Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

Edited at 2014-11-13 05:03:22

At 11/13/14 04:32 AM, i-am-ghey wrote: there are four numbers that specifies the state of an electron.
n = the energy level, l = a number corresponding to the orbital angular momentum, m = magnetic number, and s = spin.
n basically tells you which energy level the electron is located in, l takes on an integer value from 0,1,2... but for practical purpose the maximum value of l is 3, so l can be any integer from 0 to 3.

to make contact with chemistry terminology, l=0 is the s-orbital, l=1 is the p-orbital, l=2 the d-orbital and l=3 the f-orbital.

and then for each orbital, there are different magnetic numbers. heuristically but not very correctly, the magnetic number tells you the direction at which the angular momentum of the electron is pointing at. it is also an integer and ranges from -l to l, where l is orbital angular momentum mentioned previously.

so for example, for the 2p orbital, the value of l is 1, and m can be -1, 0 or 1. the 2p orbital is further divided into 3 parts.

finally, there is a spin number s, which is either -1/2 or 1/2 for an electron.

worked example: a 2p orbital can hold at most 6 electrons because it has three values for m and for each m there are two spin states. 6=2*3

EDIT: chemists use notations to denote how energy shells are occupied by electrons in an atom.
1s2 2s2 2p4 would mean the s-orbital in the 1st energy level has two electrons, the s-orbital in the 2nd energy level also has 2 electrons and the p-orbital in the 2nd energy level has 4 electrons. this corresponds to the electronic configuration of carbon.

At 11/13/14 04:32 AM, i-am-ghey wrote: there are four numbers that specifies the state of an electron.
n = the energy level, l = a number corresponding to the orbital angular momentum, m = magnetic number, and s = spin.
n basically tells you which energy level the electron is located in, l takes on an integer value from 0,1,2... but for practical purpose the maximum value of l is 3, so l can be any integer from 0 to 3.

to make contact with chemistry terminology, l=0 is the s-orbital, l=1 is the p-orbital, l=2 the d-orbital and l=3 the f-orbital.

and then for each orbital, there are different magnetic numbers. heuristically but not very correctly, the magnetic number tells you the direction at which the angular momentum of the electron is pointing at. it is also an integer and ranges from -l to l, where l is orbital angular momentum mentioned previously.

so for example, for the 2p orbital, the value of l is 1, and m can be -1, 0 or 1. the 2p orbital is further divided into 3 parts.

finally, there is a spin number s, which is either -1/2 or 1/2 for an electron.

worked example: a 2p orbital can hold at most 6 electrons because it has three values for m and for each m there are two spin states. 6=2*3

EDIT: chemists use notations to denote how energy shells are occupied by electrons in an atom.
1s2 2s2 2p4 would mean the s-orbital in the 1st energy level has two electrons, the s-orbital in the 2nd energy level also has 2 electrons and the p-orbital in the 2nd energy level has 4 electrons. this corresponds to the electronic configuration of oxygen.