Rydberg Equation Problem

[Lisa Ramos 1C]

There was this particular problem in discussion that I struggled to understand:

"A violet light is observed at 434 nm in the spectrum of atomic hydrogen. Determine the values at the beginning and ending energy levels of the electrons during the emission of energy that leads to this spectral light."

I know you can find this with the Rydberg Equation, but how exactly do you find the values of n1 and n2 in the equation? My TA said that a hint one can use was that because it's violet light, which is also visible light, that n1 was likely n2, but I'm not sure how one comes to that conclusion exactly.

[Sohan Talluri 1L]

I believe what the TA meant was that an energy transition in hydrogen that gives off visible light would involve the n=2 energy level. This comes from the Lyman, Balmer, and Paschen series of spectral lines. The Lyman series is in the ultraviolet region and involves energy transitions to the n=1 level, the Balmer series is in the visible region and involves energy transitions to the n=2 level, and the Paschen series is in the infrared region and involves energy transitions to the n=3 level. The energy of the emitted light decreases as the series progress because higher energy levels are closer together in energy.

Once it is known that n₂ (the final energy level) equals 2, finding the higher energy level that the electron began in can be done through the Rydberg equation, as mentioned. Hopefully this helps, and please correct me if there are any mistakes.