Series Question

[jessicasam]

Can someone explain to me exactly what a series is. I know that they are called Lyman, Balmer, etc but I don't understand how they are categorized into different series. Thanks!

[Isabella Barkett 1G]

We looked at the Hydrogen spectral series which accounts for the transition of electrons between different energy levels in an atom. The hydrogen spectrum consists of a series of lines of different colours (violet, blue, green and red) in the visible region of the spectrum. The Lyman series corresponds to transitions between higher shells and the lowest shell (ground state n=1), whilst the Balmer Series corresponds to transitions between higher shells down to the n=2 energy level.

[KristinaNguyen_1A]

In discussion it was mentioned that Lyman series is used whenever it asks for UV light (it starts off with n=1), while Balmer series is for visible light (it starts with n=2).

[Komal Prakash 1H]

Basically what characterizes one series from the other is which energy level the electrons fall to. In the Lyman series, which is the UV spectrum, electrons fall from other, higher energy levels to n=1, while in the Balmer series, visible light, electrons fall to n=2 and no lower (and so on).