Final answer:
According to Hund's rule, for the silicon atom in its ground state, orbitals fill singly before pairing, and each of these single electrons will have the same spin. It's part of a set of rules that includes the Aufbau Principle and the Pauli Exclusion Principle for determining electron configurations.
Step-by-step explanation:
According to Hund's rule, the lowest (ground) state of the silicon atom fills the orbitals singly before pairing electrons. Hund's Rule is one of three important rules used in electron configurations for atoms. The Aufbau Principle states that electrons fill the lowest-energy orbitals first, and the Pauli Exclusion Principle indicates that no two electrons can have identical quantum numbers within an atom, implying that an orbital can hold a maximum of two electrons with opposite spins.
When it comes to Hund's Rule, in a set of degenerate orbitals (orbitals with the same energy level within a subshell), electrons must singly occupy each one with parallel spins before any orbital gets a second electron. This is because having electrons in separate orbitals reduces the repulsion between them, making this arrangement more stable than if they were paired in one orbital.