Topic: spin

Book 1

In Book 1 in which Millie meets two electrons and her adventures begin, children get to know Millie and learn in a simple and playful way about electrons: the intrinsic nature of their spin, and their wave-particle duality. Children love this book. Here are some of their comments: I like Mil...…
in books
Book 1

Book 2

Book 2 in which a scarecrow gives Millie a brilliant idea about magnets is a humorous introduction to magnetism based on the orientation of electron spins. In this adventure, Millie wants to know what it is like to be an electron; she learns about magnetic fields, attractive and repulsive forces, a...…
in books
Book 2

Do electrons spin?

Electron spin makes us picture electrons as if they "spin" like a tiny toy top spinning on a table. But here’s the thing: electrons don’t spin like that at all! In the article Electron's spin - Part 1, we discovered that scientists once thought electrons might be spinning, so they gave this spe...…
in questions
Do electrons spin?

Do electrons always have the spinny top?

In the article Electron's Spin - Part 1, we discovered that the electrons’ pointy "hats" aren’t really hats at all, but rather a built-in feature of electrons known as spin. It's like your nose — you can’t take it off because it’s part of your face. Millie discovered it in Book 1. Do you rem...…
in questions
Do electrons always have the spinny top?

Electron's spin - Part 1

In Book 1, Millie is intrigued by the electrons’ pointy "hats" and curiously asks about them. She soon discovers that these aren’t hats at all, but a built-in feature of electrons known as spin. Spin is an intrinsic property of electrons and all quantum particles. An intrinsic property is a ch...…
in quantum concepts
Electron's spin - Part 1

Discovery of electron spin

In 1922, Otto Stern and Walther Gerlach, two German physicists, conducted a groundbreaking experiment that demonstrated that electron spin and magnetism were related. To understand it, let’s imagine you have a strong magnet and a bunch of tiny beads. If you throw the non-magnetic beads through the m...…
in history
Discovery of electron spin

Magnetic materials

A magnetic material is a special kind of metal that can pull certain objects toward it, even without touching them! Most magnetic materials contain iron, nickel, or cobalt. In these materials, some electrons have their spins naturally line up in the same direction creating a magnetic field...…
in macroscopic concepts
Magnetic materials

Electron's spin - Part 2

In the article Electron's spin - Part 1, we talked about how scientists first thought that electrons might be like tiny spinning balls and that they intrinsic “up” or “down” property was a sort of angular momentum. But this idea didn’t last long because: electrons don’t spin like regular obje...…
in quantum concepts
Electron's spin - Part 2