School & Chat

There is an accepted way to reduce the number of orbitals that must be written to describe an electron's location. To write a shorthand EC, chemists do the following:

• represent the inner electrons of an atom by placing the noble gas from the row above the element in brackets.
• write the spectroscopic notation for all the electrons after the noble gas.

Ex: Write SN for Ti: 1s²2s²2p⁶3s²3p⁶4s²3d²

Write SN for Ar: 1s²2s²2p⁶3s²3p⁶

Write shorthand SN for Ti: [Ar] 4s²3d²