Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Chemistry => Topic started by: Nicholas Lee on 19/06/2016 19:22:57
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Does a electrons spin, have anything to do with a electrons energy level, or is it completely separate.?
The Pauli Exclusion Principle states that, in an atom or molecule, no two electrons can have the same four electronic quantum numbers.
As an orbital can contain a maximum of only two electrons, the two electrons must have opposing spins.
So if spin has something to do with the electrons energy level (electron voltage requirement for electrons to absorb/transmission visible light).
How can spin be increased, or decreased, IF it is a factor in electron energy level changes.
I am grateful for your help, anything helps even a few words. [:D]
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An electron is either spin up or spin down, so there is no meaningful way to "increase" the spin.
For the most part, the spin has nothing to do with the energy level, other than the Pauli exclusion principle. However, as discussed in other related threads, this does become important when there is a strong applied magnetic field, when there is a significant degree of spin-orbit coupling (mostly for d and f orbitals), and in cases when there are several partially occupied orbitals with similar energy (so multiple spin states are available).
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if spin has something to do with the electrons energy level (electron voltage requirement for electrons to absorb/transmission visible light).
There is an important case in astronomy where the electron's spin provides a clear view of our galaxy, and visibility of normally-opaque molecular gas clouds in deep space - the Hydrogen 21cm line.
The electron is like a little loop of current, and the proton is also like a little loop of current. There is a very small energy difference between the states when they line up in the same direction or in opposite directions (about 6μeV).
There is a very small probability that the electron will flip direction from the higher energy to the lower energy state (maybe once every 10 million years) - but when it does, it emits a photon with a wavelength of 21cm, which can be viewed by a radio telescope. Radio telescopes have used this to map the gas clouds in the arms of the Milky Way, even though they are opaque to visible light.
If a hydrogen atom is in the lower energy state, an incoming photon of the right energy can kick it into the higher energy state, absorbing the photon. Due to the expansion of the universe, dust clouds at different distances will absorb slightly different wavelengths from a quasar, producing a forest of absorption lines. Cosmologists have used this to estimate the density and location of matter in the universe.
However, I am afraid that this is of no use for medical imaging, as the 21cm wavelength does not provide a clear picture of human organs that are smaller than this size. The transition is very rare, so you will never see it in a human lifetime, and the human body has Hydrogen in molecules (with paired electrons), rather than as an isolated Hydrogen atom with an unpaired electron.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_line
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The electromagnetic force is composed of electrostatic and magnetic components. The negative charge of the electron will exert an electrostatic force. While the movement of the electron will create a magnetic force. If the electrons were stationary, there would only be electrostatic force repulsion. Atoms would be larger. The movement of the electrons within orbitals adds a magnetic force component that causes atoms to be smaller.
The value of electron motion and the magnetic component is, although electrons will always repel other electrons via the electrostatic force, the electrons can attract if the magnetic fields align in certain ways. Opposite spin electrons cause the magnetic fields to become attractive so two electrons can occupy the same orbital and not repel each other the same as two stationary electrons.
The shapes of the atomic orbitals reflect the directional vector needs for electron motion, allowing a bunch of electrons to remain grouped through magnetic attraction, so they can overcome being repel via electrostatic repulsive force. Pauli observed there are certain sweet spots for electron motion. Beyond these sweet spots which generate the most favorable magnetic attraction, the electrostatic repulsion begins to dominate, causing electron to be repel into higher energy levels.
If you look at oxygen, which is one of the cornerstones of chemistry, oxygen can form oxide or O-2. One may ask how can oxygen atoms have two extra electron and not repel the electrons due, to 20% more electrostatic repulsion? This has to do with the magnetic advantages created by the 2P orbital shapes. The X,Y,Z dumbbells shapes allow magnetic addition in 3-D, which is so stable that two extra electrons can be stripped from other atoms and help tightly by oxygen.
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.... So the energy levels in the glass frog, jellyfish, and other translucent animals so their electron energy levels are in a range that does not absorb visible light.
So it to s safe to have electron energy levels of glass, water, transparent plastics in living tissue.
So I guess it would be safe to change electron energy levels in human tissue safely, with no side effects.
So if you could somehow change the electron energy levels in human tissue, to get just 40% translucency, (which is all that would be need to see neuronal activity happening in real time),
to have the same translucency as the glass frog.
Would it be safe to do this in human tissue, would there be any side effects.
I've calculated all you need is to make four inches of human tissue translucent, because that is the distance from the side of the head to the center, and around 40% translucency is all you need to see the electro, and chemical signals traveling through neurons, if combined with a microscope camera.
Just trying to see how impossible this is to do, but if I give up, and don't try it will never happen.
So many ways to play around with electrons, it has to be possible.
I am grateful for your help, anything helps even a few words. [:D]
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...have the same translucency as the glass frog.
Animals can be made transparent chemically, ( but they're not alive ) ....
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdiscovermagazine.com%2F%7E%2Fmedia%2Fimport%2Fimages%2F9%2Fa%2F1%2Friken.jpg%3Fmw%3D300&hash=9eed18faeb5a384e120a2d4ed13f7a8a)
http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jul-aug/06-funky-physics-turning-animal-transparent
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If the light wen through your eye without stopping, you would be blind. If it stopped then you would be opaque.
i'm prepared to put up with being seen as a price for being able to see.
Of course, if youo picked a different wavelength range...
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the glass frog
The glass frog has a transparent belly, so you can see its internal organs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_frog
The zebra fish is also fairly transparent when it is young.
These are both small, cold-blooded creatures that don't rely on a good circulation of iron-containing blood to keep their bodies at the right temperature and fed with oxygen.
And in both cases, the brains and spinal cord of the adult are encased in a bony cage that is quite opaque. For humans, this process occurs before birth.
But even if you can see the neurons, that doesn't help you see the impulses traveling through the neurons. To see the tiny protein tangles that produce Alzheimer's disease you need a closeup with a microscope, or fluorescent labels that glow when you shine light of the right frequency.
So I guess it would be safe to change electron energy levels in human tissue safely, with no side effects.
I think that would be an unrealistic guess.
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Are all of the transparent structures directly analogous to the same structures in humans? I would imagine that it is not so. After all, it is not only our skin that is mostly opaque, and even in sufferers of albinism the skin is far from transparent. If you've ever seen a cut of meat, you will recall the shiny, white opacity of connective tissue, the bright red of muscle tissue. Even if the skin were transparent, these structures would still be in the way since we don't make a habit of growing nervous tissue in vulnerable areas, with the exception of the funny bone, of which we are all painfully aware, no doubt!
I would also consider the thickness of transparent structures in fish and frogs. Even if our skin was identical to frog skin, which would be extremely problematic in and of itself, would it still be transparent or appreciably translucent at the normal width of human skin? We'd probably have to test that to be sure, or you could repost a variant of this question in the physics forum: "How thick does a glass frog's skin have to be before it is no longer transparent?"
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Even if I could make human tissue 40% translucent, there is the problem of how to see neurons firing.
Well there is the gene therapy approach which make neurons fluoresce, but this can only be done in mice, it has bee done with mice at Stanford University.
I am hoping a powerful microscope camera will get over this problem, as well as the INUMAC MRI machine, which is yet to be built, which can see the BOLD effect in a area as small as 1000 neurons.but its just the BOLD signal blood, and oxygen going to neurons.
quote author=evan_au link=topic=67304.msg490652#msg490652 date=1466633323]
the glass frog
The glass frog has a transparent belly, so you can see its internal organs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_frog
The zebra fish is also fairly transparent when it is young.
These are both small, cold-blooded creatures that don't rely on a good circulation of iron-containing blood to keep their bodies at the right temperature and fed with oxygen.
And in both cases, the brains and spinal cord of the adult are encased in a bony cage that is quite opaque. For humans, this process occurs before birth.
But even if you can see the neurons, that doesn't help you see the impulses traveling through the neurons. To see the tiny protein tangles that produce Alzheimer's disease you need a closeup with a microscope, or fluorescent labels that glow when you shine light of the right frequency.
So I guess it would be safe to change electron energy levels in human tissue safely, with no side effects.
I think that would be an unrealistic guess.
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Out of curiosity, if you could directly observe neurons firing, what would you hope to see?
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If you could see neurons firing in real time, at micron scales you, can see how brain diseases, and disorders effect the brain.
Then find better ways to treat them, also just to understand the brain better, how it works.
I have a design for a microscope camera that is currently pending for a grant at Stanford, and Duke University.
The way it works is imagine a pond, with fishes, put a glass in the pond, and a cubic camera is inside the glass, with camera lenses all over the cubic camera, so the camera can see in all directions of space up, down, left, right, forwards, and backwards.
So you could see the fishes in all directions of space.
In terms of the brain the pond is the brain and the fishes are the neurons.
The gene therapy approach makes neurons fluoresce, that how you can see them firing in real time.
Problem is my knowledge is in neuroscience, not microscope design, or electronics, a Stanford physicist says because I cannot explain how the camera can be built, they are hesitant to give a grant to build it.
Even though the camera could give the ability to see neurons firing in all directions of space, and you could construct a 3D image of a group of neurons firing in real time.
You could deduce what neurons are firing, when a certain image is shown to the mice.
You could understand better how memories are stored in the brain, because it is not completely understood.
But this brain mapping camera can never be used on humans so, that's why there is not interest to give a grant to build it, even if it helps understand how memories are consolidated.
My main goal is to treat brain disease, and disorders, and to understand how neurons form memories.
To see what groups of neurons fire when someone thinks of a certain thing, or see's a certain stimulus.
Then associate those neurons with what the person is thinking, and seeing, and build neuronal maps of the brain.
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There are people who have studied the neurons of transparent zebra fish modified such that the neurons fluoresce when they fire. Unfortunately, this methodology is unlikely to apply to humans...