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Why are electrons closest to the nucleus held most tightly?
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subatomic particle
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's most powerful particle accelerator. At the LHC, located underground in Switzerland, physicists study subatomic particles.
Electrons are held most tightly to the nucleus because of the electrostatic attraction between the negatively charged electrons and the positively charged protons in the nucleus.12
According to Coulombās law, the magnitude of this attractive force increases as the distance between the charges decreases. Because electrons in the innermost shells are physically closer to the nucleus than those in outer shells, they experience a stronger attractive force. Furthermore, electrons in the outermost orbitals are shielded from the full positive charge of the nucleus by the intervening inner electrons, which makes them more loosely held.231