The maximum number of electrons that can occupy the third (n=3) shell is 18
Answer: Option E
Explanation:
Every shell can only have a certain number of electron: the first shell have up to 2 electrons, the second have up to 8 (2 + 6) electrons, up to eighteen electron for third shell like (2+6+10), etc. The formula to calculate is,
For nth shell, it can generally contain up to [tex]2 n^{2}[/tex] electrons.
We make use of the formula [tex]2 n^{2}[/tex] where “n” is the number of the shell, to find the number of electrons a shell occupies.
So, if n=3 then using the value in the formula, we have [tex]2 \times 3 \times 3=18[/tex] electrons . Hence, third shell holds up to 18 electrons.
