Nuclear forces?

Question

ok i know that the electromagnetic force holes the electrons and close to the nucleous but what is stopping the electrons from caving into the nucleous because the protons are postivly charged and the electrons are negitvly charged they should be flying into each other so can someone please tell me what goes on there

Answer 1

The answer is the uncertainty principle. In order to confine a particle (electron in this case) to a volume of size r, you need an amount of energy of the order of  h^2/(m r^2), where h is Planck's constant and m is the mass of the particle.  If you substitute the mass of an electron for m, and the radius of a Hydrogen atom for r, you will get approximately the value for the binding energy as answer.  But if you substitute the radius of the atomic nucleus for r, the energy needed to keep the electron inside it would be huge - much larger than the electrical force can supply.