# Is there oscillating charge in a hydrogen atom? Tags: quantum-mechanics, atomic-physics, charge - Score: 50 - Views: 7908 - Answers: 5 - Answered: yes - Asked by: Marty Green (4307 rep) - Asked: 2016-11-18 - Edited: 2023-08-27 - Site: physics ## Question In another post, I claimed that there was obviously an oscillating charge in a hydrogen atom when you took the superposition of a 1s and a 2p state. One of the respected members of this community (John Rennie) challenged me on this, saying: Why do you say there is an oscillating charge distribution for a hydrogen atom in a superposition of 1s and 2p states? I don't see what is doing the oscillating. Am I the only one that sees an oscillating charge? Or is John Rennie missing something here? I'd like to know what people think. ## Answers ### Answer by freecharly (score: 13 [ACCEPTED]) The superposition of eigenstates in a hydrogen atom results in an oscillating wave function in time with a frequency corresponding to the difference of energies of the eigenstates. Schrödinger considered for a time the wave function squares as charge density which resulted in an oscillating charge distribution. As this corresponded to an ele