Explore Atomic Orbitals 5

Waves To Atomic Orbitals So what's all this wave stuff got to do with atomic orbitals? In the history of the discovery of the atom, the next big step was put forward by Erwin Schrödinger in 1926. He described the hydrogen atom like this: The proton in the nucleus creates a potential well (a kind of energy box), and the electron is a wave trapped inside that box. As we have seen, any "trapped" wave is a standing wave. But what kind of wave is it? The easiest way of visualising electron waves is to think of them as standing waves in a ring… where the ring is very small but the wave is not. The example on the right shows this situation. Choose one of the standing waves in a ring. Then press "Go" to see the ring itself get smaller and smaller compared to the waves. The resulting "waves in the middle of empty space" come pretty close to a number of actual electron orbitals. Unfortunately, the situation is a bit more complicated. Firstly, an atom is three-dimensional, not two. Think back about the ring construction used up until now, but revisualise it with a "three-dimensional ring" - a hollow sphere. Wave patterns in such a sphere can spread in two directions, and superposition allows there to be nodal lines (not just points). Furthermore, the number of nodes can be different in different directions. You can explore this yourself with a physical model. Fill a balloon with water (not too full!), and hang it from a string. Then, carefully prod the surface of the balloon to create waves. With care and luck, you can set up standing waves in a number of modes. Take a detour to Schrödinger's Equation. Continue with Explore Atomic Orbitals.

Waves in a Shrinking Ring