Why shells of the atoms were named as K,L,M,N not A,B,C,D ???
Answers
. K, L, M,N etc. are used for shells instead of A, B, C,D because lower letters are frequently used for constants and the higher letters for unknowns in Mathematics.
The nomenclature K. L, M would sound unique and help avoid confusion.
Answer:
The names of the electron shells come from a fellow named Charles G. Barkla, a spectroscopist who studied the X-rays that are emitted by atoms when they are hit with high energy electrons. He noticed that atoms appeared to emit two types of X-rays. The two types of X-rays differed in energy and Barkla originally called the higher energy X-ray type A and the lower energy X-ray type B. He later renamed these two types K and L since he realized that the highest energy X-rays produced in his experiments might not be the highest energy X-ray possible. He wanted to make certain that there was room to add more discoveries without ending up with an alphabetical list of X-rays whose energies were mixed up.