Freshman Chemistry Guide 6

This study guide contains 3 hours of recorded lecture topics and example problems that follow the material covered in chapter 7 of the textbook Chemistry, The Molecular Nature of Matter and Change by Silberberg. The topics covered include:


Describing the wave characteristics of light in terms of the frequency, wavelength, and speed; the meaning of amplitude and the regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Comparing particles and waves in terms of the phenomena of refraction, diffraction, and interference.
Quantization of energy and how it effects the way atoms change energy states by emitting or absorbing quanta of radiation.
How Einstein’s photon theory accounts for the photoelectric effect and the relation between a photon being absorbed and an electron being emitted.
How Bohr’s model of the hydrogen atom explained its atomic spectrum and the significance of its fixed atomic energy levels.
The concept of wave-particle duality of matter and energy, the experiments that led to it and the development of the wave mechanical description of electrons in atoms.
The meaning of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and why it limits our knowledge of electron properties.
The properties of Ψ (wave function, or atomic orbital) and of Ψ2 (probability density)
Electron density diagrams and radial probability distribution plots; how they describe the locations of electrons within the atom.
The system of quantum numbers that describe the size (n, energy), shape (l ), and orientation (ml) of an orbital.
How the quantum theory describes energy levels (shell), sublevels (sub-shell), and orbitals.
Shapes and electron density nodes of s, p, and d orbitals as per the quantum model of the H atom.