Atomic Rant

Contributed By
Veritasium
Resource Type
Classroom Material
Subjects
Science
Audience
Classroom Teacher / Educator
Related Resources

Atomic Rant

How should we depict an atom? Like a solar system with electrons orbiting the nucleus on hula hoop orbits? That idea is so last century! Bosi takes us into the quantum world, where an electron's position and velocity aren't well defined - all we can calculate are the probabilities e.g. of finding an electron at different points in space. When we do that, we find electrons do not neccessarily occupy circles or spheres in space. Rather their probability densities make all sorts of interesting shapes from the dumbell to the peanut with the donut around it.

Author
Dr. Derek Muller
Publisher
Veritasium

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