Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice…

Abstract

And what are little atoms made of? First, let’s see why it is important that we know. Our motive for looking into the structure of many-electron atoms is twofold. The first is concerned with the light emitted by the atoms. If we pass the light from a hot gas or vapor of any element through a narrow slit and disperse the light (e.g., by means of a prism as in Fig. 14.1), we find that the spectrum is discrete—not continuous. Only certain colors appear. For each element, the spectrum is unique— different from all other elements. This feature provides a means of identifying the dement by the spectrum of light it emits. We want to answer two questions. Why are the spectra discrete and why, for each dement, is the spectrum unique?