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What is the general trend in atomic radius across a row of elements?

Answer 1

Decreases when going from Left to Right.

Across a raw in the periodic table (or a period), from left to right the size of atoms decreases.

The reason is that the effective nuclear charge increases due to the increase in the atomic number and therefore, the attraction toward the nucleus will be important and therefore, the size will be smaller.

#color(gray)("Image source: Zumdahl textbook")#

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Answer 2

Ellie Andrews

Atomic radius generally decreases across a row of elements due to increasing effective nuclear charge, leading to stronger attraction and a smaller atomic size.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.