Explore s, p, d and f orbital shapes, orientations, quantum numbers and nodes. The viewer separates angular shape from hydrogenic radial structure—not electron paths.
The surface shows the angular part of a real orbital. The two tones show opposite phases of the wavefunction, not electric charge. Radial structure is shown separately below.
The curve shows normalized r²|Rₙℓ(r)|² for hydrogen (Z = 1). Interior zeros are spherical radial nodes.
An orbital is a quantum state, not a trajectory followed by an electron around the nucleus.
The 3D surface shows directional structure. The family s, p, d or f is determined by ℓ.
The radial graph shows how probability is distributed with distance. Changing n can add radial nodes even when the angular family stays the same.
At a node the wavefunction is zero. The two surface tones show opposite phase, not positive and negative charge.
The number of real orientations follows 2ℓ+1. Each individual orbital can hold at most two electrons.
The magnetic quantum number mℓ has 2ℓ+1 allowed values from −ℓ to +ℓ. Familiar real orbitals such as pₓ, pᵧ and dxy are real linear combinations of the complex mℓ eigenfunctions, so each familiar real orbital cannot be assigned one unique mℓ value.