Lyman, Ballmer, Paschen series?

krackers

Hello there!

These series are the names given to the emission spectra when an electron gets excited and then falls from n=x to n=1 for Lyman, n=2 for Ballmer, and n=3 for Paschen series right? However, I though hydrogen only has 1 energy level, as the electronic configuration is 1s1. How can an electron fall from a higher energy level then? Please help!

phyzguy

You are confused. The 1s1 configuration refers to the ground state. All atoms have only one ground state. Hydrogen(as well as other atoms) has an infinite number of excited states, and there can transitions between the different states. You have described the Lyman, Balmer, and Paschen transitions correctly.