Easy Method to Write Electron Configurations Using Orbital Diagrams

hello everyone and welcome back my name is mr covald and in this video i'm going to show you an easy method for writing

the electron configurations in the order in the orbital diagram so let's get into this so

um so in a previous video we talked about how the energy levels are related to the

uh the uh sub levels and how the sub levels relate to the number of orbitals and things like that but in this video

we're going to focus on just the relationship between the uh the energy levels and the sublevels so we remember

that if we have n the n number that's your energy level so n is energy and so

if we write down the numbers of the energy they can go they start at one and they go on to whatever so i i have all

the way down to nine and so we saw before that the number of the energy level you're at matches or

corresponds to the number of sub-levels that you have so let's go ahead and write this down what

i'm going to do is i'm going to write down the sublevels this way and i'm going to add the number of the energy

level to each sub-level so at energy level number one you have only one sub-level and that's the s

so we're going to call that the one s okay

then at the second sub-level you have two i'm sorry at the second energy level you have two sub-levels that those are

the s and the p this is where the p comes in so we have an s and a p but since we're at the second energy level

we're going to put a 2 in front of there to to recognize or identify that particular sublevel as an energy 2

sublevel so here we're going to have a 2 so i'm going to put the the s's in

in a column and i'm going to put the p next to it so we're going to have 2 p

so there's our two sublevels for the second energy level and for the third energy level we have three sublevels so

that's going to be sp and this is where we add the d and we could so we're going to add the

uh sp and d but since we're at the third energy level that's going to be 3s so we're going to put that energy level in

front of the number our letters so 3s 3p and then we have 3

d added on and so then we keep going and we for every number we add a new sub level so

we're at energy level number four so we're going to add four so that's going to be spd and now we're

going to add f so the f sub level so that's going to be 4s 4p

4d [Music] and 4

f now the f sub level is where we normally

stop because uh that's the only level that we have that is uh that are that our atoms or elements that we know of

occupy um but theoretically we could go beyond that so i'll write uh more theoretical ones as we go on so

for example if we're at level number five that means we have five sub-levels but we only know up to four so we can

continue the alphabet and just identify that last one as a hypothetical so here would be 5 s

5 p so all of the energy level or sublevels here would have a five because they're

in the fifth energy level so this would be five d five f and if we're continuing the

alphabet next would be g so this would be 5 g and i'll put

parentheses around that to identify that that's a hypothetical we don't know of that existing but there's no reason why

we couldn't identify that or discover that in the future and then we just keep going on so

for six we would have six sublevels so six s six p

six d six f and then here we have six g

and then after g is h so we could have six h

after that and we can continue with the seven so we have seven

so that's gonna be seven s seven p seventy

seven f and then of course we would have seven g followed by oops i want to make sure

this isn't the row seven h

and then after h is i so we're going to put

7 i and let's just do one more but we could

keep going and going so here we have eight s

8 p 8 d 8 f

8 g a h [Music]

a i and of course after i is j so eight

j okay so and we could keep going and going and

going on for infinity but we're going to stop here and so

here is the the pattern of the sub levels and the uh levels so now now that we have this

we can uh we can do our easy method of figuring out the order of where the electrons are going so um do

you do i expect you or does any teacher expect you to memorize the order of the sub levels maybe there's some out there

that expect you but here is a nice way that a method if you set this up

you can basically know the order of the orbitals uh in which the electrons are filling up the orbitals of the electron

configuration of your atom so how how can we remember where the electrons go first where do

they go next and so on and so forth so now that we have this what i'm going to do is i'm going to

draw diagonal arrows so we're going to draw diagonal arrows this way so i'm going to go through

the 1s and i'm going to draw parallel arrows so this one is going to go and no i'm going

to draw arrows through each of these so i'm going to draw an arrow diagonal through this one and then between them

and then this one and then between them and then this one and between them so i'm going to go in this order so this

arrow goes through the 1s the next 0 is going to go through between the 1s and the 1 and the 2p so i'm gonna go between

them so they're they're parallel now this one's gonna go through the 2p but it's

also going to go through the 3s because the 3s that's not a very straight line now i'm

going to go between them so i'm going to go between the 2p 3d so i'm going to go between

them draw a parallel arrow and now i'm going to go through the 3d

so i'm going to go through the 3d and the 3d goes to 4p5s and then i'm going to draw an arrow

between 3d and 4f so that's going to go through these

and then i'm gonna go through the four f and so the the parallel arrow goes to four f five d six p

and so on and i could just continue doing this so between the four f and the 5 g i'm going to draw a parallel arrow

so it's going to go through 5 f 6 d 7

p and then 8 s and i could keep going right i could keep going through the 5g and so on

and so now that you have this the arrows tell you where to go so you start here

right this is you start here and then you end wherever you want to go so you fill in your

electrons according to the number of electrons that that sublevel can fill up right so my first two electrons go into

the 1s so i'm going to start here move through here my arrow takes me through the 1s so the 1s is the first

sub level that i am filling in now that i'm at the end of that arrow i go back to the top of this arrow so

if i draw kind of this way so if i go i'm going to go back to

that arrow here i'm going to go down this way so then next is the 2s so let me write that up so first is the 1s and

i go through and then the 2s right 2s is next and i go through here and then

i go back to the end of this hero and i follow this

diagonally this way and the first one is the 2p so i'm going to fill in the 2p with 6 electrons so that would be 2p

6. so i should put 2 in there 2 in there and 6 in there right so i'm going to go through the 2p

and then followed by the 3s i two electrons go into the 3s sublevel so i'm going to put 3s and then that's 2

and then i'm done with the 3s i'm at my arrow here so now i got to go back to the end of this hero

and then i go down so next would be 3p and the p sublevel has six electrons why

because that sub level has three p orbitals each orbital holds two electrons maximum two electrons three

orbitals at six total so then that's going to be three p

six and then next would be 4s so again the 4s sublevel s sublevels

held a maximum of 2 electrons and then so on so as i'm going through the arrows i'm

writing down the electron configuration and i'm filling in the electrons that i have and i stop when i have no more

electrons so this is a really easy tool to use to help you remember the order and how to fill in the order of these

sublevels and write down your electron configuration as you are going through so i hope this is helpful i hope you

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