On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 1:47 AM, <mix...@bigpond.com> wrote: > In reply to Harry Veeder's message of Sun, 24 Mar 2013 13:13:10 -0400: > Hi, > [snip] >>Classical EM theory says a charge undergoing acceleration should radiate >>energy. >>A charge with angular momentum is experiencing an acceleration (in the >>classical mechanical sense >>of angular menumtum) so it should also lose angular momentum through a >>process of radiation. >>In classical physics the process of radiating energy is expected to be >>continuous from infinite to zero, >>which means there is no minimum energy state. > > This is true, when there are no other factors involved. However in atoms, the > electron is restricted to occupying resonant states. It is the resonances that > are responsible for the quantization. > >> >>So your proposal of a minimum energy state is different from classical >>physics but it is also different >>from quantum physics because the process of radiation is continuous, >>rather than discrete, above that the minimum. > > Not quite. Above the ground state, the electron is still restricted to > resonant > states, and hence photon emission is also quantized. > (Only resonant states are even momentarily stable.) > Not only is it quantized, but restricted to transitions in which the total > angular momentum changes by h_bar, which is the angular momentum of the > photon. > It is this latter restriction which gives rise to the "selection rules" of QM. > (Not all possible transitions are "allowed".) > "Forbidden" transitions have very weak spectral lines, and IMO can only occur > at > all when the electron can also exchange angular momentum with something else > during photon emission. The exchange with something else allows the total > angular momentum imparted to the new photon to be precisely h_bar. > > My model differs from QM in that I propose that below the ground state, the > electron "spin" becomes less than that commonly accepted as the "intrinsic" > spin > of the electron. > (take my use of the word "spin" with a grain of salt.) >
This abstract seems to support your theory as long as the electron's displacement is small relative to its size. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00715060 Harry
