Atomic Structure

OK. Long story short: Theres this thing called an atom, inside are electrons and a nucleus. Inside the nucleus we have protons and neutrons.

k thanks for reading, bye.







































KIDDING!
OK SO.  Heres the general idea of what an atom looks like as we know today:
Atom ---> Electrons in orbitals in shells + 1 nucleus ----> protons and neutrons ----> quarks (we'll save that for another time)

ANYWHO.... lets start with our 3 main subatomic particles.
The Proton: Charge: +1, Mass: 1 amu or 1.672 * 10^-27 kg,
The Neutron: Charge: 0, Mass: 1 amu or 1.674 * 10^-27 kg
both of these particles are located within the nucleus. Though the neutron has a slighty larger mass, we still count it as 1 amu
The Electron: Charge: -1, Mass: 0 amu or 9.11 * 10^-31 kg
these particles are located in orbiting shells around the nucleus. The mass is deemed so small that we use a 0 amu.

NOW.. we move on to the different properties of atoms.
Atoms are either neutral of charged.
A neutral atom is said to have equal amounts of protons and electrons therefore balancing out the charge.
A charged atom is called an ion. It will have lower or higher amounts of electrons than protons
If there are more electrons, the atom is negatively charged and deemed an anion
If there are less electrons, it will be positively charged and deemed a cation

Mass Number:
This is the total mass of an atom in amu.
Calculated by # of protons + # of neutrons

Atomic Mass:
the average atomic mass of the different isotopes of an element
isotopes: elements have different masses depending on the number of neutrons they have
for example: uranium-235 and uranium 236. By adding 1 neutron to uranium-235, you'll get uranium-236. This turns a stable atom into an unstable atom that has the potential to create nuclear explosions.

The mass number and atomic mass are similar but not the same. When working with molar calculations, we usually refer to the atomic mass. BUT HOW TO FIND AVERAGE MOLAR MASS???? HMM???

ex. Hypothetical element X exists as 67.24% X-23 (23.251) and 32.76% X-24 (24.446). What is the average molar mass of hypothetical elemt X?

We simply average it out like so:

(0.6724)(23.251) + (0.3276)(24.446) = 23.64