[PmbPhy]

I haven't think out a way to detect it to proof or disproof its existence, can you help?

You'd do it the same way that you'd prove or disprove the existance of unicorns.

Physics laws are created by men, men don't create particles.

What's your point? The laws of physics are indeed created by man but they describe nature whose existance man does not dictate.

Please do yourself a major favor. Study the following articles very carefully;

http://home.comcast.net/~peter.m.brown/ref/philosophy_physics.pdf
http://home.comcast.net/~peter.m.brown/ref/what_is_science.pdf

[JP]

You didn't come out anything you knew besides from books.

Can you proof enertron is not there? How you explain electrons not stick to proton?
Wait few more years, learn more new theories and discoveries. Science is advancing.

Since this is a science forum, we're all here to discuss what science currently knows.  If you'd like to discuss what you think might be discovered in the future, please keep the discussion to the New Theories forum.

[jccc]

So why don't electrons stick to protons instead of flying around the nucleus? Magnets do it, so why can't atoms?

The present state of physical science does not allow "why" questions. Any answer will have to be speculative.

Why not? Science should be always allows why questions?

[alancalverd]

Why not? Science should be always allows why questions?

No. "Why" implies an ulterior purpose. There is no evidence of one, nor that fundamental particles have any knowledge of such a purpose. Purpose is a construct of living things, not a property of their constituent atoms.

Science is concerned with "how" - though biologists may occasionally ask "why" as long as they are wary of excessive anthropomorphism. Hence the truly scientific answer to why the chicken crossed the road.

[JP]

Science is all about applying the scientific method to come up with models of nature.  The key term (for this discussion) is models.  Science doesn't deal with coming up with a fundamental "real" cause for everything.  All we as scientists can do it to come up with accurate models and then leave it to philosophers to argue over whether the model itself is reality or whether it is simply a model of some deeper underlying reality. 

The problem with posting ideas like "I think an electron can stick to a proton" is that there is no science to back that up.  It may or may not be a good idea, but unless you can show:

a) The theory is consistent with other existing measurements
b) The theory is testable and falsifiable

It is not even on the track to being a scientific theory.

[jccc]

I never posted ideas like "I think an electron can stick to a proton".

I posted ideas like this.

"If the speed of force is c, then the speed limit is c.

A 100 miles per hour train cannot push a man move faster than 100 miles per hour.

The force we use is electromagnetic force, its speed is c. Therefore, we can never travel at light speed."

What's your comment? Do you think force has a speed?

[JP]

Force is caused by a change in momentum which is in turn caused by the exchange of particles or fields.  The speed at which one object can exert a force on another is determined by the speed of those particles or fields.  The upper speed limit to anything we know of is the speed of light, since both fields and particles obey special relativity.  Of course, forces can travel slower.

So no, there is no "speed of force."  There is speed of objects which can transfer momentum.

[alancalverd]

I am very confused. Isn't Newton ask why apple falls so to discover gravitation? Isn't scientist ask why there is red shift so to make big bang theory?

Why can't we ask why to any thing we don't understand?

Seriously, what is science all about?

You can indeed ask why, but the best a scientist can tell you is how.

I am being very pedantic, but for a good reason: words in science all have very precise and noninterchangeable meanings. To a journalist, force, energy and power are all the same thing but they are entirely different in physics, and the difference is crucial to understanding and describing how things work.

It is arguable that Newton was still labouring under the illusion of a created universe with a purpose, and his work certainly predated the word "scientist" which was invented in 1833. It has been suggested that belief in a purposeful creator was the reason why natural philosophers  like Newton sought rational and consistent explanations, hence the theistic "why" was entangled with "how" in their minds, and actually laid the foundation for systematic investigation of what was presumed to be a systematic universe. But an atheistic view cannot assume an ultimate purpose, indefinitely consistent systematics, or that common logic, applied ad infinitum, will explain everything: you may have to accept from time to time that "that's just the way it is", and that certainly applies to quantum mechanics. 

So we observe red shift and ask how it can be explained. You can look at the known phenomena of doppler shift and general relativity, and deduce that distant objects in general are moving away from each other, which suggest that at some time they were closer together (or that space was smaller) hence there must have been a starting point before which the universe bore no resemblance to its present state. No "why" because no need for an ultimate purpose - it just is, and apparently was, so let's untangle the mechanism of "how" it got from there to here.   

[PmbPhy]

You can indeed ask why, but the best a scientist can tell you is how.

I used to think that was true but experience has shown me that it's not. After I took the time to sit down and look at all the questions that scientists have been asking and answering over the last hundred years I came to see how wrong I was and how wrong your assertion is. And I'm far from being the only physicists to think so too.

From The Inflationary Universe by Alan H. Guth. On page ix, the Foreword, written by Alan Lightman, reads

In the 1970’s, the study of cosmology went through a major conceptual change. Prior to this time, modern cosmologists asked such questions as; What is the composition of galaxies and where are they located in space? How rapidly is the universe expanding? What is the average density of matter in the cosmos? After this time, in the “new cosmology,” cosmologists began seriously asking questions like: Why does matter exist at all, and where did it come from? Why is the universe as homogenous as it is over such vast distances? Why is the cosmic density of matter such that the energy of expansion of the universe is almost exactly balanced by its energy gravitational attraction? In other words, the nature of the questions changed. “Why?” was added to “What?” and “How? and “Where?”. Alan Guth was one of the young pioneers of the new cosmology, asking the Whys, and his Inflationary Universe theory provided  many answers.

So we observe red shift and ask how it can be explained. You can look at the known phenomena of doppler shift and general relativity, and deduce that distant objects in general are moving away from each other, which suggest that at some time they were closer together (or that space was smaller) hence there must have been a starting point before which the universe bore no resemblance to its present state. No "why" because no need for an ultimate purpose - it just is, and apparently was, so let's untangle the mechanism of "how" it got from there to here.   

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I hope that you're not trying to discourage people from asking questions in a way that feels natural to them. People want to know why certain things are the way they are. E.g. if somone wishes to ask "If the entire floor in my house has the same temperature then why does the ceramic tiled floor of the bathroom colder than the wooden floor in the kitchen?" then you shouldn't try to get them to change the way they phrase it because it has a very simple answer.

The flaw in your argument is that you're only using examples which are consistent with your assertion and are igoring those which demonstrate that you're wrong. If you used the questions that Alan Guth was asking during the research which led to the inflationary theory of the universe then your argument falls apart.

I gave an example of a "Why" question recently in this forum - Why is the sky blue? is a very legitimate question which has a very direct and valid answer. The question which started this thread is also a valid question which also has a very direct and valid answer which I also gave.

Take a look at all the usolved problems in physics at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_physics

Notice how they're phrased:
- Why is the distant universe so homogeneous when the Big Bang theory seems to predict larger measurable anisotropies of the night sky than those observed?

- Why aren't there obvious large-scale discontinuities in the electroweak vacuum if distant parts of the observable universe were causally separate when the electroweak epoch ended?

- Why is there far more matter than antimatter in the observable universe?

- Why does the zero-point energy of the vacuum not cause a large cosmological constant?

- Why is the energy density of the dark energy component of the same magnitude as the density of matter at present when the two evolve quite differently over time;

- Why does the predicted mass of the quantum vacuum have little effect on the expansion of the universe?

- Why is gravity such a weak force? It

- Why are there three generations of quarks and leptons?

etc

There are basically two different kinds of "Why?" questions. There are the kinds which are seeking deep spiritual meaning like "Why am I the person I am rather than someone else?" or "Why did I have to get cancer?"

See - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/why

The kinds that science can address are those of "cause." The kind that science cannot answer is "reason." Therefore

Science can answer the question - "What causes the sky to be blue?"

Science cannot answer the question - "What is the reason that the sky to be blue?" if by "reason" one is asking why "God" didn't make the sky red or purple

[lightarrow]

After 4 pages of discussion, I still don't understand this question - Why don't an atom's electrons fall into the nucleus and stick to the protons?

Please someone help me to understand, or let me know where else to find answer.

And I don't understand why you don't want to understand that electrons in an atom are not little balls and so to describe their behaviour you have to use quantum mechanics.

--
lightarrow

[evan_au]

how can they not attract each other and stick together?

A very crude analogy: Imagine you had an airport, with a slight indentation down towards a drain hole that is perhaps 1 inch across.
- If you place a jumbo jet on this indentation, will it be attracted towards the drain-hole? Yes, because there is an energy gradient.
- Why doesn't the jumbo jet stick there? It will stick there, unless a greater external force moves it away.
- Why doesn't the jumbo jet go down the drainhole? It's too big, and it takes a considerable amount of energy to squash it down and turn it into a drainhole plug.

[jeffreyH]

The short answer is that a "proton and electron stuck together" does happen, in a neutron.

However, a neutron is unstable, and will break down in about 15 minutes, releasing an electron (beta particle) and proton, plus a ghost-like particle called a neutrino. This decay releases a lot of energy. So, a hydrogen atom (=proton+electron) is much more stable than a isolated neutron.

Neutrons can be stable, if they are combined into an atomic nucleus with protons in the right ratio. In this case, the strong nuclear force provides the binding force to keep the nucleus stable.

• Too many neutrons, and one could decay (releasing an electron, as described above)
• Too few neutrons, and an inner electron can be captured, forming a neutron, just as you asked
• There are other nuclear decay paths too; for more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_nuclei

I have only just picked up on this thread and haven't read it all the way through. The fact that we can even have a particle like the neutron shows that the electron can become part of the nucleus. However as this requires energy the electron cannot become part of a proton so is forced to orbit due to the spin of the proton and the spin of the electron. If it had enough energy it would form a neutron. However if this were easier as in a property defined at the big bang every particle would be neutral and no solid matter would form as atoms would not exist. The question should not be why doesn't it fall into the nucleus but why doesn't this combination more easily form neutrons. It actually has fallen as far as it can towards the nucleus.

[evan_au]

The energy involved in electrostatic interactions between electrons and protons is around a few electron-Volts - the level of energy that is involved in chemical reactions.
The energy involved in the nuclear force between protons or protons & neutrons is typically around a million times stronger, at Mega-electron-Volts.

So it takes an immense amount of energy to get electrons to interact with a nucleus - an amount of energy that cannot come from normal chemical reactions. For humans to achieve such an interaction, the energy would have to come from a high-powered particle accelerator.

There is another source of the necessary energy - a nucleus which is already severely stressed by having too many protons for the number of neutrons - this stress represents MeV of potential energy. There is a very small probability that such a nucleus will capture an electron, releasing the pent-up energy in a neutrino, to balance the necessary nuclear equations.

So three reasons protons don't routinely capture electrons:
- Electrons have far too little energy (by a factor of a million or so)
- Fundamental properties must balance before and after the interaction, which does not happen without production of an energetic neutrino.
- This interaction involves the weak nuclear force, which means it can take a long time...

[acsinuk]

"So three reasons protons don't routinely capture electrons:
- Electrons have far too little energy (by a factor of a million or so)
- Fundamental properties must balance before and after the interaction,"
 Evan you are refering to energy balance but the only stuff inside a molecule is the electrostatic charge and magnetic forces and these need to balanced.
As the inside of the molecule must balance perfectly electrically; a strong nuclear force of 10^38 G will be needed to force the like charges in the proton bundles together. Same force applies to the neutron bundle as well.  The proton bundle must be pushed away from the neutron bundle electro-magnetic by an EMF curling force of 10^ 36 G which also pushes away the electron enclosure.  As the normal repulsion of same charges force is weaker at 10^ 25 G ; this pushes the complex molecules proton bundles away from the other compound proton bundles thus the molecule is electrostatically and electromagnetically stable.
CliveS

[jeffreyH]

This brings up a question about neutron stars. Do they have a magnetic field? If so then is it simply electrons that cause it? The neutrons being neutrally charged are unlikely candidates. This would make the field mono-polar.

[chiralSPO]

I don't know how important this is for neutron stars, but neutrons in atomic nuclei are certainly magnetic--both protons and neutrons have "nuclear spin" that results in a small magnetic field. I don't know to what extent the spins would arrange themselves to cancel out in a neutron star, but it would only take a small imbalance to have a fairly large magnetic moment. (A neutron has a spin of magnitude 1/2, some of the most out-of balance, but still stable nucleons have a spin of 7/2. Some more extreme nuclear states only last a short while (¹¹⁰Ag has a 12/2 nuclear spin, but a half life of only 253 days, and ⁴³Sc has a 19/2 nuclear spin, but a half-life of only 450 ns!)

[evan_au]

the only stuff inside a molecule is the electrostatic charge and magnetic forces and these need to balanced.
There are 4 known forces, of which the "Strong Nuclear Force" is the strongest one we know, and it provides most of the glue that holds the nucleus together against electrostatic replulsion of the protons.

As you suggest, Gravity is the weakest, and its effect can almost be ignored on a scale any less than a neutron star.

The proton bundle must be pushed away from the neutron bundle electro-magnetic
As I understand it, the protons and neutrons are mixed together in the nucleus of an atom. The neutrons do not repel each other electrostatically, but they contribute to the strong nuclear force which holds the protons together against the electrostatic repulsion of the protons.

which also pushes away the electron enclosure
The electrons enclosing the nucleus are attracted to the protons in the nucleus, due to their opposite charge. As far as I know, the effect of neutrons on electrons is much weaker than the impact of protons on electrons.

It is the wave nature of the electrons which prevent them collapsing into the nucleus.

the only stuff inside a molecule is the electrostatic charge and magnetic forces
There are other factors which must be balanced when considering nuclear interactions.

Like macroscopic interactions between particles, mass/energy and momentum are conserved.

Interactions involving the Strong Nuclear Force also must  obey CP symmetry, which permits some interactions, and forbids others.

The Weak Nuclear force has some slightly looser constraints on which interactions are permitted and sometimes violates CP symmetry, but these interactions have much lower probability, like a nucleus consuming an inner electron.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP_violation#CP-symmetry

[jeffreyH]

I don't know how important this is for neutron stars, but neutrons in atomic nuclei are certainly magnetic--both protons and neutrons have "nuclear spin" that results in a small magnetic field. I don't know to what extent the spins would arrange themselves to cancel out in a neutron star, but it would only take a small imbalance to have a fairly large magnetic moment. (A neutron has a spin of magnitude 1/2, some of the most out-of balance, but still stable nucleons have a spin of 7/2. Some more extreme nuclear states only last a short while (¹¹⁰Ag has a 12/2 nuclear spin, but a half life of only 253 days, and ⁴³Sc has a 19/2 nuclear spin, but a half-life of only 450 ns!)

In the case of densely packed neutrons the strong nuclear force and gravitation probably act together to bind the mass. I think it is likely that an electron cloud produces the magnetic field and without a well defined positive component to the field would swamp the gravitational effect. In black holes this would become important. I am following any observations of G2 and Sag A* as this would confirm this if the cloud remains mainly intact. It would not matter if the gas cloud contains a host star.

[jccc]

I rather to be a neutron than an electron, how about you?

[McKay]

Well, here is something to read about this: http://www.wired.com/2014/06/the-new-quantum-reality
And in my mind, something like this provides a much better understanding of how things work - much better than: "an equation [or a principle] says so" ..