-
Asked by anon-205633 to Russell, Kathryn, Jose Angel, Gabriel, Affelia, adeliegorce on 4 Mar 2019.
-
Jose Angel Martinez-Gonzalez answered on 4 Mar 2019:
Very good question for a chemist like me.
For this we must first look at the Periodic Table:
http://www.rsc.org/periodic-table/
On this website of the Royal Society of Chemistry all the elements discovered at present appear. In blue are the elements that are known as transition metals. There are four rows of them, the first from Scandium to Zinc, the second from Yttrium to Cadmium, the third from Lanthanum to Mercury and the fourth from Actinium to Copernicium.
In the case of the First row, in the third sphere, the general rule says that as you move from left to right you have one electron more in the third layer and two in the fourth, but there are exceptions, the chromium would have five in the third and one in the fourth, and the Copper would have ten in the third and one in the fourth. In the rest of the rows, third shell have ten electrons.
-
-
-
-
Russell Arnott answered on 8 Mar 2019:
Now from what I know, is that GCSE chemistry teaches you that electrons orbit the atomic nucleus like planets orbiting a sun. But this is a massive oversimplification to help puny human brains explain atomic behaviour.
At A-Level Chemistry, the teachers admit that everything you’ve been told about chemistry at GCSE is a lie and in reality there is no such thing as a shell. Rather electrons exist in something called an orbital which is a region around the atom where an electron is likely to be. It comes down to probability because it is impossible to know where an electron actually is because as soon as you try to look at it, it behaves differently.
This is one of the weird things about quantum physics!
Comments