Tuesday 12 May 2020

quantum mechanics - How does an electron move around in an orbital? Is it "wave-like" or random?


When an electron is moving around in its orbital, is it actually moving around like a wave, like this video shows? (By wave-like, I mean, the 'electron' in this video is showing it following a predictable wave-like path, which would mean you could precisely determine its position which obviously you can't).


http://i.imgur.com/DrBIfBV.png


Or, instead, does it just have some probability to be in that orbital's space, and just randomly jumps around from one point to another? Or if not that, how does the electron move around in its orbital?



Answer



Orbitals are solutions to time-independent quantum wave equations.


That is, there is no time-dependence. There is no little ball in there moving around, the electron has a quantum characteristic and exists with neither a well defined position nor a well defined momentum.


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