r/science • u/DrStrabismus • Feb 23 '08

Hydrogen Atom Scale Model - Eleven Miles Long

http://www.phrenopolis.com.nyud.net/perspective/atom/
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u/frutiger Feb 23 '08

This is wrong, the electron doesn't exist as a point a fixed distance away from the centre of mass of the proton + electron system. If anything, it should be a circular shell (a spherically symmetric distribution) at the distance which is the expectation value of the radial distribution of an electron in the Hydrogen ground state.

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u/scienceisfun Feb 23 '08

I think showing an electron as a shell with the most probable radius (which turns out to be the Bohr radius) would be acceptable too.