question regarding the d Orbitals

[mathzeroh]

hey everyone! good morning!

can anyone please clarify this statement for me?

True of False (correct statement if false)

There are five d orbitals at both the fourth and sixth principal energy levels.


i said it was false because there's only one d orbital per principal energy level. now i know that that is completely wrong (what i said was wrong) but i guess i'm just having a hard time understanding what the principal energy levels are and what that mean...that statement was actually true, but can anyone help me understand why its true? :smile:

thanks alot!!

[whozum]

I believe that there are five orbitals in any d shell, but I think this may be a problem of vocabulary. If orbital means the item that holds two electrons, then yes there are 5 of them.

At the 4th and 6th principle energy levels:

1s^2 2s^2 2p^6 3s^2 3p^6 4s^2 3d^{10} 4p^6 5s^2 4d^{10} 5p^6

The fourth principle energy level has a coefficient of 4 in the above electron configuration. You can write it out to the 6th level but I'm not sure how it goes after that. as you can see the d shell on the fourth energy level has 5 orbitals, since it holds 10 electrons.

[dextercioby]

In spectroscopic notation "d" stands for l=2 to which 5 possible values for m_{l} correspond.Therefore,it doesn't matter what the value of [itex] n\geq3 [/tex] is.

Daniel.

[whozum]

Good call dex. Quantum numbers never lie.

[mathzeroh]

I believe that there are five orbitals in any d shell, but I think this may be a problem of vocabulary. If orbital means the item that holds two electrons, then yes there are 5 of them.

At the 4th and 6th principle energy levels:

1s^2 2s^2 2p^6 3s^2 3p^6 4s^2 3d^{10} 4p^6 5s^2 4d^{10} 5p^6

The fourth principle energy level has a coefficient of 4 in the above electron configuration. You can write it out to the 6th level but I'm not sure how it goes after that. as you can see the d shell on the fourth energy level has 5 orbitals, since it holds 10 electrons.


Thank you for the help but i appologize because i'm a little slow...i still don't get it. :confused: so the 4th principle energy level is the 4s^2? That one? but i only see two, because of the superscript 2, unless i'm missing something here...how does the d shell hold five? please help me! :cry:


thanks to both of you btw!

[dextercioby]

What is principle energy level?Never heard of this notion.Care to explain?

Daniel.

[christinono]

Thank you for the help but i appologize because i'm a little slow...i still don't get it. :confused: so the 4th principle energy level is the 4s^2? That one? but i only see two, because of the superscript 2, unless i'm missing something here...how does the d shell hold five? please help me! :cry:


thanks to both of you btw!
Each principle energy level has different types of orbitals (except for the first, of course). The fourth energy level has:
4s, 4p, 4d, 4f.

The d shell consists of FIVE orbitals, each containing a maximum of 2 electrons (max of 10 electrons).

[mathzeroh]

^^^ OHHHH so that's what's meant by it??? ok!! thanks!!

dextercioby, here's what it says in the glossary:

principal energy level(s): the main energy levels within the relectron arrangement in an atom. They are quantized by a set of integers beginning at n=1 for the lowest level, n=2 for the next, and so forth; also called the principal quantum number.


so does that mean that the "principal quantum number/principal energy level" is the periods in the periodic table of elements??

[christinono]

^^^ OHHHH so that's what's meant by it??? ok!! thanks!!

dextercioby, here's what it says in the glossary:

principal energy level(s): the main energy levels within the relectron arrangement in an atom. They are quantized by a set of integers beginning at n=1 for the lowest level, n=2 for the next, and so forth; also called the principal quantum number.


so does that mean that the "principal quantum number/principal energy level" is the periods in the periodic table of elements??
Yes, the period an element is in represents the valence energy level.

[OlderDan]

The adjective "principal" is used with energy levels because there is a small dependence of energy level on orbital angular momentum. That is why the sequence written earlier as
1s^2 2s^2 2p^6 3s^2 3p^6 4s^2 3d^{10} 4p^6 5s^2 4d^{10} 5p^6
is not strictly in the order 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. These small differences give rise to fine structure in atomic spectra.

[dextercioby]

There's no such thing as "main/principal" energy levels.There's only ENERGY LEVELS.

Daniel.

[maverick280857]

I don't know about you folks, but this is what I was taught as vocabulary:

Shell-->Subshell-->Orbital

For n = 6 (the 6th shell if you want to call it that way), l can range from 0 to 5, so for n = 6, the subshells are s,p,d,f,g,h. There are 5 d orbitals whenever the d-subshell is present for some n as whozum has correctly pointed out.

The orbital orientations (dx, dy, dz, d(x^2-y^2),d(z^2)) are described by m (allowed to range from -l to +l including zero). If you know how the quantum numbers work you know which orbital "exists" for any energy level (whether or not it contains electrons is something different).