Is it literally like the electron is rotating super fast, or something more complicated?
In: Physics
Electrons don’t spin. We observe that a beam of electrons is split in two by a magnetic field so they have some kind of magnetic moment. It’s a kind of angular moment. We can even look at how energy levels work out in our calculations and comparing it to experimental results we find that some quantity is missing and if we introduce spin it fits perfectly.
If we were to calculate the spin as rotation for the electron using classical electron radius we’d get a way faster velocity than the speed of light so its not angular momentum in the classical sense and even mathematically the quantity doesn’t transform as you’d expect it to with classical intuitions in mind.
Spin is a quality that a particle has because it’s that particle. It’s linked to magnetic effects like circular currents and also comes from the QM equivalent to rotations but it’s not literally spinning like a little ball since an electron isn’t a little ball.
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