Invisible wrote:
> Last time I heard, an atomic nucleous has a cloud of electrons floating 
> around it. (Seems reasonable - they're negatively charged, while the 
> nucleous is positively charged. Why wouldn't they orbit it?) 

Because they're oppositely charged, and therefore would be attracted far too 
hard towards the nucleus for centripital force to hold them out.

> Except that 
> rather than just floating around, they all stay 100% rigidly confined to 
> a discrete set of orbit shells. (Um, WTF? Why?) 

Because of the fermi exclusion principle, and the fact that they *are* 
quantum particles, and there's only so much "room" that close to the 
nucleus. (Where "room" is measured in terms of possible quantum states.)

 > And the inner-most shell
> can only hold 2 electrons (OK), the next shell can only hold 8 (um... 
> OK), and next one out also holds 8 (er... why?), and the next shell can 
> contain up to 18 electrons but when you start filling that shell you can 
> only fill it up to a certain point, and then you have to go back and 
> fill the shell below and then you can finish filling this shell (WTF?!) 

Yep.

> And the shell numbers are apparently just plucked out of the air, and 
> the shell filling orders are completely arbitrary. 

No. It's just relatively complicated math.

> It all seems wildly complicated and completely random.

Well, somewhat random and fairly complicated when you look at the results of 
the arithmetic, yes. It's all based on sums of infinite series of complex 
numbers, where the values of the individual complex numbers are based on 
what particles are interacting and where (in 4-D space) they are.

But you're looking at stuff like "A handful of the dots move relative to the 
background, and sometimes even go backwards (WTF?) but most don't, except 
some show up every 76 years and they aren't even round, and then there's 
this big one that changes shape over the course of a month. It all seems 
wildly complicated and completely random."  And you're missing orbital 
mechanics, which is a small handful of simple math.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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