I Physical Dimensions of electron shells

[Drakkith]

In fact I don't understand why we were talkinga bout 2s or P shells because Helium has only 2 elections and they both should be occupying the 1s during rest. Am I right or were you talking about excited states?

I only brought it up because that's part of what you've been asking about since the beginning of the thread.

 

[Khashishi]

You didn't say you only were interested in the ground state.

 

[edguy99]

I want to model atoms of the periodic table using OpenGL (API for 3D graphics). I was told by a physics teacher one time that this cannot be done because it's not solvable.

Can you guys confirm? Apparently only the shells of the hydrogen atom has been solved meaning that I can only model the lightest atoms but not any other atom?

I want to visualize the S shell P shell etc etc and even use the shrodinger equation to simulate the probability fields of electrons.

Here are a couple of ideas, nothing models everything, but some parts work pretty well and each has its pros and cons.

1/ For electrons that are not bound, consider the energy needed to ionize Hydrogen never exceeds 13.6eVolts. This is the same as the coulomb force at 53 picometers (the Bohr radius). To model this, assume a standard inverse square law of the coulomb force (just like gravity) outside of 53 picometers, but, the proton exerts no force on the electron inside the 53 picometer sphere or shell. You end up with a model like this game. Note for Helium, the ionzation energy for the last electron never exceeds 13.6*4=54.4eVolts, again equivalent to the coulomb force at 53 picometers. To model this correctly for Helium, you also assume the coulomb force outside 53pm and no force inside the shell.

2/ For bound electrons, fill electrons shells made up of multiple orbitals of 2 electrons each. In 3d the Neon atom looks like this (s1, s2 and p2 filled). The filling of these shells in 2d can be modeled like this. Assume again that once a shell is filled, electrons are no longer attracted to points inside the shell, but rather to the shell itself.

3/ For why the shells stay divided up into orbitals, I like this explanation on spherical harmonics and quantum numbers. The only way the s-levels are spherical are if the surface of the sphere is expanding and contracting. Higher S levels are the harmonics of this expanding and contracting rate. For the P levels, we have the "sloshing" of the sphere surface back and forth or in and out at points opposite to each other. This can be done in 3 directions (x, y and z) all at once. Now you have modeled electrons sitting at the proper energy levels.