Why Doesn't an Electron Ever Run Out of Energy?

An electron in a hydrogen atom has been sitting in its lowest state since the universe was a few hundred thousand years old. Nothing is refuelling it. Nothing is driving it. No energy is flowing in from anywhere.

In 1911, classical physics said this was impossible. Run the numbers on Rutherford's atom with Larmor's radiation formula and every hydrogen atom should collapse in sixteen trillionths of a second. No chemistry, no molecules, no matter of any kind. The prediction came from two theories that were each overwhelmingly well supported, and it was catastrophically wrong.

This is a forty-five minute explanation of why the atom survives, and why the question in the title has a false assumption buried inside it. Nothing powers an electron. Nothing needs to.

Covered along the way: why Bohr's model explained nothing, how the uncertainty principle gives you the size of an atom on the back of an envelope, why a magnet holds a paperclip forever without using energy, superconducting currents that have run for years with no measurable decay, the Pauli exclusion principle and the theorem proving matter would collapse without it, Chandrasekhar working out the white dwarf limit at nineteen on a boat, and the 408 days the Borexino detector spent watching 300 tonnes of liquid for a single electron to break the rules.

Sources and figures are in the pinned comment. Every number is cited.

Companion video: Where Do Photons Go When You Turn Off the Light?

#physics #quantumphysics #science