While you are doing your homework, a friend looks over your shoulder and sees electron configurations on your paper. "Whats That
?" your friend says. Write down how you would respond to your friend. In your response, explain why the order of electron orbitals in an electron configuration the way it is.
The energy of atomic orbitals increases as the principal quantum number, n, increases. In any atom with two or more electrons, the repulsion between the electrons makes energies of subshells with different values of l differ so that the energy of the orbitals increases within a shell in the order s < p < d < f.
