3 ms·
Good point! But it's also an unstable system: the -1 will get attracted to one of the +2 charges and (from a distance) look like a +1, and the other charge will
by dguest 4y ago
Good point! But it's also an unstable system: the -1 will get attracted to one of the +2 charges and (from a distance) look like a +1, and the other charge will fly off to infinity.
I guess we could design a bunch of picometer-scale scaffolds that hold everything in place and this might work, but that doesn't seem to be the way nature put things.
- phkahler 4y agoSure, but what if they're orbiting the center charge at relativistic speeds? Now they also create a magnetic field. My guess is that somehow it ends up being dynamically stable. Also that the strong force holding the nucleus together is actually mostly magnetism. I would also posit that just maybe there is such thing as an electrostatic black hole. When matter is accelerated gravitationally to speed c, you reach an event horizon. Same should happen if the acceleration is due to charges, but will happen at a scale similar to the size of baryons. I'd say there is a lot of room for some theoretical developments in this area.
- thriftwy 4y agoStuff will only keep an orbit if it has nothing else to do, i.e. if it is dynamically stable.
- simiones 4y ago> Also that the strong force holding the nucleus together is actually mostly magnetism. If that were the case, you would expect protons to tear apart in the presence of strong electric fields. The fact that this seems impossible suggests pretty strongly