What are the shapes of Atomic Orbitals?
An atomic orbital is a mathematical description of the region in which an electron may be found around a single atom.[1] Specifically, atomic orbitals are the possible quantum states of the individual electrons in the electron cloud around a single atom. Electron atomic and molecular orbitals.Classically, the electrons were thought to orbit the atomic nucleus, much like the planets around the Sun (or more accurately, a moth orbiting very quickly around a lamp). Explaining the behavior of the electrons that “orbit” an atom was one of the driving forces behind the development of quantum mechanics. In quantum mechanics, atomic orbitals are described as wave functions over space, indexed by the n, l, and m quantum numbers of the orbital or by the names as used in electron configurations, as shown on the right. As electrons cannot be described as solid particles (as a planet or a moth) in this way, a more accurate analogy would be that of a huge atmosphere, the spatially distributed electro
