Re: What is the velocity of electrons in each of the orbitals/sublevels of atom

In order to calculate the De Broglie wavelengths of matter waves, this info is 
required.  The units must be in meters per second for each velocity for each 
separate orbital and sub level.  I asked this before yet the response the 
scientist gave did not address the electrons orbiting the nucleus rather he 
chosse to respond to free electrons.


An atom is on the order of 10-10 meters in 
diameter. An electron confined to this volume of space has a velocity that 
cannot be known (by the Heisenberg relation) to better than about 
±0.005c, or 600 km/s. Given this uncertainty in velocity, you 
can't determine the de Broglie wavelength of an electron in an 
atom to better than half an atomic diameter, and probably not even that 
precisely. That's far too coarse for a particular solar-system-type electron 
orbit.


Conversely, one can assume that the electron wavelength is no greater 
than 10-10 meters and use the de Broglie 
equation to get a velocity of at least 0.02c.


Bohr did not use de Broglie waves, which were not postulated 
until a decade later, to determine his orbits--though that's one way of 
interpreting the orbits. Instead Bohr used energy states; see Linus 
Pauling and E. Bright Wilson, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (1935; 
1963 Dover reprint), Chapter 2. This treatment is not the same as the 
Schrödinger Equation, which uses electrostatic interactions, but the result 
is similar: the electron occupies certain quantized energy 
levels--not orbits--within the atom. "Electron orbits" within 
atoms are not observable: they are models of the observed energy 
quantization.

Both Bohr and Schrödinger treatments assign a "radius" to the 
electron's 
"orbit," but while Bohr interpreted his radius in terms of the solar 
system model of the atom, nowadays we consider it to be the mean radius of a 
three-dimensional standing wave.

As far as determining the velocity of an electron in a Bohr orbit, you are 
better off finding the circumference of the orbit from its calculated radius, 
considering that to be ½l, then using de 
Broglie's equation to calculate the velocity.


Dan Berger
MadSci Administrator