Why would an electron move to a higher energy level?

Answer 1

excitation

Answer 2

What must an electron do to move up to a higher energy level?

An electron can not move to a higher energy state on its own. However, energy from an outside source such as flame, electric discharge, or even light can make it have more energy and move to an excited state. When you see colors on fabrics, energy from photons in the sunlight have excited the electrons in the molecules of the chemical dye. The electrons jump to the excited state (unstable) and fall back to the ground state (stable) and emit light of a specific color.

You might ask why there are different colors.

Electrons of atoms of different elements have different energy levels because they have different numbers of protons attracting them towards the nucleus. The energy levels can be thought of as stable places where the electrons can exist under the influence of the protons in the nucleus. The difference in energy between a stable energy state and the excited state is the energy of a specific color of light. When you shine a flash light on a shirt, the electrons of the atoms of the dye in the material jump to an excited energy state. Since this excited energy state is not stable, the electron release energy and return to the ground state (stable) emitting light of the specific color your see.

You might ask, since white light is all the colors, what happened to the rest of the energy. It was absorbed by the material as Kinetic energy (heat) A black cloth gets hot in the sun and a white one doesn't. A black cloth absorbs all the energy form the light!!

Think about this: in a completely dark room you can see nothing; no photons of light hitting the electrons in the dye.

Think about this: you really can not see a black object; you see an absence of light reflecting to your eyes. Your brain has learned to call an absence of light received by the eyes black; A Black Hole

Mind boggling is it not!!!

In the website listed below, an example is given of an element that received so much energy that it left the atom ( forming a +1 ion) and attached to another atom (forming a -1 ion). In this case the energy came from the net energy of the ionization required and the electron affinity energy released as the electron moved from the atom with low electronegativity to the atom with higher electronegativity.

Type in this website below or Google search for ground and excited state and find this website. It was the second site listed.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/teachers/lessons/xray_spectra/background-atoms.htmlHere is a copy of an old test I used to give. It does a good job of explaining excited states.

At normal conditions electrons are in their ___1__state. When placed in a flame or electric discharge an electron receives the specific amount of energy needed to

jump to a higher state called the __2___ state. As the electron returns to its __3___ state, __4__ is emitted. This released energy is in the form of electromagnetic radiation (sometimes visible in light). Each color light has a specific ___5___ . Red light has a low frequency, but violet light has a __6___frequency. The higher the frequency, the ___7__ the energy released. This obeys the equation, E = h x f (Energy=Plank's

constant x frequency). Each element has its own specific ___8__ change, which we see as a __9__ of light.

1) Ground

2) excited

3) ground

4) energy

5) frequency

6) high

7) greater

8) energy

9) color

Answer 3

One electron will absorb one quantum of energy. When this happens, it will move out one energy level from its ground state to the excited state. After a very short time, the one electron will move back to the ground state, and in doing so, will emit one photon of energy (light).

Answer 4

absorbs photons, causing and increase in energy