Posted on 06/18/2025 12:46:24 PM PDT by Red Badger
pick either
That question makes no sense
there are a couple of answers that indicate they understood the question
That is not necessarily true. Energy is a property of all fields. In QM (more specifically quantum field theory) the electron is seen as an excitation of an underlying field. This field does have a zero point energy so there is energy even at absolute zero. In fact absolute zero means absence of energy from thermal motion - that is the random motion of small-scale particles. It does not imply zero energy, just zero thermal energy. It would be difficult to produce a situation where a system at absolute zero had actually zero energy. It makes no real sense to speak of temperature for massless particles (this is not strictly true, but such particles will always have a definable energy that would still exist at zero temperature). For massive particles you would always have gravitational potential energy — all massive bodies attract each other. You also would have rest energy (the very name tells you that energy does not require motion). This is more commonly known (outside of relativity) as mass, a form of energy as given by Einstein’s most well-known equation E=mc^2.
As an Wnglish sentence, of course it makes sense and is understandable. As an actual question about physics and physical systems it has no sensible answer. Better? It is like asking what you see when you go to the North Pole and look northward. There is no sensible answer because the concept of “northward” has no meaning at the North Pole. Similarly at absolute zero the concept of “colder” has no physical meaning.
Electrons don’t actually orbit the nucleus. That is a classical model and a simplistic description based on classical physics. It is in fact impossible as a description, even in classical physics since electronically charged particles traveling in orbits would lose energy via electromagnetic radiation and spiral into the nucleus. This in fact was one of the main drivers toward quantum mechanics (along with the inability of classical physics to describe black body radiation and the photoelectric effect).
In quantum mechanics we lose the idea of a particle following an orbit. We simply cannot see such a thing at small scales. The electron is actually a de localized standing wave when bound in an atom. The energy of this wave has nothing to do with temperature. It can only take on discrete values (although thermal agitation can excite the electron to a higher energy state). Even at absolute zero the electron is in its ground state and has a certain energy that is independent of the thermal energy of the system
You certainly know much more in this arena than I do. Thanks for the constructive information, FRiend.
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