CHEMISTRY COMMUNITY

Why is it important to know the difference between the different shapes (s, d, p, and f)?

We need to know the difference because the topic of electron configuration will be a large topic to be discussed later. We will probably be asked later to figure the different orbitals and shapes of different things.

Yea essentially the topic of electron configuration is one that will be prominent in this course and you need to understand how to do that first in order to be able to determine the shape of the orbitals that those configurations compose.