Re: Peroidic Table (was exclusion principle which was electrons)

["J. Green" <green320@RCN.COM>]

> This leaves us with the questions, why are there shells
> at all, and why should we care?

Progress indeed

> The observed ground-state electron configuration of the
> first five elements are
>    1s1, 1s2, 1s2 2s1, 1s2 2s2, 1s2 2s2 2p1.
>
> In the absence of exclusion, the configurations would be:
>    1s1, 1s2, 1s3, 1s4, 1s5.

But then I would say that that's not what's observed.  We see that the
electrons fill in shells:
first 2, then 2, then 6, then 2, then 6, then 8....(with known filling order
exceptions acknowledged)
But the shells are something we can "see" from atomic diameters.  This would
eliminate the possibility of all the electrons filling in the first shell,
since we know that the third electron fills in another shell.  This comes
not by theory, but by observation, which is explained by shells of different
levels.

> and each atom would be as reactive as monatomic hydrogen,
> i.e. very, very reactive.  In particular helium would not
> behave even remotely like a noble gas.
>
> This is the unequivocal prediction of physics.  Plain old
> physics.  Nothing fancy.
>
> These predictions are borne out by many different lines
> of evidence.  I know of a dozen or so, and I've exhibited
> a couple and hinted at others.
>
> Anybody who wants to contradict these predictions and/or
> observations has a treeeeemendous burden of proof.

Granted.  I do not doubt things that are proved by experiment (although the
interpretation thereof can be a little dodgy sometimes).  I just  want to
torture our idea of electrons to the point where I can define what we do
know and what we think.  This seems to be getting away from my original
question though.  What do we know, and what do we think, about electrons?

Josh