Quantum Mechanics: Schrödinger’s discovery of the shape of atoms

Ok physics time is over. Time for silly twittering! General theme I think it could be useful if I restate the central message of the video here, for clarity: The shape of hydrogen (and all atoms) is made up by the way the electron spreads itself, as a wave function. This wave function is a blobby shape, and often looks like spheres and donuts put next to one another. The wave function is the electron itself, in a sense. When you don’t disturb it, the electron looks like that. When you do disturb it, it becomes a single hard point, and the blobby shape vanishes. Specific notes and clarifications: Schrödinger didn’t really emphasize the shape of atoms in his discovery, instead everyone considered the big discoveries to be: 1) The Schrödinger equation 2) The total hydrogen wave function 3) The energy levels of hydrogen But the shape of hydrogen follows immediately from the total hydrogen wave function, and since we want to look at those shapes, I figured I should focus on t