CHEMISTRY GLOSSARY

Orbital is the area in space about an atom or molecule in which the probability of finding an electron is greatest.

The possible atomic orbitals correspond to subshells of the atom. Thus there is one s-orbital for each shell (orbital quantum number l = 0). There are three p-orbitals (corresponding to the three values of l) and five d-orbitals. The shapes of orbitals depend on the value of l.