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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wgu" data-source="post: 361422" data-attributes="member: 12662">"What keeps electrons away from he nucleus(protons) of an atom? It would seem like the attractive force would pull them together. "Asking for more depth is great!  I'm going to make a guess here so if any physics majors out there think it is wrong- it probably is, but here goes...I think you're seeing two opposites of a magnet attract.  That analogy is good, but think about this: if a satellite is orbiting Earth, what keeps it from crashing?  There's a constant acceleration into the Earth but all that does is keep the satellite from sailing off.  The satellite also has a potential energy.  In my analogy if the satellite lost potential energy by approaching earth, it should gain speed.  But electron  can't do that, they hold a constant speed (errr I think- speed of light??).  So if an electron was to lower its energy it must eject out energy (say in the form of radiation).  Anyway that is the basic jest, I have no idea about the math behind all of my freethinking.    <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite198" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":D" />    Hope that helps!</blockquote>

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