<p>Can someone exlain it to me using the principal quantum number (n), quantum number (l), magnetic quantum number (m) spin quantum number (s) in a sensible and visual way?</p>
<p>I took AP chem last year so i'm not sure if this is 100% accurate....</p>
<p>The quantum mechinal theory tells you about the electrons surrounding a nucleus and how they jump energy levels and their locations (electron configuration). A quantum itself is a bundle of energy that an electron needs to jump between energy levels. It can only go from one to another and can't be in between energy levels. </p>
<p>Principle quantum number (n) tells you the energy level, they usually are from 1 to 7. Then the azimuthal quantum number (l) describes the shape of the electron cloud which just gives you the probability that in that shape you will most likely be able to find an electron at any given moment. There are four of these shapes: sphere (s), dumbell/peanut (p), clover (d), and complex (f). These four shapes s,p,d,f correspond to 0,1,2,3 respectively and that is the azimuthal quantum number. Take note that the first energy level can only be a sphere, the second has both sphere and dumbell and so on. The magnetic quantum number (m) tells about the orientation of the shape and ranges from -l to +l including 0. A sphere has only one orientation (m) and it equals 0; dumbell has 3 m's: -1,0,1; clover has 5: -2,-1,0,1,2, and so on. Finally the spin quantum number (s) tells you the spin of the electron and the choices are either -1/2 or +1/2. Note that in each orbital (each orientation) there can only be a maximum of two electrons and they most have opposite spins (this is Pauli's exclusion principle).</p>
<p>I'll give an example: consider that the electron configuration is (3,2,-1,+1/2) btw this is in the form (n, l, m, s). This means that the electron is in the third energy level, it is a clover shape (2 signifies the d), it's orientation is -1 which is one of 5 ways to orient a clover shape (-2,-1,0,1,2) and it's spin is +1/2. The last two (m and s) don't tell you necessary anything specific, but they are important because there are certain values that can only fit. For example (2,1,-2,+1/2) is not allowed because an m of -2 is not an orientation that a dumbell shape (1) can have. Similairly (1,2,1,+1/2) also doesn't make sense because in the first energy level you can't have a clover shape (2) you can only have a sphere shape 0. </p>
<p>I dunno if this helps it all... hopefully it didn't make you any more confused.</p>