Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread II

[Arakhor]

Uh, what gives you that idea?

 

[dutchfire]

The conduction electrons in metals (the stuff in the subterranean tubes) can in no meaningful way be considered as parts of atoms, since they're not localised.

 

[Arakhor]

Even if those specific electrons might not be considered to be parts of atoms, why issue a blanket statement that "electrons are not subatomic", with the implication that no electrons can be considered to be subatomic particles?

 

[dutchfire]

How big is an electron?

edit: Yeah, and "the electrons in question are not subatomic" might have been clearer. The word subatomic is pretty useless anyway.

 

[Zelig]

It surely uses the same infrastructure for all account verification, remote and local, and the delay on error is nested in that. Also, even for a local login, it's possible to have a device that emulates a keyboard, instead of physically typing passwords in, so all the same kinds of attacks are possible.

Er, yeah, in fact I can't remember my line of thought when I made my previous post.

 

[Arakhor]

How big is an electron?

edit: Yeah, and "the electrons in question are not subatomic" might have been clearer. The word subatomic is pretty useless anyway.

Since you asked, Wikipedia tells me that their individual mass is 9.10938291(40)×10-31 kg and APOD's Scale of the Universe animation suggests that they are 5x10-5 metres in length, but given that that those are almost-entirely meaningless numbers, in practice I agree with you.

 

[Mise]

There's no such thing as a particle anyway

 

[Souron]

How big is an electron?

They're point particles. They have no volume. A given electron has a cloud of influence, that depends on it's energy and the electric field around it (like if it's orbiting an atom), and it's possible to talk about the size of that. Also, very small distances are impossible to measure, so some sources may just give those limits of measurements as the size of an electron. But an electron does not behave at all like a small sphere or other solid; it behaves most like a point.

So in my book, so to speak, electrons, quarks, protons, neutrons, mesons, photons, neutrinos are more, are all subatomic particles, no matter what they're doing. Note, not all of those listed are are point particles.

There's no such thing as a particle anyway

The word particle is applied to subatomic particles, even though they aren't much like classical particles.

 

[dutchfire]

There's no such thing as a particle anyway

Define particle. If your conclusion is that there a no particles, then I suggest the problem lies in your definition. I'd say a particle is one quantum of a field.

They're point particles. They have no volume. A given electron has a cloud of influence, that depends on it's energy and the electric field around it (like if it's orbiting an atom), and it's possible to talk about the size of that. Also, very small distances are impossible to measure, so some sources may just give those limits of measurements as the size of an electron. But an electron does not behave at all like a small sphere or other solid; it behaves most like a point.

So in my book, so to speak, electrons, quarks, protons, neutrons, mesons, photons, neutrinos are more, are all subatomic particles, no matter what they're doing. Note, not all of those listed are are point particles.

The word particle is applied to subatomic particles, even though they aren't much like classical particles.

Well, yes, that is what the high school textbooks say. The point is that the typical conduction electron in a 30 cm piece of copper wire is actually 30 cm long. Calling that subatomic is preposterous.

 

[Mise]

Fair enough.

 

[Souron]

Well, yes, that is what the high school textbooks say. The point is that the typical conduction electron in a 30 cm piece of copper wire is actually 30 cm long. Calling that subatomic is preposterous.

I've never heard anyone say it like that. It is true that we can't isolate conduction electrons, so an individual electron possibly has a probability cloud the length of the wire. But it doesn't behave like an object of that size. In particular, charge does not jump instantaneously from one end of a wire to another, but travels at the speed of light. Picturing an electron as something going the length of a wire doesn't explain that.

 

[Zelig]

Yes it does, something can be arbitrarily long and moving it from one end only communicates the movement to the other end at the speed of light.

 

[Souron]

Most substances would communicate movement from one end to the other at the speed of sound. Treating an electron as a rigid body with it's speed of sound as the speed of light is too forced a comparison to be useful.

 

[Zelig]

Most substances would communicate movement from one end to the other at the speed of sound.

That certainly isn't right, or you'd be able to visibly see most substances stretch or compress as their speed changes.

Edit: Er, speed of sound is faster in more rigid things, derp.

 

[shadowplay]

Whenever I try to visit my local newspaper's website on this computer, I get redirected to their (crappy) blog. But when I try to visit their website on a different computer (on the same network), the site loads fine without any redirect. What would be causing this? I tried deleting the cookies.

EDIT: fixed, it was the cache that needed to be cleared.

 

[Souron]

Whenever I try to visit my local newspaper's website on this computer, I get redirected to their (crappy) blog. But when I try to visit their website on a different computer (on the same network), the site loads fine without any redirect. What would be causing this? I tried deleting the cookies.

Are you using the same browser and browser version? It's possible that the website doesn't support your browser.

 

[dutchfire]

I've never heard anyone say it like that. It is true that we can't isolate conduction electrons, so an individual electron possibly has a probability cloud the length of the wire. But it doesn't behave like an object of that size. In particular, charge does not jump instantaneously from one end of a wire to another, but travels at the speed of light. Picturing an electron as something going the length of a wire doesn't explain that.

What do you mean by "it does not behave like an object of that size"?

Also, I don't think charge travels at the speed of light, since all charged particles have mass

 

[Souron]

What do you mean by "it does not behave like an object of that size"?

For example, electrons around an atom have angular momentum; they spin. Fast. They also have a probability cloud around the atom. If that cloud were or even something on the same order of magnitude were spinning, at the speeds electrons are measured to spin at, the speed of the outer edge would be faster than light.

Ergo electrons are point particles, not things with volume.

Also, I don't think charge travels at the speed of light, since all charged particles have mass

Charge particles do have mass, and they do travel slower. Much slower. Electrons in a copper wire travel at about 1 meter per hour. But charge itself travels at the speed of light. Which makes sense given that light is vibration in the EM field.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

"The video you have requested is not available for your geographic region"

I thought you had to pay for IP-blocking services.
Is it possible to circumvent this by using some kind of incognito mode in Firefox? If so - where do I activate it?

 

[Zelig]

Youtube or something else?

If it's youtube, I'm generally too lazy to bother watching the video. If it's something else, torrents are probably the easiest option.