The ground state of the Hydrogen atom is spherically symmetric. In other words, the wave function Psi depends only on the distance r of the electron from the nucleus.
As a consequence all derivatives of Psi with respect to angles theta and phi yield zero.
Does this imply that the average kinetic energy in the ground state [which can be calculated without difficulty from the wave function] is determined exclusively by the radial motion of the electron?
If so, that would be a rather odd result. Let us say the electron is at position (x, 0, 0). Then the kinetic energy would be the result of motion either away from the nucleus (direction +x) or towards the nucleus (-x), but not from motion perpendicular to the x-axis. So in essence the motion of the electron would be 1-dimensional, like a pendulum.
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