Saturday, 19 August 2017

special relativity - Do the relativistic speeds of electrons in atoms increase the atoms' masses?


In massive atoms, the 1s and other inner electrons travel at relativistic speeds. Einstein's relativity equation predicts the mass of these electrons should increase. Is the measured mass of a mercury atom larger than 'expected' (after accounting for nuclear binding energy, etc.) due to the relativistic speed of inner electrons?




No comments:

Post a Comment