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Q:
Electron explosion
Since like charges repel each other, why doesn’t electron explode (i.e., different parts of the electron cloud repel) as neutral parts -- in spite of the "conservation of charge" which is a man-made law?
- Mehran (age 53)
Lisle, Illinois
A:
Mehran- once again, you're asking extremely deep tough questions.
I believe the answer here is that when you write out the expression
for the electrostatic interaction among electrons in quantum operator
form, there is no term which is non-zero for a particle field
representing a single particle. The interaction term involves operators
which change the number of particles represented by the particle field.
Essentially, you can't annihilate the same particle twice.
I know that isn't a transparent answer.
Mike W.
(published on 10/22/2007)
Follow-up on this answer.
