Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Chemistry => Topic started by: Nicholas Lee on 15/07/2016 21:47:38

Title: Can you help, with this simple hydrogen atom question?
Post by: Nicholas Lee on 15/07/2016 21:47:38

The absorption, and emission process can only move electrons to higher shell levels, as well as atomic high speed collisions.
But if the electron could be forced to stay in shell 2 with a energy requirement of 1.5 electron volts.
Would ALL wavelengths of light get transmission, and only ultra violet wavelengths would absorb.
I know its impossible to make the electron stay in the shell 2 region, because its wants to emission the extra energy it has, and go back to the ground state.
So if the electron can be kept in shell 2 area, would ALL visible light transmission, because the electron does not have a energy requirement to visible light anymore, just to ultraviolet wavelengths.
I think all visible light will transmission as long as the electrons energy level requirement is around 3.5 electron volts, which is wavelengths of around 300 to 150nm.
Is this correct.
I am grateful for your help, anything helps even a few words.

Title: Re: If the hydrogen atoms electron COULD be kept in shell 2 without going back down
Post by: Atomic-S on 16/07/2016 06:10:06

I think the idea is unworkable for several reasons. One is that the human body has elements other than hydrogen to consider.  The human body could not be made transparent without dealing with iron, and in iron, simply making the lowest energy state unavailable would not do much good in the visible wavelengths because in iron that energy state is separated by others with much more energy than that of a visible photon, as are several other states.  Electrons in these states will affect the absorbtion or emission of ultraviolet or X-rays.  Another is that to achieve the necessary electron rearrangement would probably end biochemistry as we know it, killing the patient.  (Pushing electrons out of the lowest orbit and keeping them out would, if the atom is to remain neutral, cause the atom in the case of hydrogen to effectively become the next element up the periodic table, or for all other elements the second-next element up the periodic table.  That would change the whole shape of the chemistry radically). If, however, one wishes to study the spectral effects of making the lowest orbit unavailable, a good place to start is to study lithium, in which two electrons pair in the lowest energy state, leaving the third to do its business in other states only.