Remarks on the history of the exclusion principle

The arrangement of electrons in the orbitals of an atom is called its electron configuration. We describe an electron configuration with a symbol that contains three pieces of information:

Werner Heisenberg considered the limits of how accurately one can measure properties of an electron or other microscopic particles. He determined that there is a fundamental limit to how accurately one can measure both a particle’s position and its momentum simultaneously. The more accurate the measurement of the momentum of a particle is known, the less accurate the position at that time is known and vice versa. This is what is now called the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. He mathematically...