Talk:Valence electron

Valence electron is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates, please check the archive.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
November 17, 2005	Featured article candidate	Not promoted

Chemistry C‑class High‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Chemistry, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of chemistry on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ChemistryWikipedia:WikiProject ChemistryTemplate:WikiProject ChemistryChemistry articles
C	This article has been rated as C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Physics C‑class High‑importance

	Physics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Physics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Physics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PhysicsWikipedia:WikiProject PhysicsTemplate:WikiProject Physicsphysics articles
C	This article has been rated as C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

old comments

This article seems full of misinformation, for instance "Every atom is much more stable, or less reactive, with a full valence shell," well what about Na? It will be in the form of an ion is it has a full shell, Na+, which is not stable at all. This holds for most atoms. And what about "As a general rule, the fewer electrons in an atom's valence shell, the more reactive it is." Fluorine is an extremely (probably one of the most) reactive atom. Theres other errors as well, and I picked these with my huge chemistry knowlege of the first semester of CHEM101. Someone out there must be a chemist or summit like that so please correct this page because I don't have the required knowlege or understanding of chem to do so my self. --LeakeyJee 09:03, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The stated general rule pertaining to relative reactivity.

"As a general rule, the fewer electrons in an atom's valence shell, the more reactive it is."

This is only true for metals, non metals behave differently, the more e^- a nonmetal has the more reactive it is. Fluorine (F), a 7A element is the most electronegative and the most reactive element. F can be bonded to noble gases. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.242.4.11 (talk) 12:51, 8 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]

As the comments above indicate, this article is awful! It's better not to have an article at all rather than a misleading one. I'm proposing it for deletion. I've fixed up "Electron shells" somewhat, which covers some of the same ground, and propose a redirect to that article. This one should be re-created when there is too much ***accurate*** information to fit in Electron Shells. Umptious (talk) 17:09, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have today removed (finally) the statement that "As a general rule, the fewer electrons in an atom's valence shell, the more reactive it is", as well as a similar statment in the intro. I have made clear that this is only true for metal atoms. There is more work to do, but I think we are now on the right track. Dirac66 (talk) 22:00, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions for expanding and improving the article.

I think an additional image needs to be added to this article displaying an atom with more shells. As the term valence shell refers to the outermost shell of an atom. The current picture of the Helium atom might not be sufficient to convey that principle, as Helium only has one shell, which is at the same time its valence shell. So i propose a secondary image of an atom which contains more shells and with a description under it like the one under the Helium atom image. Formankind, May 8th 2008. —Preceding comment was added at 03:21, 8 May 2008 (UTC) [reply]

Connection between valence electrons and Active Orbitals?

Quantum chemists please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-electron_valence_state_perturbation_theory and associated talk page.