James Kahn
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- TL;DR Summary
- General question about series limits and strong lines of the emissions spectrum.
I have been learning about the emissions spectrum for the periodic table of elements and I noticed for example that the NIST database for the strong lines does not include the series limits for hydrogen. For example the NIST does not include 364.6 nm for the Balmer series limit and 820.4 nm for the Paschen series limit found in the wikipedia article etc.... Can you explain why these are not included on the NIST list of strong lines?
This brings me to my next question. Do all of the other elements on the periodic table also have series limits that are not included on the NIST database of strong lines? If so can you point me to where I can find a list of the series limits for the rest of the periodic table? Maybe I am missing something fundamental and simple? It just seems that I can't find a straightforward answer to this question in spite of reading a lot of rudimentary articles about the emission lines. If there is a good book that answers these specific questions I would also love to know about it. Thanks so much for your time and expertise.
This brings me to my next question. Do all of the other elements on the periodic table also have series limits that are not included on the NIST database of strong lines? If so can you point me to where I can find a list of the series limits for the rest of the periodic table? Maybe I am missing something fundamental and simple? It just seems that I can't find a straightforward answer to this question in spite of reading a lot of rudimentary articles about the emission lines. If there is a good book that answers these specific questions I would also love to know about it. Thanks so much for your time and expertise.
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