Chapter 1: Concept Summary
Subatomic Particles
I. A proton has a positive charge and mass around 1 amu; a neutron
has no charge and mass around 1 amu; an electron has a negative
charge and negligible mass.
II. The nucleus contains the protons and neutrons, while the electrons
move around the nucleus.
III. The atomic number is the number of protons in a given element.
IV. The mass number is the sum of an element’s protons and
neutrons.
Atomic Mass vs. Atomic Weight
I. Isotopes are atoms of a given element (same atomic number) that
have different mass numbers. They differ in the number of neutrons.
II. Atomic mass is essentially equal to the mass number, the sum of
an element’s protons and neutrons.
III. Most isotopes are identified by the element followed by the mass
number (such as carbon-12, carbon-13, and carbon-14).
IV. The three isotopes of hydrogen go by different names: protium,
deuterium, and tritium.
V. Atomic weight is the weighted average of the naturally occurring
isotopes of an element. The periodic table lists atomic weights, not
atomic masses.
Rutherford, Planck, and Bohr
I. Rutherford first postulated that the atom had a dense, positively
charged nucleus that made up only a small fraction of the volume of
the atom.
II. In the Bohr model of the atom, a dense, positively charged
nucleus is surrounded by electrons revolving around the nucleus in
orbits with distinct energy levels.
III. The energy difference between energy levels is called a quantum,
first described by Planck.
A. Quantization means that there is not an infinite range of energy
levels available to an electron; electrons can exist only at certain
energy levels. The energy of an electron increases the farther it is
from the nucleus.
B. The atomic absorption spectrum of an element is unique; for
an electron to jump from a lower energy level to a higher one, it
must absorb an amount of energy precisely equal to the energy
difference between the two levels.
C. When electrons return from the excited state to the ground state,
they emit an amount of energy that is exactly equal to the energy
difference between the two levels; every element has a
characteristic atomic emission spectrum, and sometimes the
electromagnetic energy emitted corresponds to a frequency in
the visible light range.
Quantum Mechanical Model of
Atoms
I. The quantum mechanical model posits that electrons do not travel
in defined orbits but rather are localized in orbitals; an orbital is a
region of space around the nucleus defined by the probability of
finding an electron in that region of space.
II. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that it is impossible to know
both an electron’s position and its momentum exactly at the same time.
III. There are four quantum numbers; these numbers completely describe any
electron in an atom. The principal quantum number, n, describes the
average energy of a shell.
A. The azimuthal quantum number, l, describes the subshells within a
given principal energy level (s, p, d, and f).
B. The magnetic quantum number, ml, speci es the particular orbital
within a subshell where an electron is likely to be found at a given
moment in time.
C. The spin quantum number, ms, indicates the spin orientation of an
electron in an orbital.
IV. The electron con guration uses spectroscopic notation (combining the n
and l values as a number and letter, respectively) to designate the location
of electrons.
A. For example, 1s22s22p63s2 is the electron con guration for
magnesium: a neutral magnesium atom has 12 electrons—two in the s
subshell of the rst energy level, two in the s subshell of the second
energy level, six in the p subshell of the second energy level, and two in
the s subshell of the third energy level; the two electrons in the 3s
subshell are the valence electrons for the magnesium atom.
V. Electrons ll the principal energy levels and subshells according to
increasing energy, which can be determined by the n + l rule.
VI. Electrons ll orbitals according to Hund’s rule, which states that subshells
with multiple orbitals (p, d, and f) ll electrons so that every orbital in a
subshell gets one electron before any of them gets a second.
A. Paramagnetic materials have unpaired electrons that align with
magnetic elds, attracting the material to a magnet.
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
B. Diamagnetic materials have all paired electrons, which cannot easily be
realigned; they are repelled by magnets.
[Link] electrons are those electrons in the outermost shell available for
interaction (bonding) with other atoms.
A. For the representative elements (those in Groups 1, 2, and 13−18), the
valence electrons are found in s- and/or p-orbitals.
B. For the transition elements, the valence electrons are found in s- and
either d- or f-orbitals.
C. Many atoms interact with other atoms to form bonds that complete an
octet in the valence shell.