3.7 Beginning Orbitals

... the story continues...
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Spruce picked two of the small electrons from the shelf and lobbed the one and then the other. Both of them swirled together in a sphere around the four particles in the nucleus.

"Why aren't you using the remote?" Stef's chemistry teacher said.

"What remote, Dr. Martin?" Spruce immediately asked... no one seemed to wonder how Spruce knew the name of her teacher.

"Let me show you," and he held up a remote.  "If you click the button with the arrow pointing down, the atomic number goes down one.  So it's helium now, but if I click it down..." and he clicked it... "it loses a proton, electron, and the two neutrons and becomes..."

"Hydrogen!" Stef exclaimed.  And sure enough, the sphere around the nucleus dimmed in half and only one proton was left in the nucleus.

"If I click the up button," Dr. Martin continued, "then it goes up one atomic number."  And with another click, the second electron and proton returned, along with the neutrons.

"Helium again!" Spruce quickly said before Stefanie could say anything.

"So what comes after helium?" Stef asked.

"It's something called lithium," he answered.

"Oh, yeah," she said.  "I remember that because they use compounds of it to treat people who are bipolar.  So what's it look like?  Show me! Show me!"

"OK, here it comes," and he clicked the up button.  Suddenly, a second sphere with one electron in it appeared around the first, quite a bit bigger.  Meanwhile, another proton and two more neutrons popped into the nucleus."

"Do it again," Stef asked, jumping up and down with excitement.

And with another push, a second electron filled up the outer sphere; another proton and neutron popped into the nucleus.

"That's weird," Spruce said.  "It added two neutrons when you went to lithium, but only one more when you went to this element.  Why's that?"

"Don't know," Dr. Martin said, "at least not in this dream.  I don't think it's predictable or that it matters."

"What's this element called?" Stef asked.  "I know it's atomic number 4 now."

"I can't tell you," Dr. Martin said, "because this is a dream and your subconscious only remembers that it has the letters 'Be.'  You never looked at the actual name.

"One more?  One more?" she asked urgently.

"OK," he answered.  "One more," and when he pushed the button this time a big big electron loop appeared above the two spheres.  Another proton popped in the nucleus, along with another neutron.

"That's weird," Spruce said.  "What's the loop?"

"Yeah," Stef added.  "I saw that in the book too."

"It's just the way the electrons get added.  You don't have to understand why.  The first two are added in a sphere--hydrogen, helium.  Then the next two are also added in a bigger sphere--lithium and the one with the letters 'Be.'

"You don't even remember the next one," he continued, "but you saw that it adds a funny loop instead of another sphere."

"But what does it mean?" Stef asked Dr. Martin.

"I don't know," he answered.  "This is your dream, not mine."

"But you have to know.  You have to.  What are these spheres and loops called?  I know they have a name," she insisted.

"You'll have to wake up and look it up," he said calmly.

"Spruce, make him tell me now," she said, turning to Spruce.

"It's not my dream," he answered.  "I'm going back to my own dream," he said, and evaporated in a wisp of smoke.

"Spruce Alexander," you come back here right now, "she said."

"Would you like me to wake you up?" Dr. Martin said.  "It's very easy.  All I need to do is throw some of these electrons at you until it shocks you away.  You do realize that electrons are what make up electricity, right?"

And he began to take the small electrons off the shelf and throw them at her.  As they left his hand, they became waves of electricity flying at the speed of light toward her.  The first two missed, but the evil smile on his face made it clear that he had just been playing with her.

"Time to wake up," he said and began to laugh a wicked laugh.  He wound his hand back and the lighting shot directly toward her."

"Ahhh!" she said with a start, lifting her head off the desk where she had been sleeping...