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The proton is about 1.6–1.7 fm in diameter.

Quoted from Wikipedia.

That is,The proton just occupies a definite volume or a definite space. But I can't find the radius of an electron in Wikipedia. Can I infer from this that Electron does not have a definite volume.

Electron is round

If Electron and the rest of sub-atomic particles don't have a definite volume, Then why their composition does so?

Do the uncertainty in position of a particle restricts to decide the volume of the particle too?

I just found a website which says that the electron is spherical!

A 10-year study has revealed that the electron is very spherical indeed. To be precise, the electron differs from being perfectly round by less than 0.000000000000000000000000001 cm. To put that in context; if an electron was the size of the solar system, it would be out from being perfectly round by less than the width of a human hair.

Source : wired.co.uk

Is Volume in the quantum scale definable?

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ryanafrish7
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  • The electron will occupy whatever volume is available to it. The less space it gets, the more energy it takes to contain it. This remains true for extremely small volumes in high energy physics experiments, which is why we usually assume that the electron itself can be described as a point particle up to the level of the highest energies we can create, so far. – CuriousOne Oct 04 '14 at 13:35
  • Then, the electron occupies the entire universe having zero energy because of Infinite space available to it. Can you please elaborate the volume available to it? – ryanafrish7 Oct 04 '14 at 13:41
  • Let electron does not occupy any volume, and it is considered to be a point-like particle. I just found that proton only have a charge radius and not a definite one. – ryanafrish7 Oct 04 '14 at 15:27
  • The discussions in the Do electrons have shape? seems to talk about the shape of higher probability positions of the electrons and not the actual shape of electrons – ryanafrish7 Oct 04 '14 at 15:32
  • "I just found a website which says that the electron is spherical!" The electron has neither a known size nor any known shape. For that matter while it is true that the proton occupies volume it is a little strong to say it occupies a "definite" volume: there are several reasonable way to measure it's diameter and they give answers varying by tens of percent. – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Oct 04 '14 at 16:53
  • Concerning the exactness of the cuplicate fit, http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/24001/what-is-the-mass-density-distribution-of-an-electron might have been a better choice. In any case, this has been covered on Phyisics SE before. – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Oct 04 '14 at 16:58
  • @AfrishKhan: The volume is set by the potential the electron is moving in. We can make that whatever we want, a box, a sphere or the entire universe. And, yes, if you give the entire universe to the electron, it will occupy the entire universe... eventually. The volume the electron occupies has nothing to do with the shape of the electron, which is an ill-defined question, to begin with. – CuriousOne Oct 05 '14 at 01:20
  • @CuriousOne: consider a hydrogen atom in your hand, It is open to the universe. Then does it mean its volume is that of the universe? – ryanafrish7 Oct 05 '14 at 08:49
  • @AfrishKhan: If you put it in a soup can, it occupies the volume of a soup can. If you put it around a proton, it occupies the volume of a hydrogen atom. Is any of that the volume of the universe? – CuriousOne Oct 05 '14 at 14:50
  • @CuriousOne: The soup can is still in the universe. And also the proton you got – ryanafrish7 Oct 05 '14 at 17:14
  • @AfrishKhan: And while the soup can could occupy the entire universe, the electron stuck inside will only ever occupy the inside of the soup can. That's a consequence of relativity, which tells is that we can't distinguish what's on the outside from the inside of an elevator... or a soup can. – CuriousOne Oct 05 '14 at 19:44

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