10: Plane Polar and Spherical Coordinates
- Page ID
- 106867
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- Understand the concept of area and volume elements in cartesian, polar and spherical coordinates.
- Be able to integrate functions expressed in polar or spherical coordinates.
- Understand how to normalize orbitals expressed in spherical coordinates, and perform calculations involving triple integrals.
- Understand the concept of probability distribution function.
- 10.1: Coordinate Systems
- The simplest coordinate system consists of coordinate axes oriented perpendicularly to each other. These coordinates are known as cartesian coordinates or rectangular coordinates, and you are already familiar with their two-dimensional and three-dimensional representation.
- 10.2: Area and Volume Elements
- In any coordinate system it is useful to define a differential area and a differential volume element.
- 10.3: A Refresher on Electronic Quantum Numbers
- Each electron in an atom is described by four different quantum numbers. The first three quantum numbers specify the particular orbital the electron occupies. Two electrons of opposite spin can occupy this orbital.
- 10.4: A Brief Introduction to Probability
- We have talked about the fact that the wavefunction can be interpreted as a probability, but this is a good time to formalize some concepts and understand what we really mean by that. Let’s start by reviewing (or learning) a few concepts in probability theory.
Thumbnail: A globe showing the radial distance, polar angle and azimuth angle of a point P with respect to a unit sphere. In this image, r equals 4/6, θ equals 90°, and φ equals 30°. (CC BY-SA 4.0; SharkD).