Question

The hydrogen atom can absorb light of wavelength 2626 nm.

A)Determine the initial value of n associated with this absorption.

B)Determine the final value of n associated with this absorption.

Answer 1

1. this page here is a great explanation and expansion of the Rydberg equation that you can use to solve this problem: http://mooni.fccj.org/~ethall/rydberg/ry...

basically, the simplification of the Rydberg equation is:
(91.1nm/?)=(1/nf-1/ni), where nf= the final quantum shell and ni=the initial quantum shell
in this case you only need to consider the left side of this equation, so 91.1nm/2626nm=0.03469. this is a perfect fit to a drop from n=6 to n=4. how did i get this? if you refer to the page that i gave you, you'll see a table of comparisons for n and 1/n^2 values. the values correspond to one another, so the value for n=1 is 1, n=2 is 0.25, etc. all you need to do is subtract the smaller 1/n^2 value from the larger until you get a value very close to the one you got by using 91.1nm/?. the quantum shells that correspond to the numbers you subtracted will the the initial and the final shells the electron is found in.