〈 Berger | Dillon 〉

Not upset at all... But without external field, why would the proton and the electron align in a particular direction?

because energy eigenstates have trivial time evolution .. if you prepare the state in some Ψnlm , then you are simply just more likely to find it in certain places than another, that's like the whole thing .. and you don't even need very exotic states to acheive this at all

The overwhelming majority of the hydrogen atoms in the universe have not been prepared and are spherically symmetric. No?

i don't see how that's relevant

that's just the statement that the ground state is spherically symmetric

The other energy states are spherically symmetric too.

No, only the (n,0,0) states.

but if you dont know “what axis” the azimuthal angle is measured from your 2p orbital would be in a mixed state which is spherically symmetric, youd need a state preparation or external field which picks the basis for the l=1 harmonics to be in a pure state?