| Themes > Science > Physics > Atomic Physics > Atomic Structure > New System of the Atom > Particle Classification > Electrons |
"electrons behave both like particles that possess mass and like waves, or light rays, consisting of massless photons." - - - - - "Am. Academic Encyclopedia," Grolier Electronic Publ., 1994, "Electron Optics." An electron is a packet of waves, and a particle of pure charge. A neutron is a particle of matter. Both charge and matter have mass, which is inertia, or a resistance to being moved around by an outside force. Light has no mass because it is a full wave, replicating by alternating electric and magnetic fields, like a 1:1 transformer, each field coming out in exactly the right place to make an endless chain of fields that carries energy outward from a center of excess. The fields appear in sequence at the rate that makes the disturbance travel at the speed of light. If the light is somehow split in half, however, the halves lose this special ability to reproduce endlessly. The fields don’t line up, and the halves are burdened with mass and charge. Electrons are these intermittent, alternating electric charges, trillions of examples per second, that gather into wave packets which act like particles and have mass. |
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