Lecture 1 Flashcards
What are Atoms?
A bit of matter that cannot be subdivided any further without losing its essential properties.
Nucleus
The center of an atom, made up of Protons and Neutrons
Proton
Particles that have a positive electrical charge
Neurons
Particles that have a negative electrical charge
Mass
The amount of matter in a particle is its mass. Protons and Neutrons have the same mass
Electrons
Circling around the atom are weightless negatively charged particles called Electrons. They repel each other, but are attracted to positively charged particles in the nucleus which keeps them close enough to the nucleus that they don’t fly away, and the energy of their fast movement keeps them from collapsing into the nucleus. Electrons determine how and whether it bonds with other atoms.
Atomic Mass
The mass of an atom is its atomic mass, made up of the combined mass of all of its protons and neutrons. Electrons are so light that they can be ignored
Particles that have the same charge do what?
They repel each other
Particles that have opposite charges?
Are attracted to each other
How do electrons act in respect to repelling and attracted to charges? What benefit is there from this?
Because electrons have the same charge, they repel each other. With protons because they are positively charged, electrons are attracted to them since opposites attract.
Keeps them close enough to the nucleus that they don’t fly away, and the energy of their fast movement keeps them from collapsing into the nucleus.
The number of protons in an atoms nucleus determines what?
What element it is
Atomic Number
How many protons it has
Isotope
An atom that has extra neutrons or fewer neutrons than the number of protons is called an Isotope. An atom’s charge doesn’t change in an isotope because neutrons have no electrical charge, but the atoms mass changes with the loss or addition of another particle in the nucleus.
What is Carbon 13 and Carbon 14? (13C, 14C)
Occasionally carbon has an extra neutron or two and an atomic mass of 13 or 14, this is called Carbon 13 and Carbon 14. They are referred to as heavy carbon.
Radioactive
Atomic nuclei that break down spontaneously sometime shortly after they’re created. In the process of decaying they release at a constant rate a tiny high speed particle carrying a lot of energy, could be a proton neutron electron or just energy.
