User:Roverbug27/sandbox

Have you ever wondered what your surroundings are truly made from? The answer is simple but the more you learn the more complex it gets. ATOMS! An atom is called the fundamental building block of a matter. Atoms can join together to form molecules, which form most of the objects that we are surrounded with. An atom contains protons, neutrons, and electrons. A proton is a subatomic particle that contains a positive electric charge. A neutron is a subatomic particle of the same mass as a proton, but without the electric charge. An electron is a negatively charged subatomic particle.

The picture below is great way to remember these definitions:



How an atom is built: in the center, called the nucleus, are the protons (positive) and the neutrons (neutral) and in the outside flying around the nucleus are the electrons (negatively charged.) If there weren't as many neutrons as protons or electrons the whole atom would blow up so the neutrons are the most important part. This is shown in the model below:

An element is a type of atom that makes up the periodic table. It is differentiated by the number of protons, which is the same as the atomic number. When calculating the number of neutrons the equation is the atomic mass subtracted by protons that then equals neutrons. If there is no charge, protons and electrons are equal. The number of protons plus the neutrons equivalates to the atomic mass. It is important to note that when looking at an element on the periodic table, the atomic number is the same as the amount of protons located inside the element.Every periodic table contains a key explaining where all the information is located within the box. For example, image 2 is what one might look like. These boxes commonly contain the atomic number, symbol, average atomic mass, and sometimes the name. Here try this problem, if you have the atom C, carbon, it's atomic number is 6, how many protons neutrons and electrons are there in it? Answer: 6 electrons, 6 protons, and 6 neutrons. For the neutrons I just subtracted the atomic mass of 12 by the 6 protons which gave me 6. To sum everything up, it is very important to learn about atoms because they make up our entire atmosphere. Learning how to uncover different parts that make elements unique helps us understand why everything in our world is unique.