n in degeneracy

[Katherine Grillo 1B]

When calculating degeneracy, does the number of available particles mean the number of UNIQUE available particles? For example would n=2 or 1 if the molecule is 02?

[Swetha Ampabathina1I]

n would equal 1

[Janice Park 1E]

When calculating degeneracy, n should equal the number of particles (or in this case, molecules) that can exist in a certain state.
So in your question, we would to know about the entire molecule of O2 gas that is in a certain energy state, so n would equal 1.

[Ray Huang 1G]

Molecules means the whole thing. O2 is one molecule therefore n = 1. You may be thinking of atoms of O in O2 for n = 2 which is incorrect.

[LaurenJuul_1B]

n is the number of molecules, not individual atoms

[Olivia L 4E]

In the equation for degeneracy, W=(number of potential positions)^(n) in which n represents the number of molecules. This is because the base (number of positions possible) already accounts for the atoms and their positions so n dictates how many molecules there are that you need to take into consideration. For example, the molecule CH3F can have 4 different lewis structures of the same energy level because you can rearrange the h-atoms and f-atom in 4 different ways (c-atom always in center). That being said, if you had 1 CH3F molecules, W=4 but if you had 2 CH3F molecules, W=16.

[Aili Ye 4L]

n is the number of molecules, not atoms, so in this case n would be 1.

[Esther Lee 4H]

it is on the whole molecule so if you have O2 it is 1 because its only oxygen

[Jacqueline Duong 1H]

n is the number of molecules, so n would equal 1