The Incredible Shrinking Universe Theory With tongue in cheek I propose that perhaps the Bohr Theory of the atom, or the Sommedeld extension, is substantially correct. Electrons are negative particles traveling in specific orbits around a positive nucleus and electrons can change energy by changing orbits. The principal criticism of the theory was that such a system should emit energy, hence the electron should slow down and eventurtlly be captured by the nucleus. The key word may be "eventually". I t is often maumed that capture and collapse would occur in s matter of minutes, or hours, or days. But what if 'Leventoally" were billions of years?! Suppose the electrons in all the universe were slowing down and being pulled into the nucleus but kinetically i t is a slow process rather than a. rapid one. Would we detect or observe such a process? We would expect to observe released energy, probably as electromagnetic radiation, coming from all matter in the universe. Radiation other than that arising from nuclear processes is being constantly released from other galaxies and from matter (mostly hydrogen) in intergalactic space. If all atoms were collapsing a t about the same rate we would not observe the shrinking of matter a t close proximity for lack of a. standard. But, we should notice the decreacing size of distant matter such rts other galaxies. If we observed a distant galaxy gettingsmaller, hot, assumed the mat,ter corn~osinei t were of constant dimension, we would conclude that it is recedine from us.
546 / Journc~lo f Chemical Educofion
