Question #99793
1 Answer
Jan 3, 2018
General formula:
n means energy level or shell (which is numerically equal to periods or rows of the periodic table)
Explanation:
Some examples of atoms with 4 valence electrons include carbon, silicon and germanium.
So, let's write the electron configurations of each of these atoms
(in the order of energy levels);
C:
Si:
Ge:
As you can see, the last two subshells (or "terms") in each atom have that general formula.
Hope this helps!