system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How do electrons stay in orbit around an atom? Shouldn't they collapse into the nucleus as they lose energy through some means or the other?
gpt
Electrons aren't little balls that orbit the nucleus of an atom like planets. Despite that commonly how it's taught in schools, it's completely incorrect. When we talk about subatomic particles, pretty much everything we think we know about how things behave on the macro scale goes out the window. Electrons aren't physical objects with volume and shape and size, they're what we call wavefunctions, which is essentially a smeared out area of probability of where the electron \*could\* be. So toss out the idea of nice neat little orbits and picture a fuzzy cloud instead. Electrons, depending on their energy levels, have their fuzzy clouds in different places. Electrons can lose energy (or gain it) but only if they do so through some specific interaction, and if they're in their lowest energy state, they can't go any lower. Now that we know electrons aren't really physical objects in the way that we normally think of, it should maybe make it easier to understand that the idea of "crashing" or "falling" into the nucleus doesn't really make sense. Electrons are fuzzy waves of probability and they can only exist in specific areas depending on their energy levels.

But there's a catch! It turns out that electrons can localize inside the nucleus of an atom. It's called electron capture and it's how a certain type of radioactive decay works. Because electrons exist in this fuzzy wave-like area of probability, as long as this area overlaps with the nucleus which it does for the lowest energy level, closest to the nucleus), there's always some probability that an electron can be inside the nucleus. If this happens and it interacts with a proton, the electron will localize inside the nucleus and interact with the proton to form a neutron.