> But the team found that as they stretched the iron selenide, its electrons began to overwhelmingly prefer one orbital state over the other. This signaled a cl

> But the team found that as they stretched the iron selenide, its electrons began to overwhelmingly prefer one orbital state over the other. This signaled a clear, coordinated shift, along with a new mechanism of nematicity, and superconductivity. That's fascinating! Electron orbitals are determined by quantum mechanics, and I'm really curious about the quantum-mechanical mechanism at work here to cause large numbers of atoms to have electrons in the same orbital.