Balmer and Lyman series

[Jaden Haskins 2E]

Does the Lyman series just mean that the electrons fall back down to n=1 and the Balmer series just mean that electrons fall to n=2? If so, is there a way you can tell which series an atom will be a part of if you are not told which level the electron will fall down to?

[Jared Limqueco 3E]

Yeah, the Balmer series just means when an excited e- goes to n=1 and Lyman series is n=2. I guess you can tell which series the electron will be a part of if you find out what delta E is

[Hailey Kang 2K]

Hi!
In the Balmer series, the excited electron will go to level 1 (n1), and in Lyman it will go to n2. One way you can figure out which series it is is by looking at the wavelength. The Balmer series will be the visible region (700nm- 400nm) and the Lyman will be the UV region (less than 400nm)

[SavannahScriven_1F]

Adding on to what Jared said, a non-mathematical way to tell if an electron goes down to n=2 or n=1 is if the question gives you information regarding the light emitted. If the light emitted had color (i.e. visible light) then it would belong to the Balmer series (& goes down to n=2). If the emitted light was detected to be in the UV region, then intuitively it would belong to the Lyman series (& goes down to n=1).

[SavannahScriven_1F]

Oops just saw that Hailey added on what I was going to say :)

[Madison Muggeo 3H]

This thread helped me with one of the problems in a UA workshop, so thank you to all who commented!

[Xavier Herrera 3H]

So, based on everyone's replies, it seems the Lyman series describes electrons that drop to n=1, and the Balmer series describes electrons that drop to n=2. Electrons from the Lyman series emit UV radiation because it takes more energy to drop all the way down to n=1. So electrons from the Balmer series emit visible light because it takes less energy to drop to n=2.

[Alexa Pham 1D]

Yes, electrons that drop to n=1 describes the Lyman series while electrons that drop to n=2 describes the Balmer series. A drop to n=1 (Lyman series) will emit UV radiation while a drop to n=2 will emit visible light, so that is another way you can distinguish the two.