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With their positive charge, the protons within the nucleus are repelled by the long-range electromagnetic force, but the much stronger, but short-range, nuclear force binds the nucleons closely together. Neutrons are required for the stability of nuclei, with the exception of the single-proton hydrogen nucleus.
A model of an atomic nucleus showing it as a compact bundle of protons (red) and neutrons (blue), the two types of nucleons.In this diagram, protons and neutrons look like little balls stuck together, but an actual nucleus (as understood by modern nuclear physics) cannot be explained like this, but only by using quantum mechanics.
In 1898, J. J. Thomson found that the positive charge of a hydrogen ion is equal to the negative charge of an electron, and these were then the smallest known charged particles. [22] Thomson later found that the positive charge in an atom is a positive multiple of an electron's negative charge. [23]
The binding energy for stable nuclei is always a positive number, as the nucleus must gain energy for the nucleons to move apart from each other. Nucleons are attracted to each other by the strong nuclear force. In theoretical nuclear physics, the nuclear binding energy is considered a negative number.
Charged particles are labeled as either positive (+) or negative (-). The designations are arbitrary. The designations are arbitrary. Nothing is inherent to a positively charged particle that makes it "positive", and the same goes for negatively charged particles.
Neutrons are neutral particles having a mass slightly greater than that of the proton. Different isotopes of the same element contain the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons. The mass number of an isotope is the total number of nucleons (neutrons and protons collectively).
The scattering length may be either positive or negative. The scattering cross-section is equal to the square of the scattering length multiplied by 4π, [3] i.e. the area of a circle with radius twice the scattering length.
A schematic of the nucleus of an atom indicating β − radiation, the emission of a fast electron from the nucleus (the accompanying antineutrino is omitted). In the Rutherford model for the nucleus, a red sphere was a proton with positive charge, and a blue sphere was a proton tightly bound to an electron, with no net charge.