Viewing an electron cloud

[Beerina]

Here they view the electron cloud of an atom in unprecedented detail, including the first two orbital types: sphere and butt Xerox.


So far so good. But I thought these were "probability clouds", i.e. just a mathematical definition of the satistical probability an electron would be at each point.

Which is fine, except there wouldn't be a "cloud" to view, so to speak.

So what's going on here? Is it basically the same thing as the Einstein-Bose condensate, which, apparently, is also "actually viewable"?

Sorry, not a grad-level physicist, so forgive me.

 

[technoextreme]

So far so good. But I thought these were "probability clouds", i.e. just a mathematical definition of the satistical probability an electron would be at each point.

You are right in that the electrons could be almost everywhere due to the uncertainty principle though most orbitals encompass a statistical region that says with extremely high percentage that you will find an electron in that area. I forget what that percentage is but I want to say its high.

 

[ben m]

So far so good. But I thought these were "probability clouds", i.e. just a mathematical definition of the satistical probability an electron would be at each point.

They're measuring the same atom thousands of times. They knock out an electron and see where it came from; they replace that electron, knock out another one, see where that one came from, and so on. Each of those locations is drawn from that probability distribution, so a map of the locations is approximately the same thing as a map of the probability distribution.

 

[technoextreme]

They're measuring the same atom thousands of times. They knock out an electron and see where it came from; they replace that electron, knock out another one, see where that one came from, and so on. Each of those locations is drawn from that probability distribution, so a map of the locations is approximately the same thing as a map of the probability distribution.

Right. Its essentially this:
http://winter.group.shef.ac.uk/orbitron/AOs/1s/e-density-dots.html

 

[Beerina]

They're measuring the same atom thousands of times. They knock out an electron and see where it came from; they replace that electron, knock out another one, see where that one came from, and so on. Each of those locations is drawn from that probability distribution, so a map of the locations is approximately the same thing as a map of the probability distribution.

So this is a map, not an actual "photo", so to speak. Got it. It's more akin to a multiple exposure picture.