Gay atoms. No, really.
I do like being childish enough to be easily amused. I saw a quotation somewhere that went 'happy is he who can laugh at himself, for he shall be constantly amused', and oh, it's true.
Currently I'm writing about gay atomic orbitals. Technically what I've written is '3 is HOMO,' but still, you know. The simple things make me smile.
Really, HOMO stands for 'highest occupied molecular orbital', i.e. the orbital corresponding to principal quantum number n = 3 happens to be the highest one with an electron. One electron, in fact. This is the one that gets excited when you put several hundred volts across it (I think I'd be pretty damn excited, too, if you put that sort of voltage across me, but not in a good way at all), thus all [? most, anyway. The ones I'm writing about, and I shall ignore all others] transitions (reasulting in distinct spectral lines which I spent several dark Monday afternoons measuring) go from a higher value of n down to the n = 3 subshell.
Finding out which the higher level is, is still a bit tricky. (Ooh, look, grammar geeking too: verb comma verb, which I thought only happened in German subordinate clauses. Why didn't you teach me English grammar, school? I would have been quite fascinated. Failz is you.) But the term diagram, despite looking like this and thus being rather incomprehensible, even to me (and I say that not in a 'behold, for I am great' way, because clearly I'm not, just that I've been studying this all term and so you'd think I'd understand it by now, but no), is actually starting to make sense. Or at least enough to be useful.
I still hate the lab report, and my method until I ran across the term diagram of sodium was pretty much 'try different random values of n until you get something approaching the right number.' But still. Gay atoms. And the above science waffle at least shows that I'm starting to vaguely understand it. So. Progress.
Currently I'm writing about gay atomic orbitals. Technically what I've written is '3 is HOMO,' but still, you know. The simple things make me smile.
Really, HOMO stands for 'highest occupied molecular orbital', i.e. the orbital corresponding to principal quantum number n = 3 happens to be the highest one with an electron. One electron, in fact. This is the one that gets excited when you put several hundred volts across it (I think I'd be pretty damn excited, too, if you put that sort of voltage across me, but not in a good way at all), thus all [? most, anyway. The ones I'm writing about, and I shall ignore all others] transitions (reasulting in distinct spectral lines which I spent several dark Monday afternoons measuring) go from a higher value of n down to the n = 3 subshell.
Finding out which the higher level is, is still a bit tricky. (Ooh, look, grammar geeking too: verb comma verb, which I thought only happened in German subordinate clauses. Why didn't you teach me English grammar, school? I would have been quite fascinated. Failz is you.) But the term diagram, despite looking like this and thus being rather incomprehensible, even to me (and I say that not in a 'behold, for I am great' way, because clearly I'm not, just that I've been studying this all term and so you'd think I'd understand it by now, but no), is actually starting to make sense. Or at least enough to be useful.
I still hate the lab report, and my method until I ran across the term diagram of sodium was pretty much 'try different random values of n until you get something approaching the right number.' But still. Gay atoms. And the above science waffle at least shows that I'm starting to vaguely understand it. So. Progress.