According to #QuantumMechanics the position of #electrons in an #atom cannot just be simply described by particles rotating around the #nucleus. Their location is indeed given by a function called #AtomicOrbital, which calculates where it is more probable to find electrons of a specific energetic level. Different orbitals are identified by letters (s,p, d and f) and generally visually represented in a simplistic way by “clouds” of a specific shape: the simplest - s - is a sphere, p is a sort of dumbbell, and d and f orbitals have more complicated shapes.
Here I represented the Li, C and Si atoms with their orbitals, where s orbitals are in blue and p orbitals in orange/yellow.
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...seems to have been a law in #QuantumMechanics, but hey, you never top learning. :)
(For those afraid of #chemistry in high school: in-depth #QuantumMechanics still does not seem to be part of the curriculum, from what I heard;))
@laura_canil
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Beautiful.
And maybe it is now time to share something that help me a great deal in Advanced Placement chemistry, but which I never read anyplace while in high school:
You do not have not have to memorize all the orbitals of the atoms. There is a simple rule:
The electron's outer orbits always seem to (I never had to try it for all) in an s-p-d-f order. However, before f, there comes the s of the next level orbitals. The sort of "interlock".
I was never told that this...