Alkali metals are paramagnetic but their salts are dimagnetic. Explain.

Explanation

To explain why alkali metals are paramagnetic while their salts are diamagnetic, we can break down the explanation into step-by-step reasoning:

### Step 1: Understanding Paramagnetism
- **Definition**: Paramagnetic substances are those that have unpaired electrons in their atomic or molecular orbitals. These unpaired electrons contribute to the magnetic properties of the substance.
- **Example**: Alkali metals, such as sodium (Na), have one electron in their outermost shell, represented as ns¹. This means they have one unpaired electron.

### Step 2: Electron Configuration of Alkali Metals
- **Electron Configuration**: For sodium (Na), the electron configuration is 1s² 2s² 2p⁶ 3s¹. The 3s¹ indicates that there is one unpaired electron in the outermost s orbital.
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