How to draw an Atom?

Question

So last year i was told that we draw an atom with the nutrons and protons in the middle, then we put rings around and electrons would be represented as 'X', drawing 2 (North, South) on the first ring.

4 (North, South, East, West) on the second ring.

8 on the next ring (North, South, East, West, North, South, East, West), meaning we would have 2 paired up at each point, the next would have maximum of 3, ect.

This year we are told that we should draw the "X", East, West, North South, does it really matter, and is there a correct way of drawing an atom in that matter, and whats its name, as it isnt the same as a Bohr Atom.

Thank-you

Answer 1

Using directional axes of N, E, W, and S to draw the rings is just a MODEL to understand the atom structure.

The reason you are drawing rings or circles outside the central part = nucleus, is because the electrons are located way outside of the nucleus and are ever so revolving around the nucleus. The electrons actually move in a very random defined area a certain radius from the center. It is not in just a fixed circular orbit. But drawing rings is a good approximation as a model. In fact, your text may have a picture of an atom with a fuzzy area of dots around the nucleus.

The correct way of drawing an atom is difficult to put in a plane of x-y because the atom is three dimensional. So, drawing the direction lines is a way to simulate 3-dimensionality.

Now, take a particular atom with 3 electrons. Note that this means the first 2 electrons are in the 1s-orbital and must be paired but going in opposite directions- that is - if one is going clockwise the other is going counterclockwise. The next third electron will go into another ring to simulate the 2s-orbital. This time, it is by itself, clockwise or otherwise.

You are actually trying to simulate the BOHR atom which states that the electrons are located in quantized states or locations. Thus, the rings.

Don't sweat it. You are doing fine.

Answer 2

There is no such thing as the "correct" way to draw an atom, as electrons do not have definite positions in space. All we can say about them is that they have a certain probability of being in a certain region.

The number of possible orbitals that electrons can be in is fixed, and I think that the drawings you are being asked to make are just a way of showing how many orbitals are available in each shell.

Answer 3

A H atom can be two circles, a small one for the one proton and a big one around the little for the one electron. For a bigger atom, it could be more complicated or you could still use just two circles. For example, U: one circle for the nucleus and write in 92 protons plus 146 neutrons, a second big circle (you could make it a wide fuzzy circle) around the first one and write 92 electrons. If you wanted to draw the picture to scale, you would need a much bigger piece of paper. If the size of the hydrogen nucleus is the size of a period, ".", then the electron is zooming around the nucleus above the ceiling and below the floor and around the room. Good luck

Answer 4

As the answer above says there is no correct way.

To represent the electron configuration in orbitals you can use a representation like: http://www.karentimberlake.com/Modules%202/Orbital%20Diagrams.ppt#256,1,Orbital Diagrams

If you got to the Diboron MO diagram on the following link you can see the shapes of the region of probability for each of the orbitals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MO_diagram