So it can have a p orbit that lays along the, the x axis,
the way it's been written there, or I can have one that's coming out towards you,
in this case, that's the direction of the y axis.
Or it can have one that's going up and down, that's the direction of the z axis.
Now, I chose x, y and z arbitrarily here.
Right, sometimes people have y going up and
z coming out at you, it doesn't matter, it's arbitrary choice.
But the point is,
that there are three different directions that the p orbital can have.
The p orbital has directionality to it.
The designation p is telling us the shape and not the direction.
Now, I can have 2p orbital, but if n equals anything greater than 2,
I can also have a p orbital of that sublevel.
So if n equals 3, then l can be 0 as it
is up here for the sphere, or l can be 1.
And in fact, l can be 2, which is a d shape.
But here l can be 1, that gives us the p orbital.
The p orbital at the 3p level is slightly larger than the p
orbital we saw at the 2p level.