Practice Problem 1A. 15

[isaiah_granados_2l]

Hi,

I have a question regarding absorption and emission. In this problem we know the wavelength is 102.6 nm and we want to find the final and initial energy levels. When I got my final answer, that the intial energy state was 3, I thought it was transitioning from the 3 to 1 energy level. However, the textbook say that "The transition is from 1 to 3". But this doesn't make sense because if we are getting emission, that means the electron is going from a higher to lower energy state and emitting energy. Does this make sense?

Also, if we get a negative or positive energy values at different levels will that affect our final answer?

[Arisa_Matsuzaki_3K]

You're correct! The electron transitions from n=3 to n=1. I believe it's an error in the text book.