2.25 [ENDORSED]

[danielruiz1G]

In 2.25 I get the correlation of maximum electrons and orbitals for the most part, except for in part c wherein the 1s block the answer is 2 e, when i thought hydrogen could only have 1 electron. how can this be?

[annie_finneran_1K]

helium is also in the 1s orbital and has 2 electrons, so therefore the 1s orbital can have 2 electrons despite hydrogen having only one.

[Jazmin 1H]

You're right, hydrogen can only have one electron, but in the s-orbital, you can have a two electrons. If you do electron configurations using the periodic table, you can see that the s-orbital, which is the first two columns, allows for a total of two electrons. I attached a picture to help visualize it. Hopefully that helps.

[Madeleine Farrington 1B]

I was initially confused about this as well, but I think the key word in this question is "can," meaning what is the maximum possible electrons that can occupy the following orbitals. So, while it is possible to have 1 electron in an s-orbital, the most the s-orbital could hold would be 2 electrons.