>When a hydrogen atom is in its lower energy state, the electron not only orbits around the proton, but rather stays inside it.
This is the first time I have ever learned this is possible in all my years of schooling and working in science. Fascinating, this article changed how I think about the universe.
You should not think of the electron as occupying some fixed point in space. It makes more sense to talk about the probability distribution of the position.
We have decades of ball and stick models along with solar system like atomic diagrams to thank for that. And it's compounded by the fact that we say electrons orbit so people immediatly think spherical planet like objects orbiting a sun like nucleus.
Yes, and Bose Einstein statistics can be obtained either by assuming indistinguishable particles, or that this probability distribution fluctuates uniformly. No experiment can decide between these explanations; the physics comes out the same. These are two stories to go with the joint distribution, which is what we actually observe. One could wonder why we need "thought glue" at all to explain particle physics in the language of human-scale physics. The joint distribution is what it is. No need to accept the second story; there are likely others. But one is entitled to roll one's eyes when hearing about indistinguishable particles.
This is the first time I have ever learned this is possible in all my years of schooling and working in science. Fascinating, this article changed how I think about the universe.