The Bagel
by David Ignatow (1914-1997)

I stopped to pick up the bagel
rolling away in the wind,
annoyed with myself
for having dropped it
as it were a portent.
Faster and faster it rolled,
with me running after it
bent low, gritting my teeth,
and I found myself doubled over
and rolling down the street
head over heels, one complete somersault
after another like a bagel
and strangely happy with myself

The "Quantum Bagel"

I like looking at orbitals -- why not? Mostly, we (as chemists) are familiar with the the pictures that correspond to the "real orbitals" -- what is often depicted are actually only the Real angular wavefunctions -- such as the s, p_z, d_x²_-y<SUP2, etc. But we can view the complex angular wavefunctions (squared modulus!), just for fun. The figure below is a complex p angular wavefunction, l = 1, m_l = 1, which is really a parametric plot of the squared modulus of the spherical harmonic, Y₁₁. To me it looks like a quantum bagel. (Now, if we could just perturb it with some quantum cream cheese....)

©  Alan D. Crosby acrosby@bu.edu