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Chapter Two

Solving the EquationMoving the ElectronFull Generalization

2.2. Concrete Behavior : The Motion of the Electron

Do you remember the three equations we found? They describe the motion of the electron. In the previous section we mentioned that the electron moves on a circular orbit. In this section we want to give you, as the physical inexperienced reader, a detailed study of this motion. In the following we will deal with the three equations (2a.04) (2a.05/06) we found in Sec.2.1:

The simpler the better: We concentrate on the x-y-plane of the motion first and separate the oscillation period T into eight time-spans of equal length. The oscillating period is the period in which a periodically moving coordinate has come to its initial position. The shorter the oscillation period is, the faster is the angular velocity, see the definition (2b.01) below. We already were confronted with the angular velocity B in the previous section. The angular velocity is defined as:
(2b.01)
If we introduce the velocity v = 2R . T -1 of a coordinate, we get
(2b.02)
In the following table we have listed the phase = B. t to the time t belonging to as well as the values of the functions (2a.05/06) (divided with R):

Table 1.
 Time t  t = 0  t = (1/8)T  t = (2/8)T  t = (3/8)T  t = (4/8)T  t = (5/8)T  t = (6/8)T  t = (7/8)T
 Phase = B. t   = 0   = /4   = /2   = 3/4   =   = 5/4   = 3/2   = 7/4
 R -1x(t)  1  2^(-1/2)  0  -2^(-1/2)  -1  -2^(-1/2)  0  2^(-1/2)
 R -1y(t)  0  2^(-1/2)  1  2^(-1/2)  0  -2^(-1/2)  -1  -2^(-1/2)

At last, we consider the motion in z-direction. If this motion is nonzero, the z-coordinate of the electron moves with constant velocity.

Fig.1 best summarize our results; it shows the orbit of our electron as a screw-like line, Table 2 deals as a legend.

Table 2.
 t0 = 0  t1 = (1/8)T  t2 = (2/8)T  t3 = (3/8)T  t4 = (4/8)T
   t5 = (5/8)T  t6 = (6/8)T  t7 = (7/8)T  t8 = T

 


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Chapter Two