What is a noble gas electron configuration?

1 Answer
anor277
Aug 24, 2017

Well, helium has a closed shell, #1s^(2)# electronic configuration....

Explanation:

In order to save some time when writing the configuration of the next element, #Li, Z=3#, I could write #[He]2s^(1)#; all the reactivity is going to occur in the valence shell.

And likewise for say sulfur, #Z=16#, which builds on a neon core, we could write, #[Ne]3s^(2)3p^4#, instead of the long #1s^(2)2s^(2)2p^(6)3s^(2)3s^4#.

The square brackets represents the closed shell, inner core, inert gas electronic configuration.

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