Here's the problem:

"Give the ground state electron configuration of maganese and draw its orbital notation."

 

The issue is i don't have a clue on how to due this problem, it was kinda just thrown at me. In the book it shows the answer but i don't know how they got to that conclusion. If someone could give me the steps to solving this type of problem that would be great.

read about the "aufbau principle" or "building up principle". Wikipedia is an excellent place to start. It seems tough but after a while you realise you can use the periodic table to "read" the electronic configuration of any element. i can help you more when i'm at work. let me know if you need any more help, and i'll get to it.

 

Here's a simple example:

 

the electronic configuration of carbon. Carbon is on the second period and not in the d- or f-block (which don't have the same value of n as their period numbers), so its outer electrons are in the n=2 shell. It's in the p-block, which means the outermost electrons are in the 2p subshell. Then you simply write out full subshells until you get to the 2p:

 

[math]1s^{2}[/math][math]2s^{2}[/math]...

 

then you count how many spaces along carbon is within the 2p part of the periodic table. it's two, so we put two electrons into the 2p subshell. If you're asked to do an orbital diagram, make sure you follow hund's rule and the Pauli exclusion principle (google them if you need to):

 

the complete electronic configuration for carbon is:

 

[math]1s^{2}[/math][math]2s^{2}[/math][math]2p^{2}[/math]

my notebook is lost!, i have to rewrite it all before i can get back to that problem