Question about last lecture

[Ayush Ray 1I]

When Dr. Lavelle was writing the electron configuration for Carbon, he changed it from 1s^2 2s^2 2p^2 to1s^2 2s^2 2px^1 2py^1. Why did he make the change? I missed when he talked about it.

[BritneyP- 2c]

So, according to Pauli Exclusion Principle, it is better to fill up electron going in the same direction first as they would have lower energy potentials. So instead of filling up the 1px orbital completely, he added the other electron to the 1py orbital, as there is less energy.

[Joowon Seo 3A]

Both are correct, but the other one is more specific since it showed each electron in each subshell. The problem in the first one is that one could misunderstand and put 2 electrons in one subshell before filling all of the other ones first.

[AGulati_4A]

Just be careful though. He said this specificity is fine for the p orbital but he didn't recommend doing this for the d orbital as it can get complicated and we become more prone to making mistakes

[Ayush Ray 1I]

So for future tests and exams, should we use the second method only?