Everyone was taught that the atom is made of three kinds of subatomic particles: the proton, the neutron and of of course the electron. Along with this tiny bit of information we were also taught that the proton and neutron are roughly of the same weight; make up the major mass of the atom and together are responsible for radioactivity of heavy elements. Whereas, the quirky electrons were very excited and and liked freedom so they were really far away from the protons and neutrons and liked to move about. These roadways that they moved on came to be known as orbits. Now, these orbits were circular paths and very boring. Therefore after a while the electrons became tired of this boring life and wanted some spice, become mysterious. This was around the time that Mr. Werner Heisenberg was formulating his uncertainty principle that would be like a bomb to teenagers later on. So, Mr. Heisenberg formulated his principle and said that, "At the same moment of time one cannot determine the position and the momentum of a particle with great accuracy." Thus it implied that one could never know the position of an electron or its velocity but only the probability of the electron being at a particular position or having a certain velocity.
Therefore the old model became inconsistent with the new theory and thus came the quantum model of the atom. now this model of the atom says that no, the electrons are not revolving around the atom in a two dimensional orbit but rather around a three dimensional structure known as the orbital. In effect, the orbital is defined as a region of three dimensional space in which the probability of finding the atom is the greatest. Thus we now know that electrons are in a cloud around the nucleus where an electron can be present at all possible places unless observed.
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