this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2024
738 points (96.8% liked)
Curated Tumblr
4076 readers
1 users here now
For preserving the least toxic and most culturally relevant Tumblr heritage posts.
Image descriptions and plain text captions of written content are expected of all screenshots. Here are some image text extractors (I looked these up quick and will gladly take FOSS recommendations):
-web
-iOS
Please begin copied raw text posts (lacking a screenshot that makes it apparent it is from Tumblr) with:
# This has been reposted here to Lemmy as part of the "Curated Tumblr Project."
I made the icon using multiple creative commons svg resources, the banner is this.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I have come to think of it as all being probability fields.
When studying a particle, one cannot know both the energy and position of that particle with certainty (Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle). When chemists think about the 3d "structure" of atoms and molecules, they represent the nucleus as a tiny little ball and the electrons as bubbles of probability:
.
The nucleus itself is in constant motion as well, and compared to the size of the actual protons and neutrons, there is much more empty space - kind of like planets in a solar system. And each of these protons/neutrons is composed of tiny particles called quarks, which again are in constant motion and thus make up probability fields that we call protons and neutrons.