Question

How many electrons in an atom can share the quantum numbers n= 2, l = 1, and m subscript l = -1? (2 points)

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Answer 1

@Haseeb96

Answer 2

4

Answer 3

Hey for that question how many electrons in an atom can share the quantum numbers n =2, l = 1, and mL = -1.

few things you should know:

n = the principle quantum number = the energy level your orbital is at.
l = the shape of your orbital.
mL = the orientation of those orbitals. mL can be between -l and positive l.

every orbital can hold a maximum of 2 electrons.

the first thing is that an s orbital only has one configuration l = 0 so m of l could be only be 0. so an s orbital has one configuration and can hold a maximum of 2 electrons.

so for the purposes of that problem you were given n = 2, l = 1 and mL = -1.

so we look at the quantum number, that's n = 2 and right away we know that it's either s or a p orbital. why? because d orbitals start at n = 3 and f orbitals start at n =4 and so on.

now we look at the shape of the orbital. this will give us a lot of information about what we're dealing with. in our case L = 1 which means that mL can be between positive 1 and negative one.

so we write out all our possible orientations given mL.

we have mL = 0
mL = -1
mL = 1

this means that there are three possible orientations of this orbital Px,Py, and Pz and each contains 2 electrons. so right away we know that this is an S orbital.

now so we know that this is a p orbital, and we know that n = 2. we also know that S can't share any of these orientations, as well as, D, and F. of n = 2. We need to find an atom that shares all of these quantum numbers. how about a mother p orbital. well? n = 2 would mean 2p if we go up to a higher energy level we start with n = 3. because all the quantum numbers are not the same we can only consider the case for n = 2. so knowing this can you see how many electrons would be in an atom that shares all of those quantum numbers?