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Orbital Quantum numbers

From General chemistry, you should know about quantum numbers and what they tell you about and orbital.

The properties of orbitals (energy, size, shape etc.) and the electrons within the orbitals (location, spin) are described using quantum numbers:
 

quantum number symbol value range
describes
principal
n
1, 2, 3, .... energy level
angular momentum
l
 0 to n-1 orbital shape (s = 0, p = 1, d = 2 etc.)
magnetic
ml
- l to +  l spatial orientation and degeneracy (number of orbitals of that type)
spin
ms
± 1/2 electron spin

Given an orbital, the quantum numbers that describe that orbital can be determined, or, given a set of quantum numbers one can also determine the type of orbital:

n
l
ml
orbital
1
0
0
1s
2
0
0
2s
1
-1
2px
0
2py
+1
2pz

The orbitals for the electrons in carbon, and the necessary quantum numbers are given below.  The nucleus of the carbon atom would reside at the origin of the x, y, z axes.
 

1s, 2s and 2p orbitals

Try some questions


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© Dr. Ian Hunt, Department of Chemistry University of Calgary