Scotty once got mouthy with the captain over an impossible task limited by physical laws he was unable to alter ("The Naked Time" TOS 1x06). (Similar objections were raised by both Geordi and Chief O'Brien in "Deja Q" TNG 3x03 and "Chrysalis" DS9 7x05, respectively.)

While it's true that as long as we're in this universe we're stuck with its laws of physics, if you don't like them, just create a new universe. We can program simulations or build models with whatever rules we want, and often by "tweaking" a law or a universal constant to see how it affects a different universe, we can learn more about our own.

Explore two new universes: one where the electron is a fermion with no spin (but still subject to the Pauli Principle), and the other where it is a fermion with 3/2 spin (so ms = +3/2, +1/2, 1/2, & 3/2).

1) Consider Fluorine. Write out its electron configuration in our universe, the nospin universe, and the spin3/2 universe.

2)Think about the ground state energy for the entire atom (not just the n = 1) state. In which universe is the fluorine atom the most tightly bound, that is, in which universe does it take the most energy to completely ionize?

*Because interelectron forces are too complicated to predict the total ionization energy even in our own universe at our level of scientific knowledge, use your intuition to answer qualitatively.

3) Almost ionize the fluorine completely, but leave a single electron in the 5p excited state. Indicate all possible decay transitions (for the real universe), and find the wavelength of an emitted photon for each transition.

4) How would the transitions above differ in the other two universes?