ABSTRACT
The term ionization potential (IP) refers to the energy required to remove one electron (a first-order IP), or several electrons (a higher-order IP), from an atom of a particular chemical element. A great deal of data about IPs exists. Within these data, clear patterns exist, and they are made even clearer when the appropriate scaling is applied. The raw experimental data about IPs is readily available – a copious amount of it has long been published in standard handbooks on chemistry and/or Physics. The data set looks very idiosyncratic. That circumstance has inhibited many searches for meaning in it. The ‘increase’ behavior says that removing more electrons always takes more energy. The muting behavior suggests that a distinction exists between ionization events occurring ‘all-at-once’ vs. events occurring ‘one-at-a-time.’ For ordinary lab bench chemistry, ‘one-at-a-time’ is the main subject of interest; ‘all-at-once’ represents the kind of outdoor field event that occurs in the testing of high explosives.
