File talk:Electron orbitals.svg

I may be missing something, but as far as I can see this image contains information that is not explained (and cannot be understood from the image itself).

The part I haven't been able to figure out is the superscript down the left hand side following the K,L,M... What do these numbers indicate? (also on my screen these numbers are partly obscured making them slightly ambiguous).

None of the articles linking to the image explain it. It's only in "Atomic Orbitals" that the meaning of the K,L,M shell names are briefly mentioned.

Also the subscript on the letters along the bottom is preumably the total number of electrons (or states) so far, but this is not made clear anywhere Setfeat (talk) 12:41, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

h-orbital electron count[edit]

Considering each shell should hold an even number of electrons when filled (due to pairs of opposing spin) and each orbital set seemingly increases by four, shouldn't the h-orbital set contain 22 electrons and not 23? IdioC (talk) 14:46, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And based on their name injection, User:Willh clearly agrees! IdioC (talk) 14:58, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Orbital Energy Exceptions[edit]

In the description on the wiki page it says "The chart of orbitals (left) is arranged by increasing energy". I think the 5d orbital might actually have a lower energy than 4f. Lanthanum has the configuration 6s2 5d1 (-> The 5d orbital is filled before 4f) so in this case, 5d has lower energy and should therefore come before 4f. Just a guess though. --95.113.171.138 (talk) 11:25, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Orientation[edit]

Is the orientation of the pi bond shown differently than the two sigma bonds? All of the graphics seem to be in a vertical-right-slant format, so when I look at the bonding orbitals, I would expect the atoms in the sigma-s bond to be near the upper and lower areas of the bond (therefore vertical with a right slant) and for the sigma-p orbital they would be located at the upper and lower nodes (also vertical with a right slant), but on the pi bond the atoms would be at the left and right nodes (horizontal with a right slant). So am I misunderstanding where the atoms are located or is the formatting inconsistent? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.126.225.15 (talk) 12:39, 8 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]