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Timeline for Symmetry lost in orbitals?

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Aug 28, 2012 at 12:12 comment added Juha In general, not until recently it is not experimentally clear where the electrons are on an atom. You have to make a step from theory to real world and back. This question is about real electrons, but people tend to consider it about wave functions (and I disagree how they interpret the superposition principle).
Aug 28, 2012 at 12:02 comment added Juha i) true, but this is the hypothesis you have to make to get the orbitals (and this step is made in the comments). ii) Only if you consider ensemble averages. I want to see a reference that says "one particle can exist on a linear superposition of states". iii) Again, this is the step back from wavefunctions to orbitals.
S Aug 28, 2012 at 2:15 comment added perplexity I found several missconceptions in your last answer: i) Orbitals are not wave functions in any conceivable way (except, obviously, for the Hidrogen atom or any one-electron ion).
S Aug 28, 2012 at 2:15 comment added perplexity ii) According to standard Quantum Mechanics, the particle can be in any state of the Hilbert space including, of course, superposition states. If you adopt the view that they can only be in eigenstates of the Hamiltonian, then any individual molecule can not have any dynamics other than the trivial dynamics (evolution = $exp(-iEt/\hbar)$); also then you would need to think of what happens when you measure any other observable incompatible with energy, etc.
S Aug 28, 2012 at 2:15 comment added perplexity iii) On average, electrons of bulk material can never be in linear superposition of orbitals, because a linear superposition is a coherent quantum state, and what you have is the analog of a classical probability distribution, called the density matrix.
Aug 27, 2012 at 12:08 history edited Juha CC BY-SA 3.0
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Aug 27, 2012 at 12:03 history answered Juha CC BY-SA 3.0