> Thus, negatively ionized gold atoms would be attracted
> by a positive potential.
An atom does not have to be ionized to exhibit an
electric attraction/repulsion effect. Water is "wet",
this is because the H2O atom is a bit polarized: the
two hydrogen electrons do not completely "shield" the
view of the oxygen molecule's 8 electron electric field
at all times, nor does the O atom completely shield the
influence of the two H atoms protons. Hence, at certain
temperatures the "unlike" charges can keep the H2O atoms
all together, sort of tenuously. We call this "sort of" togetherness,
liquid water. This tendency for wet things to "stick" ,
from electric attraction, we call "surface tension."
The reason the electric shielding of the water molecule
is not complete is because of the structure between the
oxygen and two hydrogen atoms. The O atom is quite
large, some 8 times that of the H atoms, and the
structure is such that the two H atoms "attach"
themselves, or better are attracted to points
exactly 105 degrees 3 minutes apart on the
periphery of the O atom structure; the distance
from the center of each H atom to the center of the
O atom is 0.957 angstrom (0.957 times 10 to the
minus 10th meters).
Surface tension is also the result of these residual E fields,
and is the reason water dissolves many other materials
with much ease. When salt (NaCl) dissolves in water, what
in fact is happening is that, could you look into the situation
with about 1 billion times magnification, you would see that
the more positive hydrogen "ends" of the water molecule are most
probably to be near a negative chlorine ion (note that the salt
came into the water as a crystal - crystals are made
up of atoms which are already ionized), while the
positive sodium ions from the salt crystal will be
more likely found near the oxygen end of the water
molecule, since the sodium ion is net positive
and the oxygen end of the water molecule is more
negative, and the two attract electrically.
Richard Feynman once said that most of physics could be
derived from only very few fundamental pieces of information,
and by an individual equipped with the tools of mathematics.
One of his fundamental and required pieces of information
for this total derivation is that matter is composed of tiny
particles called atoms -- little particles that move around
in constant motion, attracting each other when they are
a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed
into one another. He claimed that preceding sentence
to contain an enormous amount of information of great
value. Another piece of his required fundamental
information is that these "atoms" are composed of
electrically charged particles.
I have no idea whether the gold atom, which is really rather
large and heavy, has any net external electric field. However,
it has a cloud of 79 electrons, so it may well "appear"
negative; but do not know for sure.
73, Jim, KH7M
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