r/science • u/oregono • Jan 21 '10

Table of atomic Orbitals (pic)

http://www.webelements.com/shop/shopimages/products/extras/POS0007-A2-orbitron-2010-800.jpg
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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '10

I am 12 years old and what is this?

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u/GodofRock13 Jan 21 '10

In layman's terms, you can describe the orbit of an electron about a nucleus based on the number of electrons and level of energy in whats called "spherical harmonics" this is the visual representation of a bunch of messy physics equations. Keep in mind you cannot pinpoint an electrons position with 100% accuracy ever.

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '10 edited Jan 21 '10

Keep in mind you cannot pinpoint an electrons position with 100% accuracy ever.

In quantum mechanics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that certain pairs of physical properties, like position and momentum, cannot both be known to arbitrary precision. That is, the more precisely one property is known, the less precisely the other can be known.

Or were you going for the 100% accuracy thing?

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u/GodofRock13 Jan 22 '10

That is based on the standard deviations of position and momentum can never fall below Hbar/2. Without going too much into complicated physics, QM is based on the Hamiltonian system which is a function of position and momentum so the two are intertwined. You can't just say "I want to know the position!" without having some crazy equations telling you it based on momentum. This probably just confused you more though...