Isotopes and Neutrons

Flashcards about isotopes and neutrons

What is the atomic number?

The number of protons found in the nucleus of an atom, which uniquely identifies the element. It determines the element's position in the periodic table.

What are isotopes?

Variants of an element that have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons, leading to different mass numbers. For example, Carbon-12 and Carbon-14 are isotopes of carbon.

What is the mass number?

The total number of protons and neutrons in an atom's nucleus. It is used to specify isotopes of an element. (Mass Number = Number of Protons + Number of Neutrons)

What is isotope notation?

A way to represent isotopes using the element's symbol, with the mass number (A) indicated as a superscript before the symbol: ^{A}X. For example, carbon-14 is written as ^{14}C. An alternative notation is X-A, where X is the chemical symbol and A is the mass number.

What information do the chemical symbol and atomic number share?

Both the chemical symbol and the atomic number provide the same fundamental information: they both identify the element. The atomic number is unique to each element and remains constant for all isotopes of that element, thus defining its chemical identity.

How does the mass number change for different isotopes of the same element?

The mass number changes for different isotopes of the same element because isotopes vary in the number of neutrons they contain. Since the mass number is the sum of protons and neutrons, a change in neutron number directly affects the mass number.

What defines an element?

Elements are fundamentally defined by their number of protons, also known as the atomic number. This number determines the element's chemical properties and its place on the periodic table. Changing the number of protons changes the element itself.

What is the equation for calculating mass number?

The equation to calculate the mass number is: