What is the wavelength of light emitted when the electron in a hyrdogen atom moves from n=6 to n=2?

Question

I guessed 657nm. Was I right? The other options were 93.8nm, 434 nm, 487 nm, and 411 nm.

Answer 1

There is no need to guess at all, but you can calculate the wavelength using the Rydberg equation. It's not easy to type this equation here, but you should be able to find it in your chemistry text. It is also given here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rydberg_formula in the section titled "Rydberg formula for hydrogen".

Just plug in your values of n1=2 and n2=6 and calculate the wavelength.