Okay, another question (I'm doing a science lab, that's why).

When active metals react with water, do the resulting solutions contain acids or bases? Looking at the word equation, what type of metal compound would be a base?

If anyone knows, please let me know A.S.A.P!
Thanks again!

The alkali metals (and earth) usually create bases, as they react with water to form hydroxides which are quite basic materials.

The transition metals form oxides singularly because they tend to fill up the 3d shells before filling the 4s, which enables them to have multiple valences, which is prime for oxygen. Oxides are usually neutral.

Though I may be wrong, some transitions such as silver can form acidic solutions, this may be wrong, please research,

Hmmm, the 4s fill before the 3d, because they have a lower energy.

Other than that I agree with evil dead, just think about sodium hydroxide, that is a classic base that all chemists have contact with.

Really? Mm I thought that the 3d fills instead, that's why they have multiple valences.

Can you explain this to me please?

3d is what you would expect it to fill

3s, 3p, 3d, 4s

However it turns out when you look at the energy splitting, the 4s has a lowere energy than the 3d, so it fills 3s, 3p, 4s, 3d.

This means that electrons can transition from 4s to 3d when bound in compounds, giving the multiple transition valencies you talk about.

I also believe that some metals will have just 1 in the s orbital in order to fill a spin pair in the d orbital, I certainly remember something to do with that.

It's to do with energy splitting. This is where a table would come in handy.

If you arange the levels like this:

1s
2s 2p
3s 3p 3d
4s 4p 4d 4f
5s 5p 5d 5f 5g
6s 6p 6d 6f 6g

And the rule for order of filling is to create diagonals pointing from top right to bottom left, that move from left to right. So our first diagonal goes through 1s, our second goes through 2s, our third goes through 2p and then 3s, our fourth goes through 3p then 4s, our fifth goes through 3d then 4p then 5s.

This gives you a rough guide to the order of energies in the atomic orbitals. Obviously certain things will change to create a more stable atom with full d orbitals etc. But it's useful as a rough guide.

I can go into the maths behind the splitting of the orbitals if you want.

I understand about the different energy levels and I knew that 4s usually fills before 3d, but I didn't know it was the case between transition metals.

However, you can explain the maths if you have time, no sense in turning away valuable information:)