[aFarDay]

I was just curious as to how Rydberg came to the conclusion that the Rydberg Constant was approximately  2.18x10^(-18) Joules.

I know The equation is
 R_H = me⁴ / 8E₀²h²
where  h is plancks constant,  E₀ is permitivity constant, M is electron mass, and e is electron charge.

If i put these #'s in will i get 2.18x10^(-18) J?
__________________

Also why is the Rydberg Constant on wikipedia different from the one in my textbook? (zumdahl)



Will Dividing the Rydberg constant by the principal quantum number times -1. Will that give  me En ,the binding energy?

________________

thank you for your help, we are on this chapter but my teacher isn't going in depth with this specific topic in the class. 

[Borek]

If i put these #'s in will i get 2.18x10^(-18) J?

Have you tried? 1 minute of keying the digits into the calculator and you will know.

Also why is the Rydberg Constant on wikipedia different from the one in my textbook? (zumdahl)

Do they use the same units?

[aFarDay]

If i put these #'s in will i get 2.18x10^(-18) J?

Have you tried? 1 minute of keying the digits into the calculator and you will know.

Also why is the Rydberg Constant on wikipedia different from the one in my textbook? (zumdahl)

Do they use the same units?

I have tried and I didn't get anything close to it. I'm sure that there are a lot of different values for those constants in various units. So i don't know which values to plug in.

yeah the value on wikipedia has you multiply the speed of light and another Planck's constant on the denominator.

My calculator gives me either 0 or an error because the #'s are too small and it rounds after about x10^-60

[Jorriss]

What values are you using for all those inputs?

[Borek]

My calculator gives me either 0 or an error because the #'s are too small and it rounds after about x10^-60

Windows calculator is capable of much higher accuracy (that's assuming you are on Windows). But there is a trick you can use - think if you can change oder of calculations so that your intermediates never get outside of the applicable range.