do electrons travel on the surface of orbitals or do they dive 'into' them? I never understood this. Are the surface of the orbitals the farthest the electrons travel or is it a surface the electron is confined to?
>>8076195
aren't they volumes of highest probability?
>>8076195
the surface usually contains the volume that the electron is in 90% of the time
>>8076195
Electrons aren't really bounded. The orbital represents the highest probability density.
Whats with the god awful notation?
>>8076201
OP here. I understand that they are kind of a probabilistic model, but I just imagine the orbitals like balloons. Do they electrons mostly stay around the surface of the balloon, or do they venture INTO the volume described by the probabilistic model?
>>8076294
> but I just imagine the orbitals like balloons
don't
>>8076294
It is a map of probability density, so it is like saying they travel mostly anywhere inside of the balloon up until the border.
>>8076302
perfect. This is exactly what I needed. Thanks anon.
>>8076307
See Heisenberg uncertainty principle. We can only estimate the region where an electron may be and describe its probability of being in a certain area of that region. We cannot know it's exact location. Hence the balloons. That is all the possible area where the electron could be.
>>8076210
This is normal notation for molecular orbitals in inorganic chemistry.
Gonna ask here: whats a good book for self reading in inorganic chemistry
>2016
>still using the schrodinger model
I SHIGGY DIGGY DOO
If you look at the probability density you'll find that the probability of finding an electron per volume is the highest at the center of the orbitals.
Those are only plots of the angular components of the orbitals, the full orbitals don't have well defined edges like that.
>>8076195
the orbital is simply a term used to represent the most probable locations of electrons
>>8076392
Maybe you should self read the dictionary
>>8076392
You can't really represent the full orbitals properly because it has 4 dimensions to it, 3D space and probability density. You either get a graph like in the OP which shows the angular bias of the probability but doesn't show how it fades off with radial distance, or you get a 2D graph which only shows a slice of the orbital but shows the radial behaviour of the probability.
>>8076210
it has something to do with symmetry and group theory
>>8076404
It's most like this. The electron is inside the balllooon, but it's not uniformly distributed within teh Baaloooonnz. It's called an orbital, but it's really nothing like an actual orbit.
>>8076482
Please tell me this is like some creationism propaganda.
>>8076294
lol'd
>>8076195
This is where it is more likely to find an electron. This is a probability distribution.
In theory, an electron in your body can be found on Mars. It's very unlikely but not impossible.
>>8076392
Housecroft and sharpe - inorganic chemistry
Or chemistry of the elements.
>>8076195
You can't learn anything about the momentum from the shape of those orbital representations. Find the actual wavefunction and take the Fourier transform to see it in momentum space. For the sharp orbitals (l=0) you'll find that the momentum is radial only. Equal parts inward motion and outward motion. Hence the spherical symmetry.
Orbitals themselves are misleading. They do not describe the location of electrons, nor do they even describe the motion of them.
They are statistical probabilites of location. It does not imply that they have a particular motion, or location at any particular time. It is actually impossible to ever exactly locate an electron due to the uncertainty principle.
They are the result of pure math, and don't have a legitimate practical reality that one could comprehend.
>>8076765
you can use the orbitals to do real things though
organometallic enzymes and their affects on catalysis are predicted based on orbital calculations
>>8076765
>doesn't know QM
>calls orbitals "misleading"
>>8076765
you're wrong though
>>8076302
>>8076307
That's a dumb thing to say, because what you're looking at (the orbitals) are just the angular components of the wave function anyway. It's missing the radial component, which spreads infinitely far (exp. decay with [math]r[/math], of course). So the border is all of space, it's just that it has surface contours in the shape of the orbitals. If you want to know "where the electron is most likely to exist" (graphically, at least), you're much better off looking at the radial part of the wave function.
Also, quantum mechanics really isn't "an electron (or any particle) moving through a constrained space" at all. The electron isn't some tiny ball that's whizzing around a proton like a planet in orbit. That Bohr picture was thrown out a long time ago.
>>8077332
The surfaces account for both radial and angular contributions; they are surfaces with a constant probability density which contain a significant amount of the wave function.
>>8076765
>They are the result of pure math, and don't have a legitimate practical reality that one could comprehend.
lol
They literally describe where the electron is most likely to be found, to a high degree of accuracy.
>>8076765
>They are the result of pure math, and don't have a legitimate practical reality that one could comprehend.
but
>They are statistical probabilites of location.
Take the wave function of the hydrogen atom, [math]{\Psi _{n\ell m}}\left( {r,\theta ,\varphi } \right) = \sqrt {{{\left( {\frac{{2r}}{{na}}} \right)}^3}\frac{{\left( {n - \ell - 1} \right)!}}{{2n\left( {n + \ell } \right)!}}} {e^{ - r/na}}{\left( {\frac{{2r}}{{na}}} \right)^\ell }L_{n - \ell - 1}^{2\ell + 1}\left( {2r/na} \right)P_\ell ^m\left( {\cos \theta } \right){e^{im\varphi }}[/math] (no i didn't just type this out, had it saved from awhile ago)
The orbitals are plots of [math]{\left| {{\Psi _{n\ell m}}} \right|^2}[/math].
They are completely physical.
>>8076294
It's the squared modulus of the wavefunction of that electron integrated over all space. The "balloon" part that you see is like the first one or two standard deviations of the gaussian probability of there the electron will be found, but in reality, the electron extends across all space.
For comparison, a free electron is described by the function e^(ikr), where k is some constant, and r is a general coordinate.
Also, electrons are not billiard balls, and you should stop thinking about them that way
>>8077440
>integrated over all space.
that would just give 1
>>8077457
Electron's gotta be somewhere
>>8076195
Only semi-related:
QM highlights that an important element of doing science is the ability to make observations of a system without disturbing it.
>>8076574
It is.
>>8077383
>>They are completely physical.
undergraduates still have faith in scientific realism.
>>8077332
Awesome post. Please continue.
How should one imagine their movement?
>>8077528
If not physical, then what? Virtual?
>>8077552
youre asking a particle question of a wave, its n/a
>how can an electron in 1D traverse the box if it has a point of 0 probability in the centre
>>8077552
orbital wavefunctions are not moving particles. A wave at rest, if you will
>>8076195
OP, as you know, the measurement of an electron's position is a probabilistic event determined by quantum mechanics.
The most common way to think about the quantum state of an electron is in terms of it's wavefunction, whose square modulus determines the probability density that you'll find an electron at a point in space. To turn that density into a probability, you have to integrate over a volume.
Technically the wavefunction extends to all space, so to visualize it, typically people draw isosurfaces (iso- meaning equal) of probability density. Your balloon drawings are some arbitrary valued isosurface of the prob density, although the electron can be found both inside and outside the surface. Notice that your drawings may obscure the interior structure of the orbitals (although they don't). What these figures are trying to convey are the places of high prob that you'll find a electron.
Notice that your figures emphatically do NOT contain all the information of the quantum state. That's all in the complex valued wavefunction. However for "stationary states", that is, states that don't change in time (eigenvalues of a time-independent hamiltonian if you've taken quantum mechanics), phase isn't important for pure states. If you start adding up combinations of states to create arbitrary excitations, phase then does become important, but this is ignored by intro chem.
Long complicated answer, but hope you found something useful in it.
>electron
>travels
>>8076574
That was my highschool chemistry textbook.
>>8076392
Atkins
>>8077838
?
The Schrodinger equation is completely determinant
You just don't understand what the wave function is/represents
