Recollection

I know I've asked this before, but it keeps coming back to me, again and again:

Does a proton possess orbitals?

If you say I'm silly, then consider the thousands of Chemists worldwide who speak of the hydrogen ion (H+) as having orbitals.

Isn't a hydrogen ion a proton?

But isn't a proton a free particle by itself?

Quantum mechanics is just plain weird, period. :)

Psychic!

Have you ever thought about it? A proton is just a proton, and it has no orbitals or whatsoever to speak of, because it has no electrons, and it is simply a lone existence. However, when we talk about a hydrogen ion, we speak of it possessing orbitals into which electrons are added when a hydrogen ion accepts them.

But, isn't a hydrogen ion just simply, a proton? Why then do we speak of it as if orbitals exist?

The matter, clearly then, is that orbitals themselves simply don't exist at all! And that is why one can speak of them in hydrogen ions, and not speak of them for a proton. For an orbital is merely a probability space of finding an electron, and not an actual dimensional entity that an electron can occupy.

And that is how a proton itself can possess all orbitals at once, and yet, possess no orbitals at the same time.

Wow. Deep, sweet!

So... who tells the electron where to go? And how does it know where to go when there's no one telling it?

Haha, that's what interactions are for!