Re:Scientists present the most accurate time measurements of...
by imglorp on Thursday November 10, 2016 @04:26PM
(#12924542)
> light to travel a micrometer or so.
The Bohr radius is around 5e-11 m, while the bacteria is around 1e-6 m. That seems like a gulf of difference. What's taking it so long?
Re:Scientists present the most accurate time measurements of...
by btilly on Thursday November 10, 2016 @04:58PM
(#12924840)
I'm qualified to quote original sources found from Wikipedia, not to explain them. :-)
That said, in the Bohr model, electrons move at around 1% of the velocity of light. Multiply by pi for half the circumference, and you're in the right general ballpark that the wave takes this long to propagate both ways around the atom and then set up interference with itself resulting in the new orbital.
(A highly inaccurate picture of what is really happening, but it gives basic intuition.)
As for timing, it takes a few hundred attoseconds. See http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v436/n7049/full/nature0.... Under 1 quadrillionth of a second is, for most purposes, instantaneous. Which is why you were told it was instantaneous. But it is now a measurable process.
The timescale that we are talking is what it takes light to travel a micrometer or so. Which is about the size of the smallest bacteria.