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Originally Posted by Fishteacher73
... Perhaps there have more recent experiments that perhaps support quantum leaps, but it seems the most likely explanation is just electrons moving from one orbital to another. It has been a while since I have done any hard-core studying on the issue, but my understanding is that the orbitals of the electrons are just statistical probablities of where an electron with a specific amount of energy should be found. Would it not stand to reason that excited electrons use just plain old motion to shift orbitals? The methodology to deduce how electrons shift orbitals does not seem accurate enough to discern from slight and random movements and a "quantum leap".
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Electrons only move from one orbital level to another by either absorbing or releasing energy. This energy is only given off in certain discrete amounts, quanta as they're called. There's no such thing as half a quanta. Likewise in absorbing energy electrons either absorb enough energy to go to the next orbital or not, there's no half way or cumulative absorbtion of two lesser quanta. When electricity goes through the filament in a light bulb it excites the electrons in the filament. So the electrons start going out to the next orbital. But they do so only very briefly. When they release the energy they release it chiefly as quanta in the visual light part of the electromagnetic spectrum. And do so at pretty well every possible energy, thus white light. Some of the energy is also given off in the infrared part of the spectrum, which is why lightbulbs get hot. Infrared being the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that is responsible for heat transfer.
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