Quantum Numbers

[Jonathan Shyu 3L]

So from Schrodinger's Wave Equation, the three quantum numbers are n, l, and Ml. Letter n corresponds to the energy level or electron level, l refers to the shape (s,p,d,f), and Ml refers to the orientation. However, I'm not quite sure what it means by orientation. So if Ml=1, what does that mean?

[Grace Chang 1E]

Hi Jonathan!

M_l=1 can mean various things depending on what the l quantum number is. However, it should be noted that the only m_l quantum number for the "s" sub shell is zero—this is because its only orientation is a sphere-like ball.

However, for the p sub shell, there are 3 possible orientations: p_x, p_y, and p_z. Here's a link to what they look like: https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/cour ... 424730.png

In Dr. Lavelle's examples, he assigned p_x to m_l=1, but I believe he mentioned that others label it in the opposite order (like m_l=1 corresponds to p_z instead).

For the d-block, there are 5 different possible arrangements of the electron density (shown in lecture). Each m_l would then correspond to one of these unique arrangements.

I hope that helps!!:)

[Maxwell Yao]

Adding to what Grace said, the range of numbers possible for is 0l.

For example, if we're talking about 2p , n = 2, l = 1, and could be -1, 0 or 1 where each of those three numbers represents either the px, py or pz orbitals.

Hope this helps.