Star Trek

on wikipedia, they show the elctron dot configuration of Carbon as THIS

i dont have my books so i cant chek my notes, but i think that the eacher told us first you fill up the "s" subleverl, so it would look like THIS for Carbon. in which 2 of the dots (electrons) are together becase they are both in the same orbital S Sublevel. and then the otehes are in differnt sides of the C becase they are in differnt orbitals on the P sublevel.


however wikipedias one for helium shows what i thought it was BUT THATS THE ONLY ONE THAT FOLLOWS IT




and im pretty sure he said what i think, but a friend who had chem last year, who MAY HAVE had a DIFFERNT TEACHER says wikipedia is right






so confused


Adding this, might help explian what i mean

I know it has carbon 4 valence electrons. A total of 6, 2 of those are in the 1st Princable Engery Level. the other 2 in the 2nd PEL, in the s and p sublevel.

put it like this... a "I" indicates an electron and a "

and thats wht i show in MY diagram

When in the ground state, (having normal, low amount of energy), they fill up the s sublevel complety before going on to the p sublevel, and at the p sublevel, an electorn goes to the next free orbital rather then occupy the other.

The Digram i saw on Wikipedia would show this

1s II
2s I_ 2p I_ I_ I_

so each side is occupied, but unless the atom is in the exited state, having extra energy and electrons in a didffent order.... i think that is worng.

See what im getting at?