Why Doesn't the Electron Fall into the Nucleus?
Franklin P. Mason and Robert W. Richardson
San Jose State University, San Jose, CA 95192
A question that must come to the mind of every beginning
chemistry student is: "If the electron and the nucleus of an
atom are oppositely charged particles, why doesn't the elec
tron fall into the nucleus?" In order to ward off a question of
such complexity, an instructor (although disclaiming the
answer while eivine it) might say: "Because the electron is
moving aroundthe ikcleus as a moves around the sun."
Of course, it is known that this answer is hopelessly naive. For
one thing, while in a 1s orbital, the electron has no orbital
angular momentum ( I = O), and therefore, cannot he "moving
around" anything in the usual sense of the word. And for an-
other, a charged particle such as an electron, when it is ac-
celerated, as it would be if it were in orbit around a nucleus,
radiates energy. This would cause the electron to spiral into
the nucleus. not stav awav from it. This naoer nresents a
simple, yet essentialry corr& model of theitom that can be
-
used to answer the above auestion even for beeinninr - students
of chemistry.
Even thouah - a ulanetarv
. model of the atom can no longer
he used, a clue can he taken from it for a new answer to the
question. As is well known, for stahle planetary motion there
are two forces at play which must balance each other. The
tendency of a planet to fall into the sun (because of gravita-
tional attraction) must be balanced by the opposite tendency
for the planet to leave the sun (because of its forward motion).
For stable planetary motion the "force in" equals the "force
out," and for gravitational or electric attraction the potential
energy is twice the magnitude of the kinetic energy and op-
posite in sign (2KE = -PE) ( I 1.'
The model of the atom uresented here is formulated bv
analogy to stable planetary motion. In this model two factors
are identified, one that tends to bring the electron closer to
the nucleus and one that tends to make the electron escape
from the nucleus. This model will first be discussed in quali-
40 Journal of Chemical Education
terms.
Qualitative Presentation
The factor that tends to bring the electron and nucleus to-
gether is, of course, electrostat& attraction.
The factor that tends to make the electron and nucleus
move apart must now be discussed. Consider an otherwise
empty box containing one electron. All particles, including
electrons, display wave as well as particle properties. When
an electron is contained in any way, for example in a box, its
. .
wave ~ronerties become verv.imnortant.
. When contained. the
electron becomes a "particle in a box," that is, it resembles a
three-dimensional standing wave of matter and electrical
charge (which has been calied an electron c l o ~ d ) . ~
Associated with anv particle in a box is a certain enerev (or
set of energy levels) which can he called the "energy orcon-
"
tainment" of the particle. All particles have associated with
them a certain wavelength. When a particle is confined in a
limited volume, its maximum wavelength is dictated hv the
size of the container. As the containerbecomes smaller, the
wavelength must also become shorter. As the wavelength
becomes shorter, the energy of the particle increases. This, in
brief, is the source of the energy of containment.
' This relationship, which is true for all inverse square force laws
in both quantum mechanics and classical mechanics, is an example
of the virial theorem which is also true for many particle systems.
In calculating the energy of a multi-electron atom, the point-charge
model and not the electron-cloud model must be used.
In the Schroedinger formulationof quantum mechanics, the "energy
of containment" appears as the kinetic energy, which is proportional
to the curvature of the wave function.

Diameter ( A )
Figure 1. Wave functionsfor n = 1. 2,3, and 4.
Merely confining an electron to a certain, restricted volume
endows it with this energy of containment. If the electron were
not confined, it would have a lower energy. Therefore, the
electron seeks to escape its confinement. Thus, the contain-
ment energy is the factor that makes the electron of an atom
tend to escaue from its nucleus.
When we add a nucleus to the box, which already contains
an electron, the electrostatic attraction lowers the potential
energy, and the total energy becomes a combination of this
wotential enerav -. and the containment enerev -- (kinetic en-
kg~).
In light of this model for the atom, the students' original
question can now be answered as follows:
An atom is made up of a positively charged nucleus and one or more
negatively charged electrons around the nucleus. Since the nucleus
and the electron are of different charges, naturally they attract one
another and tend to come together. However, an electron is not only
a particle; hut also it behaves as a wave. Because this is true, we can
visualize the electron not as a discrete particle, but rather as a diffuse
cloud af matter and electrical charge around the nucleus. As the
electron and nucleus come closer together that is, as the electron is
confinedmore and more (and the electran cloud becomes smaller and
smaller), the wavelength of the electron must become shorter and
shorter so that it can "fit" into the confining space. As its wavelength
becomes shorter, the electron's,energy increases. Eventually, the
energy possessed by the electron due to its confinement becomes
sufficiently great that the electrostaticpotential energy can no longer
continue to draw the electron and nucleus closer together. At that
point an equilibrium is established in which the atom is stable and
in which the electron neither goes toward the nucleus (electron cloud
becoming smaller) nor does it escape from the nucleus (electron cloud
becoming larger).
Quantitative Presentation
The factor that tends to bring the electron and nucleus to-
gether is electrostatic attraction
where: F = force of attraction, Ze = charge on the nucleus in
esu, e = charge on the electron in esu, and r = distance sepa-
rating the particles. From this force a potential energy term
can be derived. For "r" a suitable average must be used (see
below)
where: E , = electrostatic potential energy, r,,, = average
value of r.
The factor that tends to make the electron escape from the
nucleus is the energy of containment, Ec,, (2). The energy of
containment of any particle depends only upon the mass of
the particle and the shape and size of the box in which it is
. ~ an electron in a 1s orbital%f the hvdroeen atom
c ~ n f i n e dFor
(the simplest case) the confining "box" is spherically sym-
metrical. Thus, to find the energy of containment for an
electron of a hydrogen-like atom, s&tions must be found for
the energy of a particle of mass = m e in a spherical box. The
solutions to the Schroedinger equation for a particle in a
spherical box can be quite complex. Fortunately, however, the
solutions for radially symmetrical cases (s states) are easily
obtained and, in fact, turn out to be identical to those for a
particle in a one-dimensional box ( 3 ) .For radially symmetrical
states, the containment energy of a particle in a spherical box
is
where: n = the number of waveleneths in the distance 2a, h
= Planck's constant, rn = mass o f i h e electron, and a = di-
ameter of the containing sphere. The wave functions for such
a system are well known(2) and are shown for n = 1,2,3,and
4 in Figure I
his-model suggests that the atom is stable because there
is an equilibrium established between the tendency of the
electron to be drawn to the nucleus due to electrostatic at-
traction and the tendency of the electron to leave the nucleus
due to its desire to escaue its confinement. For this model. the
total energy of the atom, E T is~ ~
nZh"e2
E.Tot=---
8ma2 r,,,
where "r,,," should be some average value between zero7 and
We assume here that the barner to escape from the box is infinite,
but that within the box there are no forces llmiting the position of the
particle.
The word "orbital," introduced by Mulliken, is used to describe
individual wave function solutions to the Schroedinger equation.
For a onedimensional box, the equation is obtained as follows:
Position of nucleus
Electron wave for n = 1
To give the maximum electron density at the nucleus, "a" must be equal
to 112. Then p = h l k KE = p2/2m = V/2mh2 = V/8ma2
It may be noticed that at r,,, = 0 it appears the potential energy
term becomes infinite. Because of the uncertainty principle, however,
r,, can never be equal to zero and therefore the potential energy term
cannot become infinite.
Volume 60 Number 1 January 1983 41

Figure 2. Plot for a hydrogen-like atom ( 2= 1).
aI2. This average value can be approximated as 318 a which
now gives Emt in terms of "a" only as:
For the model to yield a stahle atom there must be a radius
of the confining sphere a t which E.rotis a t a minimum and a t
which:
2 Ec." = -ED
In the Table are listed Ec,,,, Ep, and ErOtfor various radii
The average distance of points (and thus of electron charge density
of the "smeared-out" particie-in-the-box) from the center of the sphere
is 314 R or 318 D.
This is an example of the famousvariation principle of quantum
mechanics which states that approximate wave functions always give
a higher energy than the true ground-state wave function. This allows
a determination of which appr&mate wave function is best and is the
basis of much theoretical chemistrv.
" S m e n = 1 s Jied. ln.5 . j inc lo\restenerg, state poss ole for
Ine s)slem. I Inerrlore canna lose an) 1-nher encrg) o, ma at on an0
1n.S inc e cclron canno: sp f a nlo l o r n.cle-s
" Tn s La Le s oola ne3 oy ntegratmg me proom r) oensi? fmaion
of the electron in a given spherical volume element:
between zero and 1.96312 A (6).
42 Journal of Chemical Education
Energy of Containment (Eco.), Potential Energy (E.), and Total
Energy (ETO1)lor an electron in a spherical box of djameter a, in
which there is a central charge of + l .
of the containing sphere for the radially symmetrical case of
t h e n = 1state of a hydrogen-like atom (Z = 1). This data is
plotted in Figure 2.
The point of minimum energy in the ET", curve is obtained
by setting the first derivative of eqn. 6 equal to zero."
dETOi - 2 r ~ % ~
-=-
dr 8ma3
+-8Ze2
3a2
(7)
Solving for a, we obtain:
F o r n = l a n d Z = l , a =1.963A.
Thus, indeed this very simple model yields a stable atom.'O
There is a minimum in the E T curve, ~ ~ and a t the min-
imum:
The model predicts that for a stable hydrogen-like atom in its
Is state, the electron cloud will be 100%contained in a sphere
of 1.963 A in diameter, and that the ionization potential for
this atom will he 9.8 eV. These values compare reasonably well
with those obtained in the exact solution of the hydrogen atom
(5) for which the 1s electron is 71.7%11 contained within a
sphere of 1.963 A diameter and has an ionization potential of
13.6 eV.
It should be noted that a "box" is not necessary to have
confinement energy. For example, if a wave function equal to
N[exp - rla] is chosen and the variation principle applied to
find "a," the exact enerev is obtained. This is so because a
function has been c h o s e z h a t is ofthe exact form as the true
ground-state function. In this case, the walls of the "box" fade
away gradually. The present model is based upon a spherical
box because it is more easily visualized than a "box" with no
sharp walls. Thus, some accuracy is sacrificed in order to have
a model that students will be more readily able to visualize.
Acknowledgment
Franklin Mason wishes to thank Dr. Larry Domash for his
inspiration, Professor Gordon G. Goles for his encouragement,
and especially Professor John A. Neptune who made it pos-
sible.
.""-,,.". .,.
12) For anexample of ihiiconcept ofi'Energy u l c o n f a i n m e n t ~ S e eLey~Km.E.,andHu-
binstein,S., J. i h ~ n t Phy,
. .71,353 (19791.
(S) R a m D.,"Quantum iMechmics/ Holt. RinehsrL and Wmstun. Inc.. New Y w k , 1971.
pp. 22PrZB.
(41 Piuling, L.. and Wilson, E. B., "lntmduciion to quvntum Mechanics." McGrav~H~lI.
New York, 1915, p. 97.
(51 Pnuling. L., and Wiisun, E. B., "Intr,,d"ction to qaantum Mechanics." ChaptPi 5.
(fir See Padin:, L.. alid Wilson, F. R., "Introduction to Quantum Mochanlcs." pp. 13%
40.