On Oct 23, 2004, at 12:53 AM, No Religion wrote:

>> Except of course that electrons don't actually spin around atoms in
>> anything resembling a circle :-(  I though permanent magnetism was a
>> result of the electon spins on their own axis,
>
> An electron spinning on its own axis (i.e. rotation instead of 
> revolution)
> shouldn't produce any magnetic field, since the electric field around 
> the
> electron (that itself creates) won't "vibrate", assuming an electron
> produces a perfectly spherical electrical field around itself, of 
> course
>
Well, the freshman physics book still talks about permanent magnetism
being caused by the orbits of electrons, even though the freshman
chemistry text is very insistent on demolishing "orbits"...  So I guess
we can say that even non-circular orbits have a circular component, or
perhaps magnetic materials are the ones whose outer electrons are in
fact in somewhat circular shapes...  subatomic particle spin does NOT
appear to enter into it...

BillW

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