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Education
Chemistry In Pictures
Chemistry in Pictures: Orbitals in stained glass
by Craig Bettenhausen
August 30, 2022
Atomic orbitals exist, sort of. The lobes, spheres, and donuts familiar to many chemists are like a map of where you might find electrons around a nucleus. The geometric patterns and motifs that atoms adopt in molecules and materials reflect and, perhaps, arise from the primal shapes of the orbitals. The quantum mechanical rabbit hole goes much deeper than that, but suffice it to say that understanding the shapes of orbitals is an important part of a basic chemistry education. Doug Linebarrier, a visiting chemistry professor at Wake Forest University, brings an unusual visual aid to his lectures on the topic: this stained-glass artwork he made based on an electron density map of a 3d atomic orbital. He’s also made pieces showing the geometry of a buckyball and the solubility curves of various potassium and chloride salts.
Submitted by Doug Linebarrier
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