Atoms and Chemistry homework help...?

Question

1. What does it mean to say that something is quantized?

2. If a beam of red light and a beam of violet light have equal energies, which beam has the greater number of photons? Explain.

3. How does the wave model of electrons orbiting the nucleus account for the fact that the electrons can have only discrete energy values?

Answer 1

1. Quantized usually means that the measured quantity can only have certain values. Like the count of eggs in a carton can only be zero to twelve (in my kitchen, anyway). Like the pixels on your computer screen. Maybe 1024 across, which means you can't draw a line 1023.5 pixels long. Either 1023 or 1024.

2. In my text, the energy is only related to the wavelength and violet, having a shorter wavelength, has higher energy. That is different than the use of the term "power" or "work".

3. If we convert the electron into a wave, we find that they can only occupy orbits that are an integer number of their wavelengths long. In that way, they can only have certain energies, according to their orbits.

Did we mention quantized? Is this the tip of the quantum physics iceberg. You bet it is. Have fun.

Answer 2

1. there is a "measured" amount
2. red because each photon has less energy
3. when electron go from a higher energy level to a lower energy level, they release a photon equal in energy to the difference in energy of the two levels. Not sure how that refers to the wave model of electrons.