Dimensions of Angular and Radial Nodes

Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
3 replies · 2K views
sams
Gold Member
Messages
84
Reaction score
2
Radial and angular nodes are simply a region where the wavefunction is zero. But speaking about their dimensions, do they have any thickness or are they just an infinitesimal point in space without dimensions?

Thanks a lot!
 
Physics news on Phys.org
They are not points but subspaces. And size zero in math sense. As soon as you give an ##\epsilon>0## for the maximum probability density, that size shoots up to (near?) infinity for all realistic wavefunctions.
 
BvU said:
ϵ
What epsilon stands for?
 
A non-zero real number, as in 'for any probability ## \epsilon ## > 0 there is a volume > 0 where the wave function is < ##\sqrt \epsilon##'

usually ## \epsilon## means very small