Last week I mentioned that the wave-like nature of electrons can beautifully explain the structure of the hydrogen atom; this week, we’re going to explore this idea. Now you may be wondering, “what does this have to do with time travel?” but stick with me; as it turns out, time travel machines and hydrogen nuclei probably have a lot in common!
To make it work, however, Bohr had to include an ad-hoc assumption — that the electron couldn’t orbit at any distance it wanted, but only at “acceptable” distances (which he determined experimentally). Unfortunately, he had no idea why this was the case; he couldn’t explain why the electron should suffer any such limitation. Using what we’ve discussed over the past two weeks — about waves, electrons, and wave-particle duality — we can.
In reality, the situation is more complex than this — mostly because hydrogen atoms are three dimensional, not two. However, the basic idea is correct: electrons are unable to go anywhere that they would destructively interfere with themselves. The same thought process has been applied to protons, entire atoms, and even molecules, so there’s nothing to suggest that this basic idea can’t be applied to larger collections of matter. In general, physical objects should not be able to go anywhere or do anything that causes destructive self-interference.
Now, at this point you may be able to see where I am headed — at least partially. Even still, there’s one more set of ideas that I’d like to introduce before I bring everything together. Therefore, next week we’re going to build a basic time machine using wormholes through space time, as well as discuss some assumptions and limiting cases. See you then!