On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 10:04 PM, Bob Cook <[email protected]> wrote:
As you can tell from my questions and comments I have a hard time > understanding how an electron can become in effect heavier in an atom > because of its circulation around a point with no evidence about the > stability of the point itself. These are all good questions. I don't know the answer to them. I was just noting the (normal-physics) case of a muon (207 times heavier than an electron) in orbit around a heavy nucleus (Pb), where the mass of the muon pulls it in significantly, and the radius of the nucleus is somewhat large in comparison to that of much lighter nuclei. In a nucleus there is a "skin" depth in which the nuclear density has not yet reached its full value. It is in this region that I imagine the muon 1s wavefunction residing, although I am not sure of this. The main insight is that there doesn't appear to be a magic boundary where the nucleus keeps bound leptons (electrons and muons) out. Eric
