Question

what's the meaning 'shell' for chemistry? Sorry, I'm Indonesian :)

Answer 1

Shell is may be thought of as an orbit followed by electrons around an atom's nucleus. The closest shell to the nucleus is called the "1 shell", followed by the "2 shell", then the "3 shell", and so on further and further from the nucleus.

Electrons are only allowed to orbit the nucleus in "discrete orbits", which means electrons are unable to travel around the nucleus freely, it can jump from one to another, but cannot exist in between the orbits.

Each shell can contain only a fixed number of electrons: The 1st shell can hold up to two electrons, the 2nd shell can hold up to eight electrons, the 3rd shell can hold up to 18, and 4th shell can hold up to 32 and so on.

Electrons in outer shells have higher average energy and travel farther from the nucleus than those in inner shells. This makes them more important in determining how the atom reacts chemically and behaves as a conductor