[sundrops]

How many atomic orbitals are there in an f subshell?

3 right? I always get confused with the silly notation.


In an atom, what is the maximum number of electrons that can have a principal quantum number n = 4?

I never really understood this principle now i thought that the answer would be 32 because for each magnetic quantum # there are 2 electrons, but that didn't work out so well. So then I thought I would divide by 2, and make my answer 16 - because the electrons are all spinning in different directions.

Well as you can tell from reacing this - I am VERY lost!

any hints or nudges in the right direction would be AWESOME!!

[Donaldson Tan]

max number of electron in nth shell = 2n²

why? summation of orbitals in the nth shell is the summation of odd number from 1 to the nth consercutive odd number. this gives u the n² term and there are two electrons max in each orbital, so this gives u the coefficient of 2.

[savoy7]

4 quantum numbers
n = principal
l = angular momentum = spdf
m = magnetic = orientation of the electron's orbital
   s has 1
   p has 3
   d has 5
   f  has 7
 
each orientation holds 2 electrons - so f can hold 14 electrons

leads us to spin +1/2 or -1/2 (that's how you get the 2 electrons from above)

4th principal has s, p, d and f
geodome was right on with his equation