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Does it means that almost half of its energy is lost as electromagnetic radiation?(I'm referring to hydrogen atom with 1 nucleus and 1 electron) I think that electron in an atom can only have a specific amount of energy so it can be kicked out of the atom by absorbing a photon equal to the missing energy? So as more and more electrons fill up the shells of an atom they will be increasingly less massive and thus would have to absorb photon equals to the missing amount of energy to be kicked out, is that right?

user6760
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  • Your and dmckees point of view are two interpretations of what happens inside the atom. Dmckees point is the official and not negotiable, yours is the more innovative. As long as the electric field is a whole thing and of its inner structure nobody thinks, as long a more subtile view an the energy/mass loss of the electron during the approach to the nucleus will not take place. – HolgerFiedler Oct 23 '17 at 05:11

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I suspect that you have been the victim of very imprecise use of language.

The electron's mass remains exactly as it was before.

The system's mass is reduced by the binding energy divided by the speed of light squared, but it is incorrect to assign that loss to the electron.

dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
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  • I read that atom mass = nucleus mass + electron mass - electron binding energy, so I think that energy must come from electron according to the math. – user6760 Oct 23 '17 at 03:49
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    So it is very common to attribute the binding energy to the electron (i.e. to call it 'the electron's binding energy'), but that's imprecise and not really correct. The binding energy is a system effect and wouldn't exist without the other parts of the system. – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Oct 23 '17 at 04:00
  • I just read that when the bound electron absorb a photon it gets kicked out so that the speed of escaped electron is proportional to the charge of the nucleus that's all the article say, so more proton means we need more energetic photon to kick the electron then the electron binding energy should be somehow equal to the charges cancelling out which explain why negative, is this thinking ok? – user6760 Oct 23 '17 at 05:47