A spherical cocoon of electrons
Because electrons are ultrafast and moving in a defined energy shell, they create a cloud of electrons around the nucleus.
What the nucleus “feels” is a spherical cocoon of electrons that are humming continuously in the atmosphere above it.
What we “feel” in our real world time frame - if we could touch that blur of electrons - is a "solid" layer of electrons in an s-orbital encircling the nucleus.
Shortest distance paths
However, even with this ultrafast travel, electrons continue to look for ways to minimize their kinetic energy. The easiest way of doing this is through choosing shorter distance paths.
On a sphere, the shortest distance between two points is that which follows one of the great circles of the sphere (geodesic). An electron will move from one geodesic to the next looking for that which has the shortest distance between two points. If it bumps into an arc that is longer, it will revert back to one of the shorter arcs.
Creating electron bench points
When there are two electrons in an energy shell, they have multiple options to decrease their kinetic energy. However, there are rules that electrons must abide with. Article 8 describes that the best way for two electrons to follow the rules is for the electrons to move along arcs between the vertices of a tetrahedron.
When we have great circle geodesics that encircle a tetrahedron's edges, there will be a superimposition and clustering of points where multiple great circles meet. These are the electron bench points.
great circles around tetrahedron
In a tetrahedron, a vertex is touched 3 times given the convergence of 3 great circles at each vertex. This is shown in the attached diagram. We have shown only three of the great circles encircling 3 of the 6 edges of a tetrahedron (to simplify the diagram). One can see from the diagram that one of the vertices (the top right one) has a convergence of 3 arcs at that point.
Some bench points are more favorable than others. In the next (and last) module, I will show that not all electron bench points are created equal.
Picture credits:
- By Vink Fan. Glowing lines and creative geometries, 3d rendering. Computer digital drawing, ID: 1554692297.
- Rene Mensen. Double reflection, Taken on March 9, 2014.
- Grafixo. Geodesics along the edges of a tetrahedron. Three great circles shown converging at one vertex, uploaded Nov 2021.