John C. Slater proposed empirical atomic screening rules used to estimate an effective nuclear charge for an electron. Slater's rules assign different screening contributions according to the shells and subshells occupied by the other electrons.
The calculation approximates a many-electron atom by a simpler effective attraction. Its usefulness comes from providing a consistent estimate, rather than claiming that all atomic electrons experience one identical constant charge.[ref]
Atomic Shielding Constants by John C. Slater. 1930, pages 58–59: screening weights and worked examples
Portrait of John C. Slater
. Alfred Eisenstaedt; Google LIFE photo archive. Public domain. Source usage terms, via Wikimedia Commons. Source.
John C. Slater was an American physicist and chemist known for his contributions to quantum chemistry and solid-state physics. He is perhaps best known for the creation of the Slater determinant, a mathematical construct used to describe the wave function of a multi-electron system in quantum mechanics, particularly valuable in the context of the antisymmetry requirement for fermions in quantum systems.
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