---

do a little wiggle, make a little jiggle // 2002-12-12

ah, weeb. my lovely friend (and first roommate) from college. i forgot she is a chemistry goddess. she knows what i was taking about with all my angst over hybridization of atomic orbitals. she just sent me the best email with cute and actually comprehensible descriptions of how these things work:

"then there were molecular orbitals (formed by more than one atomic orbital together).

these shapes can not be intuitively understood. it comes from how the electrons 'wiggle' and 'dance' when you put energy into it. energy at that scale doesn't act linearly- it acts quantumly. which means if you put 1 unit of energy into it (in form of heat lets say) it does a little dance, but if you put 2 energy units into it, it might do a dancey jiggle wiggle. it doesn't do a little wiggle, then big wiggle, then a bigger wiggle, etc. the 'dance' is expressed by squares of the wavefunction, not the wavefunction itself. you can map the square of the wavefunction on the xyz axis and see the shapes formed. these are named 1s, 2s, 2p, 3s, 3p, 4s, 4p, and 4d."

i don't think i know anyone else in the world who can describe molecular orbitals as little beings that dance and wiggle. and even if you don't understand a lick of chemistry, how can you not be charmed by this explanation?

thanks, weeb. you're the best.

before // after