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Pastimes : Computer Learning -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Heywood40 who wrote (104325)	9/24/2019 5:50:22 AM
From: Sun Tzu	1 Recommendation Recommended By goldworldnet Respond to of 110582

It's actually a lot more complicated than that, and I won't be able to do a good job explaining it, but I will try. First and most importantly, you need to understand that at a subatomic level, all matter acts like wave. That is the counterpart to light waves that have particle quality to them called photons; electrons have wave quality to them. Each electron carries a different amount of energy which affects its wave length. These waves interfere with each other and create standing patterns. Which is to say for certain values of n (related to the energy of the electron) most wave patterns cancel each other out, but in some areas they reinforce each other. Those reinforced areas are called orbitals and they are defined as the locations where it is most likely to find an electron. It would be incorrect to think that the electron somehow patrols its orbital or moves only in its orbital. The orbital is simply a probabilistic model based on wave cancellation and reinforcement. An analogy is this: say you were to make observations of the locations that a particular bird is found. Naturally the nest and immediate areas around the nest are the most likely places to find the bird. As you move away, it becomes less and less likely to find the bird (wildlife photographers should be familiar with this ;) BUT, even though the static graph of where you have seen the bird makes it seem as if the bird circles around its nest, in reality bird is simply moving in random manner, darting from one place to another. It's just that when you sample all the space where the bird could be found, you will see that the circle around the nest is the most likely place. I hope this clarifies the (simplified) modern view of electron "orbits."