10. Reality and the Orbital Approximation

Freshman Organic Chemistry (CHEM 125)

In discussions of the Schrödinger equation thus far, the systems described were either one-dimensional or involved a single electron. After discussing how increased nuclear charge affects the energies of one-electron atoms and then discussing hybridization, this lecture finally addresses the simple fact that multi-electron systems cannot be properly described in terms of one-electron orbitals.

00:00 - Chapter 1. Atom-in-a-Box Plots: Assessing Probability Density
14:07 - Chapter 2. Scaling the Wave Function for Changing Nuclear Charge
21:20 - Chapter 3. Scaling Energy with Respect to Nuclear Charge
27:34 - Chapter 4. Superposition, and the Orientation and Shape of Hybrid Orbitals
40:43 - Chapter 5. An Inconvenient Truth: Troubles Describing Multi-Electron Systems

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://open.yale.edu/courses

This course was recorded in Fall 2008.