Expert: Tom Whiting - 3/27/2008

Question
QUESTION: If rotational velocity controls the shape of galaxies and solar systems, why doesn't it effect atoms? All electrons orbit there nucleus at near the speed of light, and as far as we know all nuclei are spinning at a similar speed, the same forces of attraction and repulsion still apply, just on an atomic scale. And all nuclei clouds are spherical.

ANSWER: Hi Mike,
I guess the standard traditional answer would be, they ARE different....atoms behave at very close distances using strong charges (+ and -) at very close micro distances, whereas galaxies and solar systems are using mass, gravitational wells, and angular momentum, at huge macro distances. (relative to atomic distances).

{However, realize something like 85% of all galaxies ARE spherical...the old ellipticals, like most of the Virgo Supercluster Galaxies (M-84, 86, 87), and the irregular galaxies like the Magellanic Clouds... are...not flattened.} Only the 15% spiral galaxies (M-31, 104, NGC 4565) have a flattened appearance. And obviously, the other deep sky objects are not flattened either, the globular star clusters, the open star clusters, the supernovae remnants (M-1), and the nebulae...are not flat either. They all exist in 3 spacial planes....

As far as Solar Systems, as yet we really don't know if they are all
flattened or not, because we only know of one sure example, namely
our own. So the jury is still out on extra-solar (other) Solar systems. We think they might be "flat", but are they?
We just don't know, as yet. So we only have a sure example of 1.
(It's tough to do a statistical analysis when all you have is
a sample size of 1)!
Currently, all newly discovered Extra-solar planets have never been seen; their existence is only inferred at present by the actions on their parent star, either a wobble, a change in recession speed, or
a transit of said giant planet across the disk of star, blocking
a minor, but measureable amount of starlight for a time period.
{They probably do exist due to this data, but we've never seen
or photographed one as yet...let alone...a whole extra  "solar system".}

BUT, as an "outside the box" alternative answer (yours), perhaps....
at very short time periods atoms ARE flat discs like spiral
galaxies, and at very long time periods all galaxies are spherical
like atoms.  IF atoms are flat, like spiral galaxies, perhaps we just "see" them as spherical (shells) because of their very fast precession rate of their various electron toruses (?).   See
http://users.accesscomm.ca/john/
as an alternative explanation, concurring with your idea.
So I think more work and data needs to be accomplished on this subject...perhaps the jury is still out.  Good point. Why don't you
do some more research on this point?

Hope this helps,
Clear Skies,
Tom Whiting
Erie, PA USA

FOLLOW UP:
Oh, and by very short time periods, I mean levels like the Planck time of 5 x 10 to the -44th power, second.
I think the best short time period we've measured so far is the
attosecond, something like 10 to the -18th power, so we have a long
way to go before we can measure the Planck time....see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_E-44_s

ADDITIONAL FOLLOW UP:
Problem being, can we really accurately measure electrons of an
atom, their position and momentum, at the same time?  Answer, No.
Because of Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle...the act of simply
bombarding a photon into say, an electron to measure it, changes
it's momentum or position, so we can never know both at the same
time, see Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, so there are limits
of observation at the quantum level....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I was taught(perhaps incorrectly i don't know) that most if not all spherical galaxies are the result of multiple galaxies colliding at different angles, since they aren't truly complete spheres anyway. Is this correct or just someone's personal theory? As far as the remnants of super novas you are correct, when things explode in the vacuum of space they tend to extend evenly in all directions, except where they are influenced by other gravitational or physical forces.

While atoms are tiny, very closely packed things, the proportional relationship is a pretty good approximation. If you could "scale up" an atom many, many times, you would find that the spaces between the nuclei and the outer edge of the covalent electrons is huge. Especially since it is generally accepted, although not proven, that the nuclei is roughly 100,000 times smaller than the electron cloud.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_radius

Which means if the nuclei had a mean diameter of 1.4 million km, the approximate diameter of the sun, then the edge of the electron cloud would be something like 140 billion km which is about 935.84 au or 5.4 light days(if i did the math right). So if Pluto was the outer most electron it would be 10 to 11 times the distance from the sun to the heliosheath.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliosphere#Heliosheath

BUT, you are correct, there are still a lot of unknowns both about other solar systems, and about the physical structure of atoms.

Thanks for the time.
mike

Answer
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the nice response.
I think we are still studying the initial formation of galaxies,
especially the very first ones (some 10 billion years ago) which are mostly the elliptical (spheroidal) ones, all composed of the old Population II stars, very deficient in the heavy elements (Lithium #3 thru Uranium #92).
Evidently the spiral type galaxies didn't form up until later on...
while the cores of the spiral galaxies are mostly old Population II stars, the spiral arms are composed of the younger Population I stars like the sun, with up to 3% of the heavy elements.  So
evidently, there were a lot of supernovae to create the heavy
elements prior to spiral arm formation.

Yeah, I can't argue about the relative sizes of atoms vs. the
macro world.  BUT,... realize that different laws govern those
completely different sizes. We can't apply macro rules to the atomic and sub-atomic world, which is what we seem to be trying to do here.

While the macro world of galaxies and solar systems
are governed by mainly gravity, the world of the atom (and smaller)
are governed by quantum mechanics laws, where the rules of physics
are completely different, so a scaled up size comparison has.... no real meaning.

For instance, in the quantum world, I've read that the K shell of an atom can hold a maximum of 2, and only 2 electrons in that orbit, whereas in macro Universe, there is no limit to the number of bodies that could be in a singular orbit around the sun.
Also, electrons must "jump" to a new orbital level, absorbing a quantum of energy, then they emit a quantum, and "jump" to a lower energy (lower orbit) all the time.  Planets around stars don't do that. In fact, there are specific quantum rules that dis-allow
an electron to exist at an intermediate level between "shells"....
no such rule applies in the macro world to orbiting stars of galaxies
or planets going around suns.

Another happening at the quantum level, a hydrogen atom can perform
an instant spin flip by emitting a photon at 21 cm wavelength; (giving us the famous 21 cm line in radio astronomy to plot out hydrogen clouds in our Galaxy)....to my knowledge, planets and stars
can't and don't do that spin-flip, on an instant basis....

So we just can't scale up (or down) something, and apply the same physical laws, as quantum physics rules the sub-microscopic (atomic) world with completely different rules, and gravity and perhaps electromagnetism, rules the macro world.

Hope this helps,
Clear skies,
Tom Whiting
Erie, PA