UNIVERDSITY OF ZAMBIA

SCHOOL OF NATURAL SCIENCES

Tutorial Sheet 3

1. What is the wavelength of the yellow sodium emission, which has a frequency of
5.09 x 1014/s?
7.1
2. The frequency of the strong red line in the spectrum of potassium is 3.91 x 1014/s.
What is the wavelength of this light in nanometers?

3. What is the frequency of violet light with a wavelength of 408 nm?

4. The element Caesium was discovered in 1860 by Robert Bunsen and Gustav
Kirchhoff, who found two bright blue lines in the spectrum of a substance isolated
from a mineral water. One of the spectral lines of Caesium has a wavelength of 456
nm. What is its frequency?

5. Laser light of a specific frequency falls on a crystal that converts this light into one
with double the original frequency. How is the wavelength of this frequency doubled
light related to the wavelength of the original laser light? Suppose the original laser
light was red. In which region of the spectrum would the frequency doubled light be?
(If this is in the visible region, what colour is the light?)

6. The red spectral line of lithium occurs at 671 nm. Calculate the energy of seven
moles of photons of this light.

7. The following are representative wavelengths in the infrared, ultraviolet, and x-ray
regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, respectively: 1.0 x 10-6 m, 1.0 x 10-8 m, and
1.0 x 10-10 m. What is the energy of a photon of each radiation? Which has the
greatest amount of energy per photon? Which has the least?

8. What is the wavelength of light emitted when the electron in a hydrogen atom
undergoes a transition from energy level n = 4 to level n = 2?

9. What is the difference in energy levels of the sodium atom if emitted light has
a wavelength of 589 nm?

10. An atom has a line spectrum consisting of a red line and a blue line. Assume that
each line corresponds to a transition between two adjacent energy levels. Sketch an
energy-level diagram with three energy levels that might explain this line spectrum,
indicating the transitions on this diagram. Consider the transition from the highest
energy level on this diagram to the lowest energy level. How would you describe the
colour or region of the spectrum corresponding to this transition?
12. Calculate the wavelength (in meters) of the wave associated with a 1.00 kg mass
moving at 1.00 km/hr.

13. What is the wavelength (in picometers) associated with an electron, whose mass is
9.11 x 10-31 kg, travelling at a speed of 4.19 x 106 m/s? (This speed can be attained by
an electron accelerated between two charged plates differing by 50.0 volts; voltages in
the kilovolt range are used in electron microscopes.)

14. A proton is approximately 2000 times heavier than an electron. How would
the speeds of these particles compare if their corresponding wavelengths were
equal?

15. State whether each of the following sets of quantum numbers is permissible for an
electron in an atom. If a set is not permissible, explain why.
a. n = 1, l = 1, ml = 0, ms = +1/2
b. n = 3, l = 1, ml = -2, ms =-1/2
c. n = 2, l = 1, ml = 0, ms = +1/2
d. n = 2, l = 0, ml = 0, ms = 1

16. a. Which has the greater wavelength, blue light or red light?
b. How do the frequencies of blue light and red light compare?
c. How does the energy of blue light compare with that of red light?
d. Does blue light have a greater speed than red light?
e. How does the energy of three photons from a blue light source compare with
the energy of one photon of blue light from the same source? How does the
energy of two photons corresponding to a wavelength of 451 nm (blue light)
compare with the energy of three photons corresponding to a wavelength of 704
nm (red light)?
f. A hydrogen atom with an electron in its ground state interacts with a photon of
light with a wavelength of 1.22 x 10-6 m. Could the electron make a transition
from the ground state to a higher energy level? If it does make a transition,
indicate which one. If no transition can occur, explain.
g. If you have one mole of hydrogen atoms with their electrons in the n 1 level,
what is the minimum number of photons you would need to interact with these
atoms in order to have all of their electrons promoted to the n = 3 level? What
wavelength of light would you need to perform this experiment?

19. Consider the hypothetical atom X that has one electron like the H atom but has
different energy levels. The energies of an electron in an X atom are described by the
equation E = -RH/n3
Where RH is the same as for hydrogen (2.179 x 10-18 J). Answer the following
questions, without calculating energy values.
a. How would the ground-state energy levels of X and H compare?
b. Would the energy of an electron in the n = 2 level of H be higher or lower than that
of an electron in the n = 2 level of X? Explain your answer.
c. How do the spacings of the energy levels of X and H compare?
d. Which would involve the emission of a higher frequency of light, the transition of
an electron in an H atom from the n = 5 to the n = 3 level or a similar transition in an
X atom?
e. Which atom, X or H, would require more energy to completely remove its electron?
f. A photon corresponding to a particular frequency of blue light produces a transition
from the n = 2 to the n = 5 level of a hydrogen atom. Could this photon produce the
same transition (n = 2 to n = 5) in an atom of X? Explain.

20. At its closest approach, Mars is 56 million km from Earth. How long would a
radio message from a space probe on Mars take to reach Earth when the planets
are at this distance?

21. The meter was defined in 1963 as the length equal to 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of
the orange-red radiation emitted by the krypton-86 atom (the meter has since been
redefined). What is the wavelength of this transition? What is the frequency?

22. At what speed must an electron travel to have a wavelength of 10.0 pm?

23. The term degeneracy means the number of different quantum states of an atom or
molecule having the same energy. For example, the degeneracy of the n = 2 level of
the hydrogen atom is 4 (a 2s quantum state, and three different 2p states). What is the
degeneracy of the n = 5 level?

24. The energy required to dissociate the Cl2 molecule to Cl atoms is 239 kJ/mol
Cl2. If the dissociation of a Cl2 molecule were accomplished by the absorption of
a single photon whose energy was exactly the quantity required, what would be
its wavelength (in meters)?

25. The blue line of the strontium atom emission has a wavelength of 461 nm. What is
the frequency of this light? What is the energy of a photon of this light?

26. The energy of a photon is 4.10 x 10-19 J. What is the wavelength of the
corresponding light? What is the colour of this light?

27. Calculate the wavelength of the Balmer line of the hydrogen spectrum in which
the initial n quantum number is 5 and the final n quantum number is 2.

28. One of the lines in the Balmer series of the hydrogen atom emission spectrum is at
397 nm. It results from a transition from an upper energy level to n = 2. What is the
principal quantum number of the upper level?

29. A hydrogen-like ion has a nucleus of charge Ze and a single electron outside this
nucleus. The energy levels of these ions are Z2RH/n2 (where Z = atomic number).
Calculate the wavelength of the transition from n = 3 to n = 2 for He+, a hydrogen-
like ion. In what region of the spectrum does this emission occur?

30. An electron microscope employs a beam of electrons to obtain an image of an

Submit for grading answers to questions 9, 14, 20 and 24 on Friday 28th April
2023 by 16:00.