Quantum Mechanics Schrödinger’s discovery of the shape of atoms

Quantum Mechanics Schrödinger’s discovery of the shape of atoms

Schrödinger didn’t really emphasize the shape of atoms in his discovery, instead everyone considered the big discoveries to be:

1) The Schrödinger equation

2) The total hydrogen wave function

3) The energy levels of hydrogen But the shape of hydrogen follows immediately from the total hydrogen wave function

At 1:40 I talk about the planetary model of the atom. There were actually two variations of the planetary model, the Rutherford model and the Bohr model.

At 2:03 I simplify the discovery of wave-particle duality in electrons a bit. De Broglie was indeed the first to propose it for electrons, but he was building on previous work by Einstein.

At 4:13, I draw eight orbitals of hydrogen as an example, but there are more. Strictly speaking there’s an infinite amount of orbitals, of which about the first 80 are important for chemistry and physics.

The spotty picture I draw at 5:38 of the thousand positions of the electron is somewhat simplified. I draw every position inside the three blobs — but this is not quite correct.

At 5:44 I refer to the electron’s wave function as ‘probability wave function’. This is a slip of the tongue on my part, the phrase is either ‘probability distribution’ or ‘wave function’.

The ’40 years of heated debate’ I mention at 6:09 was about the interpretation of quantum mechanics, and the philosophical implications.