- #1
ChiliPanda
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Homework Statement
I've already done all of the work, the answer I received just seemed odd, so a friend recommended I ask you guys to check over it. The problem was to determine the atomic spectrum of hydrogen and determine the energy (in EV) required to move between orbitals.
I got the following answers - 2>1 (ultraviolet) 10.2 EV, 3>2 (red) 1.9 EV, 4>2 (blue-green) 2.5 EV, 5>2 (violet) 2.9EV, and 6>2 (deep violet) 3 EV.
The thing that seemed "odd" to me is that it takes the most energy to move an electron from the ground state to orbital 2. I know that it takes energy to move electrons away from the nucleus because of the attraction force, but I always figured it would take more energy the further it was pulled away, such as when stretching out a rubber band, until the electron had so much energy that it could break off. Thus, I think somehow I messed up somewhere along the way.
Homework Equations
I got the EV calculations from the formula E=12400/λ, where λ is wavelength in angstroms which I got from a spectrometer.