Aufbau Principle | Chemistry | Britannica

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• Chemistry LibreTexts - Aufbau Principle

Aufbau principle chemistry Ask Anything Homework Help Also known as: Aufbauprinzip, building-up principle Written and fact-checked by Britannica Editors Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree.... Britannica Editors History Britannica AI Ask Anything Table of Contents Table of Contents Ask Anything

Aufbau principle, (from German Aufbauprinzip, “building-up principle”), rationalization of the distribution of electrons among energy levels in the ground (most stable) states of atoms. The principle, formulated by the Danish physicist Niels Bohr about 1920, is an application of the laws of quantum mechanics to the properties of electrons subject to the electric field created by the positive charge on the nucleus of an atom and the negative charge on other electrons that are bound to the nucleus. The building-up denoted by the name of the principle is a hypothetical process in which the electrons are regarded as entering, one by one, this electric field and assuming their most stable conditions with respect to it. See also electronic configuration.