On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 10:53 PM, Wm. Scott Smith <scott...@hotmail.com>wrote:
> > Bohr "orbit." It takes energy -- a lot of energy, apparently, -- to > > bring an electron and a proton into close proximity. > > Actually it takes the *removal *of lots of energy to bring an electron and > proton together. it is only orbital energy that can maintain their > separation; this is its energy of fusion. > > I'm sorry, but this is just wrong. There are other forces involved in electron capture. Nuclear forces, albeit weak nuclear forces. The rest energy of the neutron is 0.8 MeV higher than the rest energy of the electron plus proton. That means it takes 0.8 MeV to cause the electron capture by a proton. It's endothermic. That's why a free neutron decays spontaneously to a proton plus electron with a half-life of about 15 minutes. This 0.8 MeV barrier to the formation of a W-L neutron is 10 to 100 times higher than the Coulomb barrier to fusion, and fusion is exothermic. W-L try to obscure the energy barrier to the formation of a neutron by calling the electron a "heavy" electron instead of an energetic electron. The Coulomb barrier is something familiar to most people from static electricity; the energy barrier to electron capture by a proton is not understood by people who only give W-L a superficial look. People, regrettably, like NASA's Bushnell.
