Hybridising

[Crash]

Well can some kind person explain how sub orbitals hybridise and the explaination behind it, and how the suborbitals take on new shapes to allow for this.

[Skye]

I think it'd take some fairly hefty quantum mechanics to actually show why it happens, something which I'm sure not able to do. The basic explanation though is that you can treat the orbitals as waves, and like any other waves they will constructively and destructively interfere. The resulting interferance pattern is the hybridised orbitals.

[Crash]

Do you know if this is possible for all orbitals?

another Q) how do you determine which of the electrons is a spin +1/2 and which one is the -1/2 in the bonding pair is it related to the nature of the element or bond in any way?

[Skye]

It's possible for d orbitals at least, because phosphorus has hybridised spd orbitals. I imagine other orbitals become hybridised too.

 

I don't think it really matters which actual electron is +1/2 or -1/2.

[Crash]

k thanks

[apathy]

Well can some kind person explain how sub orbitals hybridise and the explaination behind it, and how the suborbitals take on new shapes to allow for this.

 

you could do it with Group Theory and do the old Linear Combination of Atomic Orbitals (LCAO) approach, this will give you at least the geometric description of the hybridization, or its symmetry at least

 

hybridization IS possible for all orbitals, in theory, and hybridization is really the localized part of Huckel theory, which is more commonly used for delocalized orbitals