How can you weigh an electron?

[spinner]

This is a place for having fun, right?

Yep, it wouldn't hurt...

Gravitation is quite an enigmatic force.  There are lots of theories about it.  A few seem to make some sense.  If we had more information, that might help to clarify the situation.  What we know for sure (I think) is this--

  F  =  Gm₁m₂/R²  (for spheres and point particles)

G seems to be the same constant as close as we can tell for any material that we have tried.  But, I'm fairly certain that the formula and the value of G have never been tested for particles smaller than a whole atom.  Well, it seems to have been checked for photons, but the accuracy is fairly low I believe.  So, why not an experiment to measure the gravitational force on an elementary particle?  An electron, for instance?

Yes, it's still just a (good) approximation (the mass of the electron) - somewhere at 10^-30 kilos for a piece... Not very much, but there usually is plenty of them...

Let's think about a simple experiment.  Look at a straight metal rod held vertically in the earth's gravitational field.  (Inside a shielded room, say, to remove other fields besides gravity.)  There should be slightly more electrons in the bottom of the rod than in the top-- they "fall to the bottom."

Okay, now it's your turn.  Can you figure out how to measure that slight inequality?  Or, maybe you have another approach to suggest?

Ernie Rogers

Interesting thinking (the gravity influence on an electrons)...Yes, they have mass, allright. We know that from many experiments made troughout the history. Even the CRT works because the electrons are "knocking out" the photons...The kinetics of a mass particles...
(Why not throwing that iron pole towards the concrete wall and measuring the inertial induced effect of the electrons?)

So, in your experiment the gravity acts like a charge separator (gathering most of the free electrons (in a vertical iron bar) at the bottom....)

Why not measuring the bar ends with an extremely sensitive electrometer? If the theory works, a voltage difference (charge separation potential caused by gravity) could be measured.... But due to an extremely low mass (and energy due to the absence of any other potential "driving" mechanism) of the electrons, it could take even thousands years for any "free" electrons to "fell" from the top pole and settle at the bottom pole of that iron bar.
Using a Newtonian equations. (W=mgh, a=F/m, t=...). Would that iron bar corrode and "disappear" in the dust (here, on Earth) before something really happens? Probably.

The next problem is, how many free electrons in an ideal (homogenus material) iron bar there really is? Without apparent external energy (ideally isolated / shielded experiment), it's hard to tell... If some electrons are knocked out of their "valence shells" by the influence of the atomic/molecular activity (retained heat), they tend to recombine as as fast as they can (in the nearest possible atom).
Nature (and energy) seeks to find a lowest possible energy state.

So, how many electrons would fell at the bottom of that iron bar, under an influence of just a gravity field?
I really don't know. Hey, you said it's just fun!

[Shanti]

Is there really such a thing - electron? Well i call it just energy flow and there is a positive and a negative energy flow. Can you show me an electron? I don't think so, 'cause form is created by an equilibrium of both + and - energy flow (forces). To weight an electron? Weight is the flow of energy between two objects in disequilibrium.
Guys, let go of the textbooks and just use your own head. Give it a try, what do you have to loose? It's what you will slowly gain that will amaze you.

Can you show me an atom, a car? Stupid question? Well what is it that you see? You see only the (EM-)interactions of the "things" with your senses/meters, not the thing itself...
But I agree with your cosmogony...

Guys, let go of the textbooks and just use your own head. Give it a try, what do you have to loose? It's what you will slowly gain that will amaze you.

Well not all textbooks are bad...E.g. read something of Walter Russell, and you will be amazed, that he explains, just about what you said before very easily...and he goes much further than this...
But I'm getting Offtopic...Sorry...

Why not measuring the bar ends with an extremely sensitive electrometer?

You forgot, that e.g. on the earth the thing which would really render your experiment useless is the natural electric field gradient of the earth which is in the range of 100V/m! (Field gradient from the earth surface to the ionosphere...)
But hey, perhaps the field gradient is just the result of this effect???

[spinner]

Hello, Shanti!
(Please, next time quote different authors separately. Thanks!)

You forgot, that e.g. on the earth the thing which would really render your experiment useless is the natural electric field gradient of the earth which is in the range of 100V/m! (Field gradient from the earth surface to the ionosphere...)
But hey, perhaps the field gradient is just the result of this effect???

Where did you get this data???
It means that my head is at almost 200V higher potential than my feet are?
That would be something... A FE for anyone.

(I think CARNOT's post was more like a "gedanken experiment"...)

[madddann]

Great, we are having fun already.

@CARN0T
@Shanti

"Human civilization is built on man's ability to transfer knowledge from one generation to the next.  (I.e., textbooks)"

-What about our DNA? Does it not contain knowledge written by nature?
Well, what i was really trying to say is that we shall not strictly follow the textbooks, cause most of them does complicate things, but yes, there are also good ones that will lead you in the right simple way. My point is, if we know how to correctly read nature, we don't need no textbooks for learning, only our head. Why do i say so? ...'cause now things are happening so fast, that textbooks can hardly follow the tempo, and it's getting higher.
OK, but what about the pyramids? There is knowledge available for more than 10000 years now and we still don't get it.. lol.
Well seems that this is just a process of nature, so all wee can do is make the transitions smoother and more enjoyable for all of us.
Even stupid questions does give us good answers.

@spinner

"It means that my head is at almost 200V higher potential than my feet are?
That would be something... A FE for anyone."

- well, look at yourself - aren't you a FE device? Did you ever measured the input and output work of yourself? Is there such a "benchmark" available on the internet?

Sorry for the offtopic, but you know, i just had to answer. 

Peace
Dann

[CARN0T]

Hey, Spinner,

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

Oh, sorry, the electrometer can't measure the displacement of electrons.  There is an electric field in the metal, sort of, caused by gravity.  But, the test wires of the electrometer have exactly the same field so it is unable to measure any potential difference.

How many electrons are free to move in the iron bar?- -  I am thinking from memory, some years back.  My recollection is that half of the conduction band in a metal like iron is above the Fermi level.  That means that exactly half of the "valence electrons" are free to move.  I'm pretty sure there are two electrons per atom, so that means one free electron per atom.  Or 6.02 * 10^23 electrons in 56 grams of iron are free to move.

But the displacement amounts to only a couple of electrons.  Somebody could calculate that.

Ernie Rogers

Yep, it wouldn't hurt...Yes, it's still just a (good) approximation (the mass of the electron) - somewhere at 10^-30 kilos for a piece... Not very much, but there usually is plenty of them...
Interesting thinking (the gravity influence on an electrons)...Yes, they have mass, allright. We know that from many experiments made troughout the history. Even the CRT works because the electrons are "knocking out" the photons...The kinetics of a mass particles...
(Why not throwing that iron pole towards the concrete wall and measuring the inertial induced effect of the electrons?)

So, in your experiment the gravity acts like a charge separator (gathering most of the free electrons (in a vertical iron bar) at the bottom....)

Why not measuring the bar ends with an extremely sensitive electrometer? If the theory works, a voltage difference (charge separation potential caused by gravity) could be measured.... But due to an extremely low mass (and energy due to the absence of any other potential "driving" mechanism) of the electrons, it could take even thousands years for any "free" electrons to "fell" from the top pole and settle at the bottom pole of that iron bar.
Using a Newtonian equations. (W=mgh, a=F/m, t=...). Would that iron bar corrode and "disappear" in the dust (here, on Earth) before something really happens? Probably.

The next problem is, how many free electrons in an ideal (homogenus material) iron bar there really is? Without apparent external energy (ideally isolated / shielded experiment), it's hard to tell... If some electrons are knocked out of their "valence shells" by the influence of the atomic/molecular activity (retained heat), they tend to recombine as as fast as they can (in the nearest possible atom).
Nature (and energy) seeks to find a lowest possible energy state.

So, how many electrons would fell at the bottom of that iron bar, under an influence of just a gravity field?
I really don't know. Hey, you said it's just fun!