How are the shapes of electron orbitals determined?

Answer 1

I am not sure exactly, but originally it was thought that all of the electrons were just somewhere around the nucleus of an atom. When the shapes of molecules were being looked at, the orbital shapes and locations were determined based on this property. It made since for orbitals to be certain shapes and in certain places, for the shapes of some molecules to even be possible.

Answer 2

Several scientists, such as William Prout and Norman Lockyer, had suggested that atoms were built up from a more fundamental unit, but they envisaged this unit to be the size of the smallest atom, hydrogen. Thomson, in 1897, was the first to propose that the fundamental unit was over 1000 times smaller than an atom, suggesting the sub-atomic particles now known as electrons. Thomson discovered this through his explorations on the properties of cathode rays. Thomson made his suggestion on 30 April 1897 following his discovery that Lenard rays could travel much further through air than expected for an atomic-sized particle [3]. He estimated the mass of cathode rays by measuring the heat generated when the rays hit a thermal junction and comparing this with the magnetic deflection of the rays. His experiments suggested not only that cathode rays were over 1000 times lighter than the hydrogen atom, but also that their mass was the same whatever type of atom they came from. He concluded that the rays were composed of very light, negatively charged particles which were a universal building block of atoms. He called the particles "corpuscles", but later scientists preferred the name electron which had been suggested by George Johnstone Stoney in 1894, prior to Thomson's actual discovery[4].

In April 1897 Thomson had only early indications that the cathode rays could be deflected electrically (previous investigators such as Heinrich Hertz had thought they could not be). A month after Thomson's announcement of the corpuscle he found that he could deflect the rays reliably by electric fields if he evacuated the discharge tubes to very low pressures. By comparing the deflection of a beam of cathode rays by electric and magnetic fields he was then able to get more robust measurements of the mass to charge ratio that confirmed his previous estimates[5]. This became the classic means of measuring the charge and mass of the electron.

Thomson believed that the corpuscles emerged from the atoms of the trace gas inside his cathode ray tubes. He thus concluded that atoms were divisible, and that the corpuscles were their building blocks. To explain the overall neutral charge of the atom, he proposed that the corpuscles were distributed in a uniform sea of positive charge; this was the plum pudding model as the electrons were embedded in the positive charge like plums in a plum pudding (although in Thomson's model they were not stationary but were orbiting rapidly).

Answer 3

Since the shape of "bloons" you might have in mind represent the statistical likelihood of an electron to be anywhere around, the orbital was determined by the solutions of a complex mathematical equation called the Schrödinger-equation.

You should consider that the atomic orbital is nothing solid, not a sphere where you can put your hand on it. It doesn't have a rigid bounder. It just tries to locate the electron.

Answer 4

Shapes of electron orbitals are determined by solving the equation of quantum mechanics, also called as Schrodinger wave equation.

Schrodinger equation's solution is the wave function which is centered around three quantum numbers which are:

1. Principal Quantum Number : Determines the size, energy and shell of the orbital
2. Azimuthal Quantum Number or Orbital angular momentum or Subsidiary quantum Number :-Determines the shape of orbital and energy of orbital to a little extent.
3. Magnetic Quantum Number: Determines the spatial orientation of the orbitals.

So, it is the azimuthal quantum number which determines the shape of the orbital.

Answer 5

The theory of Bohr is a mixture between the Planck quantum hypothesis and the atomic model of Rutherford.

Answer 6

Bohr.

Answer 7

Neils Bohr