Talk:Electron orbital

Atomic orbital in WP

Before starting this, I looked at AO in WP. What an incredibly bad article! A total mess. It started as a reasonably good article in September 2001 (6 years ago). About 500 edits later by 157 (I counted) different people (and a few bots) the article is a complete tragedy. People are still "improving" it, last edit was on October 6, 2007. This is the best example of WP's weakness I have encountered so far. --Paul Wormer 09:19, 8 October 2007 (CDT)

Too High level?

I am concerned that this article gets too advanced in its treatment of electron orbitals too quickly for a reader who is new to this topic. I am curious how everyone would feel about adding a new introduction at a more general level before getting into the higher level material. Ethan Karpel 23:18, 31 October 2007 (CDT)

Dear Ethan, you can give it a try, but be warned, lots of metaphysical nonsense has been written about orbitals. As you will understand, I won't accept stuff that I consider nonsense. But when you are able to write some qualitative (non-mathematical) introduction that is not contradictory to the more mathematical view of professional theoretical chemists, then I applaud that and I'll help you with it. I would prefer, however, that you point out where your problems are with my writings, and that you and I together try to clear that up and make my text more accessible to the general reader.--Paul Wormer 03:28, 1 November 2007 (CDT)