Purpose: The purpose of this lab was to identify the wave length and spectra of the two elements, mercury and hydrogen. The wavelengths of the two elements represent the characteristic energies of moving electrons. The spectra of the two elements are what side of the energy spectrum their wavelengths are on.
Materials:
•
Hydrogen lamp
•
Mercury lamp
•
2 diffraction devices
•
Flashlight
•
Paper
•
Pencil
•
Calculator
Procedure:
1.
Place the hydrogen lamp in the power source and turn it on
2.
Do the same thing with the mercury lamp on a separate table
3.
Look through the diffraction device and look at several colorful lines
4.
Record the colors of the lines and what element they were for on a sheet of paper
5.
Repeat steps three and four for each element
6.
Calculate the frequency and energy for each line
Number Element Color Wavelength Frequency Energy
650 Hydrogen Red 650x10^10-9 4.6x10^14 3x10^-19
450 Hydrogen Blue 450x10^-9 6.7x10^14 4.4x10^-19
440 Hydrogen Teal 440x10^-9 6.8x10^14 4.5x10^-19
500 Hydrogen Green 500x10^-9 6x10^14 4x10^-19
600 Mercury Yellow 600x10^-9 5x10^14 3.3x10^-19
550 Mercury Light Green 550x10^-9 5.5x10^14 3.6x10^-19
500 Mercury Dark Green 500x10^-9 6x10^14 4x10^-19
445 Mercury Teal 445x10^-9 6.7x10^14 4.4x10^-19
Conclusion: The data shows that the red and green lines had the smallest frequencies and with hydrogen the teal line and the blue line had the largest frequency. The data table shows a pattern mercury there was a different pattern, where the lines counted down from largest wavelength to smallest from the top lie to the bottom line. The pattern for hydrogen, where the two colors (red and