The Chemistry and Sanger Society Lecture was by Dr Peter Wothers (University of Cambridge) on the subject of ‘What are Atoms’. Review by Kaylie Zhu (Year 13):
On 15 October, Chemistry pupils were very lucky to welcome Dr Peter Wothers, the Director of Studies in Chemistry at St Catherine’s College, University of Cambridge. Instrumental in developing the Chemistry Pre-U syllabus, he has also been actively involved with the Chemistry Olympiad for over ten years, having recently created the C3L6 Cambridge Chemistry Challenge. Dr Wothers has coauthored “Why Chemical Reactions Happen” with James Keeler and his achievements have been recognized internationally when he received the 2011 President’s Award by the Royal Society of Chemistry and was also the 2012 Royal Institution Christmas lecturer.
In his lecture, Dr Wothers explored the topic of “Atomic Orbitals” as he took us on a journey through the wave functions and software-generated visualized models of different orbitals, each assigned specific quantum numbers (1s, 2s, 2p 3s, 3p etc). He prompted us to analyze and identify key characteristics of the models, examining any discernible patterns and considering concepts such as spherical symmetry, rotational symmetry and antisymmetry. It was particularly interesting to see how the field of Mathematics plays an important role in studying Chemistry at a higher level, as he discussed further the significance of locating function roots, polar coordinate system and radial distribution function in the context of atomic orbitals. The use of 3D isosurface plots displayed using computer graphics was another highlight of the talk since it offered a vivid, realistic view of electron density and orbital shapes.
An incredibly fascinating and engaging experience, his talk allowed us to gain a more comprehensive insight into the area of atomic orbitals and the field of Chemistry as a whole.