An electron is a fundamental particle, one of those that are the structural units of matter. According to the classification, it is a fermion (a particle with a half-integer spin, named after the physicist E. Fermi) and a lepton (particles with a half-integer spin that are not involved in the strong interaction, one of the four main ones in physics). The baryon number of an electron is zero, like other leptons.
Until recently, it was believed that an electron is an elementary, that is, indivisible, structureless particle, but now scientists are of a different opinion. What does an electron consist of according to modern physicists?
Name history
Even in ancient Greece, natural scientists noticed that amber, previously rubbed with wool, attracts small objects, that is, exhibits electromagnetic properties. The electron got its name from the Greek ἤλεκτρον, which means "amber". The term was proposed by J. Stony in 1894, although the particle itself was discovered by J. Thompson in 1897. It was difficult to detect it, the reason for this was a small mass, and the electron charge became decisive in the experiment of finding it. The first pictures of the particle were obtained by Charles Wilson using a special camera, which is used even in modern experiments and is named after him.
An interesting fact is that one of the prerequisites for the discovery of an electron is the statement of Benjamin Franklin. In 1749, he developed a hypothesis according to which, electricity is a material substance. It was in his works that such terms as positive and negative charges, capacitor, discharge, battery, and electricity particle were first applied. The specific charge of the electron is considered to be negative, and the proton is positive.
Electron discovery
In 1846, the concept of “atom of electricity” was used in his work by the German physicist Wilhelm Weber. Michael Faraday discovered the term "ion", which now, perhaps, is still known from school. The issue of the nature of electricity was dealt with by many eminent scientists, such as the German physicist and mathematician Julius Plücker, Jean Perrin, the English physicist William Crookes, Ernst Rutherford and others.
Thus, before Joseph Thompson successfully completed his famous experiment and proved the existence of a particle smaller than an atom, many scientists worked in this area, and discovery would be impossible if they did not do this colossal work.
In 1906, Joseph Thompson received the Nobel Prize. The experiment was as follows: cathode rays were transmitted through parallel metal plates that created an electric field. Then they had to go the same way, but already through a system of coils that created a magnetic field. Thompson found that under the influence of an electric field, the rays were deflected, and the same was observed under magnetic action, but the cathode ray beams did not change their trajectories if both of these fields acted in certain proportions, which depended on the particle velocity.
After calculations, Thompson learned that the speed of these particles is significantly lower than the speed of light, which meant that they have mass. From this moment, physicists began to believe that open particles of matter are part of the atom, which was subsequently confirmed by the experiments of Rutherford. He called it the "planetary model of the atom."
The paradoxes of the quantum world
The question of what the electron consists of is rather complicated, at least at this stage of the development of science. Before considering it, one must turn to one of the paradoxes of quantum physics, which even scientists themselves cannot explain. This is a famous experiment with two slits, explaining the dual nature of the electron.
Its essence is that in front of the "gun" firing particles, a frame with a vertical rectangular hole is installed. Behind it is a wall on which traces from hits will be observed. So, first you need to understand how matter behaves. The easiest way to imagine how the tennis balls start with the machine. Some of the balls fall into the hole, and traces of hits on the wall are folded into one vertical strip. If one more hole is added at some distance, the tracks will form, respectively, two bands.
Waves in this situation behave differently. If traces of a collision with a wave are displayed on the wall, then in the case of one hole the strip will also be one. However, everything changes in the case of two slots. The wave, passing through the holes, is divided in half. If the top of one of the waves meets the bottom of the other, they cancel each other out and an interference pattern appears on the wall (several vertical stripes). Places at the intersection of the waves will leave a mark, but there is no place where mutual cancellation occurred.
Amazing discovery
Using the experiment described above, scientists can clearly demonstrate to the world the difference between quantum and classical physics. When they began to bombard the wall with electrons, a normal vertical trace appeared on it: some particles, just like tennis balls, fell into the gap, and some did not. But everything changed when a second hole arose. An interference pattern appeared on the wall ! First, physicists decided that the electrons interfere with each other, and decided to start them one at a time. However, after a couple of hours (the speed of moving electrons is still much lower than the speed of light), the interference pattern began to appear again.
Unexpected turn
An electron, along with some other particles, such as photons, exhibits wave-particle duality (the term "quantum-wave duality" is also used). Like the Schrödinger cat, which is both alive and dead, the state of an electron can be either corpuscular or wave.
However, the next step in this experiment gave rise to even more mysteries: the fundamental particle, about which everything seemed to be known, presented an incredible surprise. Physicists decided to install an observational device at the holes to fix exactly what kind of gap the particles pass through and how they manifest themselves as a wave. But as soon as the observing mechanism was set up, only two stripes corresponding to two holes appeared on the wall and no interference pattern! As soon as the “surveillance” was removed, the particle again began to show wave properties, as if it knew that no one was watching it.
Another theory
The physicist Bourne suggested that the particle does not turn into a wave in the literal sense of the word. The electron "contains" a wave of probability, it is it that gives the interference picture. These particles have the property of superposition, that is, they can be in any place with a certain degree of probability, and therefore a similar “wave” can accompany them.
Nevertheless, the result is obvious: the very fact of the presence of an observer affects the result of the experiment. It seems unbelievable, but this is not the only example of this kind. Physicists conducted experiments on larger parts of matter, once a thin section of aluminum foil became an object. Scientists noted that the mere fact of some measurements affected the temperature of the item. The nature of such phenomena, they are still not able to explain.
Structure
But what does an electron consist of? At the moment, modern science cannot give an answer to this question. Until recently, it was considered an indivisible fundamental particle, but now scientists are inclined to believe that it consists of even smaller structures.
The specific charge of the electron was also considered elementary, but now quarks with a fractional charge are discovered. There are several theories regarding what an electron consists of.
Today you can see articles stating that scientists managed to separate the electron. However, this is only partially true.
New experiments
Back in the eighties of the last century, Soviet scientists suggested that the electron could be divided into three quasiparticles. In 1996, it was possible to separate it into spinon and holon, and recently by the physicist Van den Brink and his team, the particle was divided into spinon and orbiton. However, splitting can only be achieved under special conditions. The experiment can be carried out at extremely low temperatures.
When the electrons "cool down" to absolute zero, and this is about -275 degrees Celsius, they practically stop and form between themselves something like matter, as if merging into one particle. Under such conditions, physicists manage to observe the quasiparticles of which the electron "consists".
Information carriers
The radius of the electron is very small, it is 2.81794 . 10 -13 cm, however, it turns out that its components are much smaller. Each of the three parts into which the electron was "divided" carries information about it. The orbiton, as the name implies, contains data on the particle’s orbital wave. The spinon is responsible for the spin of the electron, and the holon tells us about the charge. Thus, physicists can observe separately the various states of electrons in a strongly cooled substance. They managed to trace the “holon-spinon” and “spinon-orbiton” pairs, but not the whole three together.
New technologies
Physicists who discovered the electron had to wait several tens of years until their discovery was put into practice. Nowadays, technologies find use after only a few years, it’s enough to recall graphene - an amazing material consisting of carbon atoms in one layer. How will electron splitting be useful? Scientists predict the creation of a quantum computer, the speed of which, in their opinion, is several tens of times higher than that of the most powerful modern computers.
What is the secret of quantum computer technology? This can be called simple optimization. In a familiar computer, the minimum, indivisible piece of information is a bit. And if we consider the data to be something visual, then there are only two options for the machine. A bit can contain either zero or one, that is, parts of a binary code.
New method
Now let's imagine that the bit contains both zero and the unit is the “quantum bit”, or “qubit”. The role of simple variables will be played by the electron spin (it can rotate either clockwise or counterclockwise). Unlike a simple bit, a kyubite can perform several functions simultaneously, due to this, an increase in the speed of work will occur, the small mass and charge of the electron do not matter here.
This can be explained by the example of a maze. To get out of it, you need to try many different options, of which only one will be correct. A traditional computer, even if it solves problems quickly, but at the same time, it can only work on one single problem. He will sort through all the options for the paths one by one, and eventually find the way out. A quantum computer, thanks to the duality of a qubit, can solve many problems simultaneously. He will review all possible options not in turn, but at a single point in time, and also solve the problem. The difficulty so far is only to get many quanta to work on one task - this will be the basis of the new generation computer.
Application
Most people use computers at the household level. So far, ordinary PCs do an excellent job of this, however, in order to predict events that depend on thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of variables, the machine should be simply huge. A quantum computer can easily cope with such things as forecasting weather for a month, processing data on natural disasters and their prediction, and will also perform complex mathematical calculations with many variables in a split second, and all this with a processor of several atoms. So it is possible that very soon our most powerful computers will be as thick as a sheet of paper.
Health preservation
Quantum computer technology will make a huge contribution to medicine. Mankind will be able to create nanomechanisms with the most powerful potential, with their help it will be possible not only to diagnose diseases by simply looking at the entire body from the inside, but also to provide medical care without surgical intervention: the smallest robots with the brains of an excellent computer can perform all operations.
Inevitable revolution in the field of computer games. Powerful machines that can instantly solve problems can play games with incredibly realistic graphics, and computer worlds with complete immersion are just around the corner.