What Happens When you Measure Electron?

hello,iwould like to know what would happen inside the atom in case we measure the speed(momentum)of the electron;would it behave just like a particle and then the cloud disappears breaking down the uncertainty principle? THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS IN THE 2 SPLITS EXPERIMENT.
- sari (age 19)
algeria

Let's say that you measure the momentum of an electron by, for example, bouncing a gamma ray off of it. The direction that the gamma ray goes depends on the momentum transfer between it and the electron. Since the electron had a net momentum of zero (in the rest frame of the atom) before the measurement, it ends up with minus the momentum that the gamma ray picked up. That remains somewhat spread out, since the gamma ray doesn't have a precise momentum. The electron position also remains somewhat spread out, continuing to obey the Heisenberg Uncertainty relation. The electron never behaves like a particle in the sense of having an exactly defined position- that would require infinite energy.

I'm not sure that answers your question, so feel free to follow up.

Mike W.

(published on 09/16/2013)