13
votes
Accepted
How does an electrons's wave function change when it moves between energy levels?
You need to go back to the very start. Here, you're kind of asking: I have a solution $\psi_0$, how do I get the next solution $\psi_1$? The answer is to look at how $\psi_0$ was obtained, and it ...
- 71.1k
5
votes
Why do different orbitals have different shapes?
The simplest answer is, of course, that this is what solving the equations produces, which is not that helpful.
When the Schroedinger eqn. for the H atom is solved instead of using $x,y,z$ coordinates ...
- 30k
5
votes
How does an electrons's wave function change when it moves between energy levels?
The Schrödinger equation is just a normal type of differential equation. We interpret it as describing how the operator for the sum of kinetic and potential energy (the Hamiltonian) produces the total ...
- 30k
4
votes
Accepted
Why do different orbitals have different shapes?
The Schrödinger equation
You might be familiar with the following (magic) equation:
$$
\hat{H}\mathrm{\Psi} = E\mathrm{\Psi}
$$
where $\hat{H}$ is the Hamiltonian operator, and $\mathrm{\Psi}$ is the ...
- 2,093
3
votes
Why are p orbitals most important for stability?
This question is legitimate, I do not know if this will be give a complete answer, but here is the basic principle.
We have to define first the orbital at the outermost shell.
When you have to solve ...
- 523
3
votes
Accepted
What can visual observations of pi-bonding MOs explain about LCAO expansion coefficients?
I've thought that in N2, its symmetric so the expansion coefficients would be equal from the pi-bonding MO
Yes, that's right; symmetric molecules have symmetric MOs which have symmetric coefficients ...
- 71.1k
3
votes
How many m values are there for the 4f sublevel. In high school so no fancy words please!
With no fancy words:
The orbital angular momentum quantum number $ l $ is given by the letter you see there: f. Remember that we link this quantum number with integers in the following fashion:
$ l = ...
- 2,246
2
votes
Accepted
where could I find the standard atomic orbital energy of all elements?
NIST is a reasonable place to start. They've posted data from electronic structure calculations using DFT online (Ref 1) . However it looks like you might need to scrape the site to extract the ...
- 20.8k
2
votes
Why is the $\mathrm d_{z^2}$ orbital so different from the rest?
There is actually a very simple reason the $\mathrm d_{z^2}$ orbital looks so different compared to the other d orbitals.
You can imagine it as being two d orbitals in one: the $x^2-z^2$ and the $y^2-...
- 21
2
votes
According to molecular orbital theory, is the antibonding orbital empy when electrons are found in the bonding orbital?
Molecular orbitals are solutions of the Schrödinger time independent equation for a molecule. Some of these solutions lower the energy of the molecule (bonding molecular orbitals) and some raise the ...
- 307
2
votes
How does an electrons's wave function change when it moves between energy levels?
A quick intuition to understand how energy affects the position distribution can be obtained by looking at the s orbitals.
For orbitals $1s, 2s, 3s, ..., ns$, the increasing principal quantum number ...
- 21
2
votes
Distance of Orbitals from Nucleus relation with Energy level and penetration power
I have studied that according to Aufbau rule the energy of subshells
is dependent on the sum of $n$ and $l$ values. This would imply that the energy of subshells in a shell varies as
$$ n_s<n_p<...
- 122
2
votes
Accepted
Ionization Energy equal to single electron energy
The ionization energy is the energy deficit the bound electron has with respect to the energy of a free electron in rest.
So, if the ionization energy of a $\ce{H}$ atom is $\pu{13.6 eV}$ and if we ...
- 39.2k
1
vote
Why does the two OH bonds in H2O have different bond disassociation enthalpies? How does the bond cleavage happen here?
Two $\ce{OH}$ bonds in any molecule have different dissociation enthalpies, as only the first one is related to the original molecule.
The second one is related to the original molecule with the ...
- 39.2k
1
vote
How does the concept of the electron shell (also called energy level) and the orbital coexist?
There always coexist several models for historical and educational reasons. Especially the latter is based on several levels of trade off between accuracy and simplicity.
If we take mechanical work:
...
- 39.2k
1
vote
Confusion about the number of microstates for orbitals
I will explain in details why I stated (in the comments) that some states are inconsistent. The spin-orbit (S.O) coupling correlates the orbital angular momentum $\vec{L}$ and the spin angular ...
- 523
1
vote
Accepted
Energy levels for H atom
Since (atomic) hydrogen has only one electron, there is no electron-electron interaction to differentiate internal levels.
Of course, an energy level can be split if there is an external interaction. ...
- 30.4k
1
vote
If the 2 electrons of a hydrogen molecule are more likely to be found between the 2 hydrogen atoms, why does this diagram says otherwise?
The shape of the orange blob is highly affected by the chosen contour level. In the image below, if you choose a contour level of 0.04, you get a oval much like the one shown. If you choose a contour ...
- 39.1k
1
vote
In which orbital is the positive charge of central nitrogen present in diazomethane?
"Positive charge being present in an orbital" is weird formulation. Orbitals have zero charge at the best if empty.
But as all 4 orbital pairs contributing to 4 bonds have 2 electrons, it ...
- 39.2k
1
vote
Is p-bromophenol more acidic than p-chlorophenol?
I looked up the pKa values of each chloro- and bromophenol and compiled them in the following little table:
pKa
chlorophenol
bromophenol
ortho-
8.49
8.45
meta-
8.81
9.03
para-
9.14
9.17
(These ...
- 271
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