How does an electron have spin 1 2?

All known fermions, the particles that constitute ordinary matter, have a spin of 12. The spin number describes how many symmetrical facets a particle has in one full rotation; a spin of 12 means that the particle must be rotated by two full turns (through 720°) before it has the same configuration as when it started.

What are the 2 possible spins of an electron?

The electron can spin in two directions: The spin up and spin down direction are corresponding to the spinning in the +z or –z direction. These spins (spin up and spin down) are the particles that have spin s equal to 1/2, i.e. for electrons.

Why is electron spin important when writing electron configurations explain in terms of the Pauli exclusion principle?

Why is electron spin important when writing electron configurations? The Pauli’s exclusion principle: No two electrons in an atom can have the same four quantum numbers. Because two electrons occupying the same orbital have three identical quantum numbers (n, l, ml), they must have different spin quantum numbers.

Can an electron change spin?

The electron cannot change the magnitude of its spin or its magnetic moment. In the hydrogen atom, it is in the field of the proton spin (much weaker).

What does a spin 1 particle mean?

Photons are spin 1 particles. The spin of a photon is measured by making polarization measurement. If we measure the linear polarization of a single photon along any axis, we can only find it aligned with the axis or perpendicular to this axis.

What is the difference between fermions and bosons?

A fermion is any particle that has an odd half-integer (like 1/2, 3/2, and so forth) spin. Bosons are those particles which have an integer spin (0, 1, 2…). All the force carrier particles are bosons. The fermions were found to obey Pauli exclusion principle and obeyed Fermi-Dirac statistics.