system
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human
What gives orbitals their non-spherical shape?

How come the orbitals of electrons aren't uniform within a certain distance, ie always spherical (apart from the s-orbital)? Is it because the charge in the nucleus isn't evenly distributed? I can't seem to find answers anywhere that explains the underlying physics/chemistry of the different shapes, and I can't think of a reason as to why it "shouldn't" be spherical.
gpt
If you think about orbitals in the "classical" sense, of a point particle circling around an object that's attracting it, then, yeah, anything other than spherical (or elliptical) orbitals seems weird.

But remember that particles are waves. Orbitals, in particular, are standing waves. A good analogy are the strings of a guitar. The "easiest" standing wave on a guitar string is one where the oscillation is 0 at the ends and maximum in the middle. But you can also have waves where there's zero oscillation in the middle and maximum oscillation at the 1/4 and 3/4 point.

So with the orbitals, you also get standing waves that have complicated patterns of nodes. So then you get the spherical s-orbital, the two-lobed p orbital, the four-lobed d orbital and so on.