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2. Basically it has six parameters because the wave function changes based on the first three parameters (n,l,m) and can then be solved w.r.t. x, y, and z, though it'll be easier to do in spherical coordinates. 3. This hydrogen atom has a nucleus and one electron. Think of n as the energy level of that electron - electrons have discrete energy levels, so as n increases the electron occupies the next discrete energy available to it. l is another quantized value which corresponds to what we call the orbital angular momentum of the electron, which partially determines the shape of the orbital. This is a big part of the visualization you see - as you change the value of l, we see different shapes, and if you increase the number of particles in the visualization, you get changes in those shapes. These different shells have names - s, p, d, etc - that correspond to the integer value of l - 0, 1, 2, etc. Importantly, what's being graphed in the visualization is a solution to the specified wave function. It's a 3D probability map, effectively. Where there is a higher chance of the electron being located, the particles are more concentrated, whereas lower chance regions have lower populations of particles. m is called the magnetic quantum number and can have integer values from -l to +l, and further specifies the particular state of the electron in its "shell" - s, p, d, etc again. If the wave function has n=2 and l=2, then it's in the d shell, and can have values of m from -2 to +2. The actual value of m determines the final "shape" of the orbital, again depicted as a probability map - every dot you see plotted can be a location of the electron, so plotting a lot of them based on the probability distribution gives you a visualization of the regions available to that electron. So the menu entries are just values of n,l,m that aren't separated by commas. I hope that clarifies some things! |