Among other things, Maurice wrote:

>> If I'm not mistaken, those ellipsoids are a representation of the
>> confidence region for the position of the nuclei. Could you replace them
>> with simple
> 
> Never. The confidence region for the nuclei is spheric. The confidence
> region for the electrons is much more complex. Have a look at the
> Orbitron for renders of most common electron-clouds:
> 
> http://www.shef.ac.uk/chemistry/orbitron/

Erm... Those are not "confidence regions", they are orbitals, which are a 
different thing. Well, they're a similar thing, but the whole beast (sum of 
all orbitals) would be the "electron density", which does not have such a 
funny shape. The electron density of the molecule would be much more 
similar to a POV-Ray blob.

And I'm not really sure the confidence region for the nuclei should be 
spheric, maybe you mean the nuclei themselves are spheric? That's not 
necessarily true, by the way, there are oblate and prolate nuclei... I've 
found those ellipsoids are called "thermal ellipsoids" and everything seems 
to indicate that they're regions where there's a high probability of 
finding a *nucleus*.

-- 
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