Orbitals Definition and 245 Threads

I've been really into electrons and their orbitals for a few months now, but I've never understood how they come up with all of these 3d models from these complicated equations. I would love it if someone could explain in detail the equations and the values of the variables and constants within...

In the stern-gerlach experiment, silver atoms with a +1/2 would be deflected up, and atoms with a -1/2 spin would be deflected down. With that in mind, would electrons' orbitals within an atom be affected by its spin?

Do the orbitals of electrons change positions within their energy level relative to the nucleus or are they statically "attached" to the nucleus? To try and put this into perspective, would the orbitals of the electrons be like nailing a balloon(orbital) straight to the ball(nucleus) or nailing...

Why was I taught in high school that shell, subshells and orbitals were the same thing?

Hi! I have understood how elements such as Be and Ca, with fully filled 2s orbitals, are not to be considered "noble" because they still have unfilled p orbitals. But I'm having trouble understanding how these elements participate in chemical reactions without having any unpaired electrons. My...

Hello, At first, I wasn't sure why p-orbitals are shaped as they are. I looked through the posts of others here and it makes some sense now. My understanding is that they are dumbbell shaped because electrons repel from each other and are attracted by the nucleus. Then why is an s-orbital...

Hi, can anyone please guide me how to draw the distribution curves for radial wave function of an orbital? Please explain stepwise and in easy way. Thanks.

From the ψ2 vs r graph (i.e probability of finding an electron vs distance from nucleus graph), there are no nodes for 1s orbital while there is a node in the 2s orbital graph.But they have similar structures right? Then why is there a difference in finding the probability of finding an...

Let's take a hydrogen atom with a single electron. How many eigenvalues of position can it form (assuming you put it the atom in an x, y, z coordinate)? like 1 billion possible position eigenvalues? Is it continuous number like 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 or quantized? and either case, how many eigenvalues...

Hello all I have an exam coming up this week but there's something that I don't understand: Let's take methane, for example. If I understand it correctly, the bonding orbitals of carbon are all hybridized to sp³ orbitals and overlap with the 1s orbital of four H atoms. Does the orbital of...

Homework Statement Homework Equations Huckel's Rule: 4n +2 pi electrons The Attempt at a Solution I'm having problems with the last molecule. I said that the first molecule was indeed aromatic because it has 6 pi electrons and obeys the 4n + 2 rule. The second one is not aromatic because...

Not a homework question, just curious. My book says that bonding orbitals from from constructive interference while antibonding orbitals from destructive interference. Since constructive interference increases amplitude, what increases in amplitude from the combination of bonding orbitals? It...

Electrons can only exist at certain levels of orbit around the nucleus of an atom, meaning that when they leap, they skip the space in between the two orbitals all together. so if they do this instantly, there is no time between the electron being on one level of orbit to the other. I have seen...

why orbitals like s, px, py, pz etc can hold maximum of 2 electrons? Why not some other number?

My general understanding of Molecular Orbitals is as follows: N atoms come together to form N molecular orbitals. N/2 of the orbitals will be spatially asymmetric with symmetric spins.This corresponds to the antibonding orbital. N/2 will be spatially symmetric with antisymmetric spins. This...

If you solve the Schrodinger Equation, you will get solution for the equation, which is orbital. My question is, for example, dumbbell-shaped p-orbitals in hydrogen atoms or other atoms, is there some expert who visualized this orbitals and confirmed experimentally? And how can it be...

Hi, so I'm a first year neuroscience student at Carelton University in Canada. I had a little bit of a "revelation" with this topic recently after I understood it a bit better and I think this is really interesting. (If I understand it correctly!) We're learning about Kekule structures...

I'm seeing conflicting answers among various textbooks. I would predict that it forms SP3 hybrid orbitals, and yet its bond angles are far from 109.5. Edit: H2S, rather.

Do electrons really exist as standing waves in an atom? If so, are these standing waves what are known as atomic orbitals?

Are the energy differences between orbitals the same for all of the elements? If not How do you determine the energy differences between orbitals?

although the distance from the nucleus and shielding effect [due to more angular volume] is more for 4s orbital than a 3d orbital ,but yet the energy for a 3d orbital is more than 4s orbital, why?

In Molecular orbital theory, when two atoms A & B come close to each other, their atomic orbitals (say their s orbitals) combine and make two molecular orbitals, one bonding and the other anti-bonding. How about molecular orbitals of three or more atoms? For three atoms say A & B & C we would...

Hi I spotted on an MCAT book I am studying off of that the shading of the lobes(from a figure of p and sp3 orbitals) in an orbital represents the direction of spin for the electron and that in order for the electron density to overlap, the electrons must have the same spin. Firstly, I thought...

I was thinking of putting together a visualization of electron orbitals as it transitions from unbounded or weakly bounded state to the ground state. However, it occurred to me that orbitals are symmetric about the proton. At some point the probability distribution must become asymmetric...

hi! i have a doubt, how can i know the total number of bonding and antibonding electrons given a diatomic molecule's electronic configuration in therms of sigma and pi orbitals? I have to add these σ and π orbitals are of the type gerade and ungerade. does anyone can help me?

One of my nuclear physics exercises was to find out if increasing the pressure of a sample of ^{7}\textrm{Be} would increase the chance of electron capture to ^{7}\textrm{Li} occur. My reasoning was that the electron wave function is not pressure dependent and therefor it would not increase the...

And how electrons behave in each separate orbital? I was told that, in case of Boron, electron in 3p orbital will not be confined to the imaginary region of the 3p orbital (3px orbital, whose shape resembles a bowtie), but instead will be moving around the nucleus as if its movement was confined...

The 3s and 3p orbitals are filled by 4 electrons.A single atom has [Ne]3s2 3p2.But when multiple atoms get together they do so in order to minimize the overall energy.And to minimize the overall energy,the 3s and 3p orbitals hybridize to form 4 tetrahedral SP3 orbitals.And the Si atoms get...

I would be most grateful for some tips of interactive software, which shows the hybridized atomic orbitals overlapping in the molecule (I don't mean resulting molecular orbitals but atomic orbitals of which overlapping forms MO). And does this works also in Mathematica?

Hi I have a question regarding Molecular orbital theory: Is it correctly understood that if we combine 2 or more atoms the atomic orbitals can become 2 things: They can either become Hybrid orbitals which are the orbitals that form sigma bonds between atoms, or they can become Molecular...

A relatively easy question regarding hybridized orbital (keep getting confused for some reason): What is the hybridization state for the central phosphorus atom in a phosphate ion? I would presume that it would be sp3d to fulfill the expended octet/five bonds with the four oxygen atoms, but I...

Hi guys I've been having some trouble plotting the p(x) and d(xy) atomic orbitals on Matlab. I have been given that p(x) = x*e^-(x^2 + y^2 + z^2)^0.5 and d(xy) = x*y*e^-(x^2 + y^2 x^2)^0.5 Now I want to plot these orbitals on MATLAB using mesh or the surf command and then plot the...

http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/Theoretical_Chemistry/Chemical_Bonding/Molecular_Orbital_Theory/How_to_Build_Molecular_Orbitals Hi, I'm currently trying to understand MO theory and how diagrams are made and interpreted. I stumbled across this website and it shows the general MO diagrams...

Just a quick question - how come that for electrons we need probability orbitals, but for the nucleus we don't? Is it because of the difference in mass? Or because of a bigger matter wavelength? Can we really pinpoint the location of the nucleus or ist it just easier for textbooks to depict it...

I'm not sure if this question even has an answer, but I've been studying the interaction of photons with electrons in atoms and a lot of other things and the underlying thing I don't understand is why electron orbitals exist in specific shapes (probably delves into quantum mechanics). For...

I was reading an article about the electron orbitals of iron and copper: The electronic configuration of iron is 1s 2, 2s 2, 2p 6, 3s 2, 3p 6, 4s 2, 3d 6 And that of copper is 1s 2, 2s 2, 2p 6, 3s 2, 3p 6, 4s 1, 3d 10 Iron has an incompletely filled d orbital while copper has a full...

In the case of an atom of Cesium ejecting an electron, it would lose one electron from the 6s orbital. The 6s orbital is very high in energy and similarly so would the electron that is ejected from it, right? So if there was a Nitrogen atom as well, how would it be possible that the Nitrogen...

If the electrons closer to the nucleus experience greater electrostatic attraction from the nucleus, would not the closer electrons require more energy to stay in orbit? Also, the electron shielding from the inner electrons would reduce the energy required to stay farther away from the nucleus...

Hello, a newbie here. I need to understand the relationship between MO and Energy Bands. Although i have searched and researched about this topic in Google, but i am yet to understand this part clearly. It is said that Energy Bands occur as the number of MO increase due to the various...

Why is the probability of finding an electron of s orbital in the nucleus highest? Is Quantum Tunneling involved? If so, won't the electron need a large amount of energy to pass through the nucleus?

1. Homework Statement Draw an LCAO representation of all of the bonding orbitals for C2H2O. Be sure to clearly state the hybridization of the two carbons and the oxygen in addition to drawing the orbital representation. Also show clearly what orbital any unshared pairs occupy. 2...

We are taught that a reason for the stability of half filled or fully filled orbitals is due to the high exchange energy. Now i get why the exchange energy would be higher compared to other configurations but i don't understand why electrons present in degenerate orbitals would want to exchange...

I have some questions based on the figures provided on this helpful educational link: http://chemed.chem.wisc.edu/chempaths/GenChem-Textbook/Orbitals-896.html == For discussion, let us work with two isotopes, He-3 (ppn) and Li-6 (pppnnn). Each (p+) would have an electron (e-) associated with...

Question. Is there a quantum reason why a lone electron in any of the three available (x,y,z) 2P orbital energy states must always be spin-up or spin-down ? Every figure I see always shows a single electron as spin-up for the three 2P energy states, but is there a quantum theory constraint...

I've been introduced to ligand-field theory lately and was then wondering what roles f orbitals play in the magnetic properties of elements and alloys. Apparently f orbitals behave oddly in that they hybridize in weird ways because they're so large and that the crystal field actually affects the...

In the attached figure, what is the physical meaning of signs + and - in opposite lobes of p orbitals?

If I use hydrogen-like orbitals for other atoms, how are the number of nodes and probability density affected?

Hey all, Why do electron orbitals exist? That is to say, why do electrons in essence move away from the proton (potential) instead of attempting to get closer to the proton? Feel free to throw out some quark and nuclear physics...haven't had qed yet. IR

I'm currently working on a paper dealing with aspects of Franck-Hertz experiment, and encountered some puzzling descriptions and symbols in an article published in the past, as follows: 1. The article includes a simplified energy level scheme of mercury. This scheme includes also 7th & 8th...

Hi all, I have a question about calculating the orbitals of bodies of mass in space (Newton's basic laws). I am writing a program to simulate the orbitals of bodies in space -- basically, you define the object's mass, size, location, and initial velocities and watch how they interaction via...