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Question about the orientation of orbitals


hiksemebs

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I have seen pictures of the probability distribution (specifically p,d,f-orbitals) but there is one thing I do not understand: There seems to be an "up" and a "down" or left/right for those orbitals. How do I have to picture that? Are those orbitals constantly changing position? Are they oriented in some direction somehow? I can understand that the orbitals will be at a certain location once the atom is bound to some other atom. But what if it's not?

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 6/16/2022 at 11:48 AM, hiksemebs said:

I have seen pictures of the probability distribution (specifically p,d,f-orbitals) but there is one thing I do not understand: There seems to be an "up" and a "down" or left/right for those orbitals https://mobdro.onl/ https://vidmate.onl/. How do I have to picture that? Are those orbitals constantly changing position? Are they oriented in some direction somehow? I can understand that the orbitals will be at a certain location once the atom is bound to some other atom. But what if it's not?

I got this,....

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  • 7 months later...

Orientation of orbitals means the specified positions of orbitals. The p orbital is similar to the shape of a dumbbell, with its orientation within a subshell depending on ml. The shape and orientation of an orbital depends on l and ml. To visualize and organize the first three quantum numbers, we can think of them as constituents of a house. In the following image, the roof represents the principal quantum number n, each level represents a subshell l, and each room represents the different orbitals ml in each subshell. 

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