〈 Berger | Dillon 〉

What keeps the electron in orbit?!

it doesn't orbit

So it’s always in a falling state?!

A (maybe not that much) better way to put it is that it's in an alreqdy fallen state -- but because of Heisenberg uncertainty, the electron can't be localized perfectly at the center.

So the "energy levels" that are usually called orbitals are really various ways in which the electron can be quantum mechanically spread out inside that well.

Next stop: electrons aren’t balls.

They are pretty much perfect spheres.

@InertialObservr tried to convince me that the volume of an electron’s wave function is bounded, but it went over my head. But I’m unfamiliar with any demonstration that said volume is spherical.