Because electrons are wave-like, they do not have trajectories but have cloud-like or blurry orbits {orbit, electron} {electron orbit}|. Electron repulsions also spread orbits.
energy
Electron energy has quanta, so electrons have minimum energy. Uncertainty principle requires that energy cannot be zero. Shell, orbital, spin-orbit interaction, and spin angular momentum contribute angular momentum and energy quanta to orbital electrons. Energy levels depend on angular momentum squared.
rotation
Rotations can be spins or orbits. Spins have orientation, frequency, and angular momentum. Orbits have orientation, frequency, angular momentum, and spin-orbit angular-momentum interactions. Spins and orbits have no net linear momentum, because motion is in all directions equally. Rotation is around point or line. Rotation defines plane perpendicular to rotation axis. Rotation axes have orientations in space.
rotation: compared to vibration
Vibrations are oscillations or waves. Vibration is between two extremes. Vibration along length has spatial orientation. Vibration around angle is in plane. Vibrations have frequency. Waves have motion direction. Wave vibration can be transverse to, or longitudinal with, motion direction.
angular momentum
Spins and orbits have angular momentum, because motion is around rotation axis. Orbitals have axis orientation.
width
Orbit width is same as atom diameter, by uncertainty principle. Electrons move all over orbit, by uncertainty principle, but most motion is near shell radius.
independent
Orbitals are orthogonal to all others, with no overlap or interaction, because electrons are fermions and cannot be together in same place (Pauli exclusion principle).
time
Orbitals do not change with time.
speed
Electron orbital speed is 600,000 meters per second and so is not relativistic.
large atoms
For large atoms, inner electrons shield outer electrons from atomic nucleus, so outer electrons have orbits farther from nucleus and have less kinetic energy than with no shielding.
Physical Sciences>Physics>Matter>Atom>Orbital
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Date Modified: 2022.0224