because those electrons have similar average distances from the nucleus.
All the wave functions that have the same value of n because those electrons have similar average distances from the nucleus. The Schrodinger wave equation is a mathematical expression describing the energy and position of the electron in space and time, taking into account the matter wave nature of the electron inside an atom. All wave functions that have the same value of n are said to constitute a principal shell. This means that electrons with higher values of n are easier to remove from an atom. A negatively charged electron that is, on average, closer to the positively charged nucleus is attracted to the nucleus more strongly than an electron that is farther out in space. After that, we'll use Schrodinger's time-independent equation to solve for the allowed, quantized wave functions and allowed, energy eigenvalues of a 'particle in a box' this will be useful later on as a qualitative understanding of the quantized wave functions and energy eigenvalues of atoms. \]Īs\( \)n increases for a given atom, so does the average distance of an electron from the nucleus.