The most stable arrangements is achieved by a certain kind of elements, the noble gases (like Hellium, or Argon, just to name two such noble gases). Size is not a characteristic of an object; it is a characteristic of the interaction between a probing object and the object that it is being probed , and it often comes with ambiguities. It answers the first question (the atom is filled with the orbitals) and it answers the second (the lowest orbital is centered on the nucleus, and the other ones can’t get lower because of the Pauli exclusion principle). Instead of pursuing chemistry itself, a subject for a whole college course, we’ll continue on down to the subatomic particles, addressing along the way the other questions that are still unanswered.

The composition and the basic properties and ordening of the constituents are more important for understanding the atom casually. is something that turns out to be precise only with careful technical definitions, and ambiguous because there are different possible definitions that depend on what experiment you are carrying out.

Atoms are made up of even smaller subatomic particles, three types of which are important: the proton, neutron, and electron.

I was going to answer them later, but your point is that probably I need to bring them up — at least pose them, with links to answers — in this article directly. The electric charge on ions often acts as a modifier more to their physical properties than their chemical ones; and there are intriguing situations where this can be almost completely cancelled, carbon monoxide is much like nitrogen and boron nitride can exist in both graphite-like and diamond-like polymorphs. Nor do I find it convincing to blame the failure to explain these things on the mathematical limitations of the audience. Answer: it is the number of protons in the nucleus of the atom, which under simple circumstances equals the number of electrons that surround the nucleus.that concluded that perhaps touch was just being close enough to interact, and from this article I gather you suggest that the size of an object is the area of space that other particles will interact with it, bouncing off but possibly also including other interactions like scattering or fusing? Each element’s name can be replaced by a one- or two-letter symbol; you will become familiar with some of these during this course. Its shape is like that of a rural community, with expanses of uninhabited land, a few scattered farm houses, and a small village with closely packed houses at its center. When two hydrogen atoms each share their single electron with oxygen, covalent bonds are formed, resulting in a molecule of water, H 2O.

A more accurate depiction of an atom, showing it is mostly empty space (grey area) traversed by rapidly moving electrons (blue dots, drawn much larger than to scale) with the heavy nucleus (red and white dot at center, drawn larger than to scale) at center. It is often said that this wave is the probability of finding the electron in a particular place, in which case we could possibly say yes, the wave is math and the electron is ‘really’ whizzing about in one particular place at a time, but this is not entirely accurate.The tent fabric, on its own, tends to be shaped like a little ball, but when you stretch it on the poles, it begins to occupy space. Moreover, all atoms of carbon, whether found in your liver or in a lump of coal, contain six protons. In my experience its better to just tell it once and then let the reader make the analogy for himself. For scale, if an atom were the size of your bedroom, its nucleus would be the size of a speck of dust (unless you’ve got a really big bedroom.

What is the main source of the difference in chemistry between an atom from one element and an atom from another element? Under the simplest circumstances (see below), the atomic number is also how many electrons an atom has. In other words, an atom of hydrogen is a unit of hydrogen—the smallest amount of hydrogen that can exist. c) Neon, an element that does not occur in the body, has 10 electrons, filling both of its electron shells.

If the valence shell is not full, the atom is reactive; meaning it will tend to react with other atoms in ways that make the valence shell full. Not so much that a single neutron makes much difference in a chemical reaction, but there are general trends in reactions due to mass. According to the octet rule, magnesium is unstable (reactive) because its valence shell has just two electrons.