Visualizing the Fine Structure Constant (Part 2) #shorts by Parth G

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#shorts - here's a really fun way to visualize the Fine Structure Constant, often given the label "alpha".

It happens to be equal to a ratio of two very particular energies, which in this video we've called E1 and E2.

E1 is the energy required to bring together a pair of electrons (initially infinitely far apart) until they are a distance d away from each other. The reason this takes energy is because electrons are negatively charged and so repel each other due to the electrostatic force. By bringing them together, we are fighting this repulsion and thus need to put in energy.

E2 is the energy that a photon has when its wavelength is exactly 2pi multiplied by the same distance d mentioned above. It's worth recalling that photons are packets of light or electromagnetic radiation, that carry an energy related to the Planck constant, the speed of light, and the photon's wavelength.

It's interesting that the same distance d shows up in both the energies, it turns out that the Fine Structure Constant is equal to E1/E2!

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