- #1
cadamcross2
- 5
- 0
I'm trying to understand electron orbitals. I'm a beginner. I'm looking at the shapes of p orbitals in a chemistry book, and it's talking about Hydrogen. I'm surprised to see that the orbitals are not spherically symmetric. How can that be when the nucleus is spherically symmetric? Can a hydrogen atom with one electron be excited so that its electron is in one of these orbitals that are not spherically symmetric? If so, how? That would seem to suggest there is some preferred rectangular coordinate system on the hydrogen atom.