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2024-11-11

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Protons inside, electrons outside. But why not the other way around? (self.science)

submitted 10 months ago by netvor to c/science

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Every time I try to understand how forces which hold atoms and molecules together work, I find myself wanting to ask this question: why not the other way around? Could there be an atom which has electrons and neutrons inside, and protons outside?

It feels like a silly question, but is there something we know about the universe we live in that implies that this is not possible?

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

From the point of just moving the charge, yes, it's called antimatter. Antielectrons are positive, antiprotons are negative. From the mass point of view though it would be a different kind of physics altogether since electrons have virtually no mass compared to the other two particles, and protons don't exist as a particle-wave duality, so neither protons or electrons would act the same by just switching them out in a Bohr atom model arrangement. Maybe someone with more in depth knowledge can give additional or better reasons.

[–] FlowVoid 14 points 10 months ago

protons don't exist as a particle-wave

They do, but protons have a much shorter wavelength due to their greater mass.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antihydrogen

Anti hydrogen has been produced and detected in experiments. The energy transition levels are identical to normal hydrogen.

In a newtonian view, two particles orbit the center of mass of the combined system. Since protons are 1836 times as massive as electrons, the "orbit" center would be very close to the proton. So it's a bit like asking what would happen if we swapped the earth and sun. The orbits would change position, but the earth would still orbit the shared center inside the sun at the same orbital radius. So it would look essentially the same as it is currently, just with the center of the system having been shifted by one au.

Clearly I've ignored all of quantum mechanics in this description, but the conclusion is the same. The nucleus and electron both have wavefunctions, but the mass difference makes the spread of the nucleus negligibly small compared to electron orbits. Swapping initial positions and momentum doesn't really change the properties of the system.