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Quantum Mechanics and the Atom
Here is a quantum mechanical picture of an Hydrogen atom. The nucleus is not shown, but is located at
the center of the picture.
Here are some things to notice:
- Like the heads you can see where the electron is most likely to be: near the nucleus (the center of the picture).
- You can't tell exactly where the electron is, just where it is most likely to be.
- The individual dots are not electrons. They are meant to be used in the context of how dense, or heavy an
area of dots appears.
- The more crowded (or heavier packed) the dots are in a particular region, the better chance you have to finding your electron there.
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Here are some more atoms for you to look at:
FINALLY...
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...it turns out that this quantum mechanical view of atoms is our best
theory to date on how atoms work. In case after case, the quantum
mechanical model does a much better job in describing and predicting
how atoms behave than the orbit model does.
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