Sorry, been a while since high school. Can someone please explain why this model is incorrect, and why they teach it in high school if it’s incorrect?
In: Chemistry
the model is taught because it describes most “everyday” processes well.
but it is incorrect when you go to some extremes/into details, because for starters the particles themselves aren’t “neat little balls” but quantum mechanical “probability clouds”, but that just simply doesnt matter because if looked at “from far enough away” they behave exactly the same, so you can teach students the easy way first.
in physics/math you often have terms like y= 3x+ 0.000001 * x^5
if you look at values for x between 0 and 1 then that last part is so insignificant and small it can just be ignored and the whole thing becomes MUCH easier. it wont lead you to the “correct” result but does ist really matter if the result for x = 0.5 is 1.5 or 1.5000000000000000000000000001 (not the actual number)? usually it doesnt
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