[trevorjohnson32 (OP)]

Is there any theories out there about what creates electron shells? Would it be to outrageous to say that it could be an effect on space time of the combined gravity fields of the necleus of the atom?

[PmbPhy]

Is there any theories out there about what creates electron shells?

An electron shell is in a sense a figure of speech. Its used to describe electron orbitals which are described by quantum mechanics. The shell model is merely a way to visualize various aspects of atomic configurations. Its based on the Bohr model of the atom.

The more complete model of the atom is described by electron orbitals aka atomic orbitals or electron clouds.

Would it be to outrageous to say that it could be an effect on space time of the combined gravity fields of the necleus of the atom?

There's no basis for such a notion. The gravitational force between subatomic particles is insignificant when compared to the electric force and its the electric force which determines the structure of atoms.

[trevorjohnson32 (OP)]

There's no basis for such a notion. The gravitational force between subatomic particles is insignificant when compared to the electric force and its the electric force which determines the structure of atoms.

are you just theorizing that its the electric force that determines atom structure? do you know if the size of the orbitals changes the bigger the nucleus?

[PmbPhy]

are you just theorizing that its the electric force that determines atom structure? do you know if the size of the orbitals changes the bigger the nucleus?

Its not clear to me what you mean by just theorizing. Term "theorize" to mean speculate. What I've posted is not speculation. It's in accordance with the laws of physics. In particular, quantum mechanics.

do you know if the size of the orbitals changes the bigger the nucleus?

It's not as simple as that. However, it all that changes is the number of protons in the nucleus then yes, the orbitals are larger. However, if you have more protons in the nucleus there is typically more neutrons in it and there are more electrons around the atom. This yields a trend in the size of orbitals which is not merely a function of the charge of the nucleus. I recommend reading about the periodic table.

[evan_au]

Is there any theories out there about what creates electron shells?

One simplified way of imagining it is that particles like an electron have some characteristics that are like a wave.

In a simplified model developed by Bohr and de Broglie before 1920, valid orbitals are those where a whole number of the electron's wavelength fits into the orbital.
- For any other orbitals, the electron's wave would interfere with itself and rapidly disappear. 

This is a very simplified model - the electron orbitals are not 2-dimensional circles (like the Solar system) but extend into three dimensions, like a sphere. And the electrons don't follow elliptical orbits like the planets, but have more exotic paths shaped like droplets, flower petals, hamburger buns, donuts and swiss cheese.
Some computer-generated images are here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_orbital

A very accurate model of the electron orbitals was provided by Erwin Schrödinger around 1925 - unfortunately, it takes a supercomputer to solve it for anything much more complex than a Hydrogen atom.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger_equation

its the electric force that determines atom structure?

The positive charge of the nucleus exerts a powerful attractive force on the electrons.
The negative charge on the electrons exerts a powerful repulsive force on the other electrons.
Electrons are like little magnets, and like magnets, they tend to line up in the opposite direction to a nearby magnet.

As I understand it:
- Atoms with a highly charged positive nucleus (eg tungsten) attract the inner electrons much more strongly than the singly-charged nucleus of hydrogen. This means that the inner orbitals of tungsten are much closer to the nucleus than the innermost orbitals of hydrogen. This is why tungsten electrodes in an X-Ray machine can produce a line spectrum of X-Rays, while hydrogen can only produce a line spectrum up to ultraviolet wavelengths.
- Some atoms like Sodium easily lose an outer electron. The positive charge pulls the remaining electrons more closely, and reduces the size of the ion, compared to the neutral atom.
- Some atoms like Chlorine easily grab an outer electron. The repulsion of this negative charge makes the electron orbitals "puff out" to a larger diameter for the charged ion compared to the neutral atom.

So electric and magnetic forces shape the size and structure of of the atomic orbitals.
These electric & magnetic forces are far greater than the gravitational forces between these low-mass particles.

[puppypower]

Is there any theories out there about what creates electron shells? Would it be to outrageous to say that it could be an effect on space time of the combined gravity fields of the necleus of the atom?

An electron has a negative charge. Since similar charges will repel, an electron will repel all other electrons via an electrostatic repulsion. This repulsion will cause motion. A charge in motion will create a magnetic field. The combined affect is called the electromagnetic field. The orbital shapes are simply the way electrons minimize the electromagnetic fields among all the electrons. Below is the left hand rule for electron motion and magnetic field. The electron move in the direction of current. This makes force perpendicular to that and a magnetic field perpendicular to both of them.



When two electrons repel because of similar charge, they move away from each. The process of moving creates a magnetic field. In this case, the opposite direction currents; electron motion, causes their magnetic fields to attract, which causes the repelled electrons see a perpendicular force that deflects them into a orbit. The motion of the electron causes new charge repulsion, so they now want to go the other way, with this causing a new  \magnetic field. Electrostatic and magnetic tend to walk to the beat of their own drum so what we have is a push and pull affect called the orbital

The positively charged nucleus, will cause the electrons to attract toward the nucleus via electrostatic attraction. But this causes too much negative charge to come together, causing an electron electrostatic repulsion. While the motion of the electrons, causes magnetic repulsion. The atom can never collapse. The final orbital shape, in 3-D space, is the sum of all the electrostatic and magnetic forces, from the electrons and nucleus protons, always trying to minimize, with each pulling or pushing the electrons in the opposite directions.

The magnetic aspect is very significant and is the basis for much of chemistry. For example, oxygen atoms can form oxide which is O-2. The magnetic attraction is so strong it can overcome the repulsion of two extra electrons. This is due to the p-orbital shape allowing magnetic addition in 3-D.



The nucleus is composed of protons and neutrons. The same principles apply with proton repulsion motion causing nucleus magnetic fields. These fields can interact with the electron magnetic fields and the electrostatic repulsion of the election. The results are nucleus orbitals to minimize the EM forces.

[chiralSPO]

There are four important issues here:

1) Within atoms, electrons are best thought of in terms of waves--they have wavelengths determined by their kinetic energy, and these waves can interact with themselves and each other.

2) Because the wavelengths involved are similar to the "size" of atoms it really doesn't make much sense to think about the electron being anywhere in particular within the atom. Instead, we think about how the wave is distributed (for individual atoms not in an external electric field, all electron waves are centered at the nucleus, but as the kinetic energy of the electron increases, the average distance between the electron and the nucleus increases.

3) The electrons are attracted to the nucleus by electrostatics entirely--gravitational interactions are effectively 0 on these scales (>20 orders of magnitude weaker than the electrostatic interaction). As the nucleus gains protons (becomes more positive), the electrons around it are pulled in tighter. But the electrons also repel each other because they have the same charge. So in neutral atoms, the larger the nucleus gets (more protons) the electrons get pulled in more tightly, but there are also more electrons (so that the overall charge is zero)--the ones closest to the nucleus get pulled in much closer, but the electrons that are further out don't feel as much pull (there is more electron density between them and the nucleus), so typically atoms with more protons also have larger radii. (there is more subtlety to this, but I won't get in to it here.)

4) Electrons in atoms have four quantized parameters (energy level, angular momentum, "orientation" of angular momentum, and spin). Every electron in an atom has their own unique set of quantum numbers (you can think of it as an address). The energy level gives the "shell" while angular momentum determines sub-shell, "orientation" determines the orbital, and each orbital can hold two electrons as long as they have opposite "spin"

The math used to derive these is quite tricky (for all but the simplest cases the equations are actually not solvable, so instead we use supercomputers that use brute force to solve approximations of the equations from first principles.) Luckily, there are many "rules of thumb" that can be extracted from all the hard math, so that chemists can make reasonably accurate estimates about things just using pen and paper.

[puppypower]

An electron is a negative charge in motion. While a charge in motion creates a magnetic field. Electrons move at a significant fraction of the speed of light. This velocity does not alter the charge of the electron, however, it creates a very significant magnetic field around each electron, that gets stronger the closer to the nucleus the election is, since inner electrons moves the fastest. The result is the perpendicular magnetic force; left hand rule, for the current; gets stronger and stronger as it gets closer and closer to the nucleus. The electrons can make tight turns.

Although all the electrons of atom are moving a fraction of the speed of light and each electron is generating a significant magnetic field, we don't normally measure much in terms of total atomic magnetism. This tells us the magnetic waves are canceling and are attempting to reach a minimum in terms of a summation magnetic field. This sweet spot requires the electrons move in very distinct paths with respect to each other; orbitals, so the magnetic waves can cancel.

This creates an interesting affect that I like to call hidden energy. Picture a wave tank with two wave generators 180 degrees out of phase.  The crests of the waves are cancelled by the troughs of the opposing waves from the other wave generator.The result is stillness in the middle of the tank, even though we are adding energy to the tank. We don't see the wave energy but it is there.

Oxygen is one of the cornerstone atoms of chemistry. It is a very unique atom in terms of its high natural abundance; third in the universe, indicative of its nuclear orbital stability and its electron orbital stability. Oxygen can form oxide, which is O-2, holding two extra electrons. The P-orbital 3-D symmetry create considerable magnetic stability, overcoming the extra electrostatic repulsion generated by two extra electrons. The Px, Py,Pz orbital lobes allows three left hand rules to superimpose, which is very stabilizing.

Hydrogen is a horse of a different color. It only has one electron and therefore it does not have any electrostatic repulsive force to deal with. Therefore, it has no electron-electron magnetic field cancelling affect similar to oxygen and all the rest of the atoms. It has an electrostatic attraction to the nucleus, and only this magnetic field contribution. Oxygen goes to the other extreme having that plus a very strong electron-electron stabilizing magnetic field.

Combined, hydrogen and oxygen produce water. The hydrogen of water sort of reveal some of oxygens hidden magnetic energy, which then needs to be re-optimized. This is done through hydrogen bonding and larger scalar structuring within water.  The hydrogen of water is like placing a partition in the stillness of the wave tank. The partition will break the stillness causing hidden energy to appear. Below is an extended water structure used to help squirrel away some of the revealed energy. This is composed of an elaborate molecular orbital design that can flex between high and low density configurations based on free energy reveal.

[trevorjohnson32 (OP)]

There's no basis for such a notion. The gravitational force between subatomic particles is insignificant when compared to the electric force and its the electric force which determines the structure of atoms.

Yes but that only describes the electron shells function, what causes the shell is unanswered yes? So it could be combined gravity fields of the nucleus for all we know.

[Kryptid]

Yes but that only describes the electron shells function, what causes the shell is unanswered yes? So it could be combined gravity fields of the nucleus for all we know.

The shape of the orbitals is accurately predicted by equations derived from quantum mechanics. Those equations don't take gravity into consideration at all, so gravity can't be the reason for their structure.