electron dimensions and mass

[gre]

Are electrons considered to be 2 dimensional within a single frame (i.e. their time was frozen) .. Also can an object in 2 spatial dimensions have mass?

 

 

Thanks.

[ydoaPs]

IIRC, electrons are zero-dimensional.

[Mr Skeptic]

No one considers electrons to be two dimensional as far as I know. They are sometimes considered points, spheres, or fuzzy probability distributions depending on what theory you are modeling them in.

[timo]

Are electrons considered to be 2 dimensional

No.

within a single frame

???

(i.e. their time was frozen)

No.

Also can an object in 2 spatial dimensions have mass?

Sure. But what you asked for is not what you wanted to ask. What you probably wanted to know is something like "only massless particles can travel at c and only massless particles experience zero time between two different events".

[gre]

In a nutshell, I was just wondering how point particles such as electrons get their 3 dimensions in space, and if their "spin" had anything to do with it. What would an electron look like without spin?

[Mr Skeptic]

In a nutshell, I was just wondering how point particles such as electrons get their 3 dimensions in space, and if their "spin" had anything to do with it. What would an electron look like without spin?

 

An electron without spin would look like it doesn't have a tiny magnet embedded in it.

[gre]

Spin just contributes to magnetic fields?

[Klaynos]

It's more complicated than that.

 

An electron with 0 spin would be a completely different particle, and we'd have to apply different statistics to it (bose-einstein instead of fermion). There's no way you can just say "no spin, so this will happen" it would be fundamentally different.

 

I've never heard of the electron being considered 2D? It can be confined to 2D that is true (or even 0D).

 

They are 3D because they can move in 3 dimensions and the forces they exert are spherically symmetric (and therefore act in 3 dimensions).