Electron configuration, continued

TABLE 4.1 Electronic Configuration and Properties of the Elements Continued)... 

An effective way to determine the detailed electron configuration of any element is to use the periodic table to determine which subshell to fill next. Each s subshell holds a maximum of 2 electrons each p subshell holds a maximum of 6 electrons each d subshell holds a maximum of 10 electrons and each / subshell holds a maximum of 14 electrons (Table 17-5). These numbers match the numbers of elements in a given period in the various blocks. To get the electron configuration, start at hydrogen (atomic number = 1) and continue in order of atomic number, using the periodic table of Fig. 17-10. 

Perhaps Perrin s continuing commitment is explained by the fact that his radiation hypothesis was an update of Marie and Pierre Curie s original explanation of radioactivity, that the apparently spontaneous emission of radiations and charged particles from molecules is activated by immanent radiations. The Curies supposed that radiations in the atmosphere or in the ether disturb the stability of the naturally radioactive elements. This hypothesis, like the radiation hypothesis of chemical activation, eventually succumbed to an explanation using electron configurations, adumbrated by the new quantum interpretation of matter and energy. 

We might, just accept it as a brute fact about the world that the series of elements was discrete. But if there were a finite number of properties, combinations of which generate the physical possibilities represented by the periodic table, then variation would necessarily be discrete rather than continuous. We can believe in the existence of these fundamental entities and properties without subscribing to any particular account of them (e.g. an account in terms of electronic configuration), such accounts at least show us the way in which chemical properties could be determined by more fundamental ones. The point is that, given the principle of recombination, unless those more fundamental properties exist, unactualized elements would not be physical possibilities (14). 

This procedure may be continued, one electron at a time, until the entire list of dements has been covered. A complete list of electron configurations of the elements... 

Summarizing the individual decay branches of the 4d5/2 -> 6p resonance, one finds that all final ionic states can also be reached by outer-shell photoionization, in (a) and (b) by main processes, and in (c)-(i) by discrete and continuous satellite processes. The effect of the resonance decay will then be a modification of these otherwise undisturbed direct outer-shell photoionization processes which turns out to be an enhancement in the present case. Therefore, these outer-shell satellites are called resonantly enhanced satellites. In this context it is important to note that outer-shell photoionization also populates other satellites, attached, for example, to electron configurations 5s25p4ns and 5s25p4nd. However, the parity of these satellites is even, while the decay branches (c)-(/) lead to odd parity. Therefore, both groups of final ionic states can be treated independently of each other (if configuration interaction in the continuum is neglected). 

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