How do you know if a light is continuous or discrete?
Typically one can observe two distinctive classes of spectra: continous and discrete. For a continuous spectrum, the light is composed of a wide, continuous range of colors (energies). With discrete spectra, one sees only bright or dark lines at very distinct and sharply-defined colors (energies).
Do any two elements produce the same line spectrum?
Each element produces a unique set of spectral lines. Since no two elements emit the same spectral lines, elements can be identified by their line spectrum.
Why does each element have its own unique atomic line spectrum?
By absorbing energy, the electron can move to energy levels farther from the nucleus (and even escape if enough energy is absorbed). This means that each type of atom shows its own unique set of spectral lines, produced by electrons moving between its unique set of orbits.
Why do elements have more than one spectral line why aren’t there infinitely many lines?
Its because, elements have electrons in orbitals. In addition there will be infinite number of empty orbitals. So when transitions occur in the atoms of an element, they absorb/release energy in the form of spectral lines.
Why does each element have a different number of emission lines?
As each element has different energy states available to it, each element releases photons of different color when its atoms return to their lower energy states. Since each atom has many excited states (high energy levels) available to it, several colors of light can be emitted by each element.
What do you call a light spectrum that is not continuous?
Instead of getting a continuous spectrum, you get a discontinuous spectrum composed of a series of colored lines. The particular series of colored lines that you get out of any specific element is called the element’s atomic spectrum or emission spectrum.
Why does hydrogen only have 4 spectral lines?
Though a hydrogen atom has only one electron, it contains a large number of shells, so when this single electron jumps from one shell to another, a photon is emitted, and the energy difference of the shells causes different wavelengths to be released… hence, mono-electronic hydrogen has many spectral lines.
What is the reason for simultaneous appearance of a large number of lines in the hydrogen spectrum?
A hydrogen atom contains only one electron, but this electron can be raised to higher energy states. The large number of spectral lines in hydrogen atom spectrum are due to the fact that a large number of transitions of the electron can take place between the different energy states.
Does it make sense to say that a table is about 99.9 percent empty space?
Yes. A textbook like all material things is made up of atoms, which are considered to be 99.9 percent empty space.
Why can’t we look at atoms?
Atoms are small. In fact, even the most powerful light-focusing microscopes can’t visualise single atoms. What makes an object visible is the way it deflects visible light waves. Atoms are so much smaller than the wavelength of visible light that the two don’t really interact.