.<br /><br />The answer may lie in the stability of the universe. Only repeated motions within a spatial region make the universe more stable and give it a permanent shape. This brings out another dilemma, the entropy. Currently we know the entropy is constantly increasing. But to make the universe stable, in the distant past the entropy must have been decreasing. Which tells us entropy of the universe is not unidirectional but can be bi-directional. That can have some interesting consequences. <br /><br />Well, I don't want to speculate more, done enough already. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="2" color="#ff0000"><strong>Earth is Boring</strong></font> </div>

 

[adrenalynn]

>> they talk about electron orbitals and that is confusing to those to whom such pages are directed, personally I don't get phased by that but if one is learning about all this it is not exactly helping <br /><br />Please don't project. Those that are confused should speak for themselves. Fictitious and/or imagined questions are not really answerable. If you find it confusing, super. Let's go from there. But since "it doesn't phase [you]", then there is no room for you to make the assumption that it does something to someone else. They can decide on their own without an emissary, methinks. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>.</p><p><font size="3">bipartisan</font>  (<span style="color:blue" class="pointer"><span class="pron"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size="2">bī-pär'tĭ-zən, -sən</font></span></span>) [Adj.]  Maintaining the ability to blame republications when your stimulus plan proves to be a devastating failure.</p><p><strong><font color="#ff0000"><font color="#ff0000">IMPE</font><font color="#c0c0c0">ACH</font> <font color="#0000ff"><font color="#c0c0c0">O</font>BAMA</font>!</font></strong></p> </div>

 

[R1]

mytheory, I think another way of thinking what you may be wondering about is: what's<br />with all the closed loops, rotations, spins, shells and orbits?<br /><br /><br />I think mytheory may not, for example, be asking what's with all the circles as in a perfect circle<br />necessarily, but instead as I described above, and it is interesting, all the way to superstring<br />loops, sinusodial wave frequencies perhaps?, electron shell probability clouds, astronomical orbits, rotations,<br />particle intrinsic spins, so many things <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[vandivx]

I suppose you are the guru of the new age school teaching methods in which pupils are let to grow wild, unfetterred, of themselves like plants in jungle<br /><br />results of that are glaringly visible on these forums<br /><br />please don't admonish, let people have their opinions, I for one can decide on my own what I should say in my posts without any emisary guiding<br /><br />also why inject yourself into a thread when you don't contribute to the discussion at all but only seek to admonish those who do<br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>