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If an atom has more electrons than protons, then it has an overall negative charge, and is called a negative ion (or anion). Conversely, if it has more protons than electrons, it has a positive charge, and is called a positive ion (or cation). The electrons of an atom are attracted to the protons in an atomic nucleus by the electromagnetic force.
Atoms are the smallest neutral particles into which matter can be divided by chemical reactions. An atom consists of a small, heavy nucleus surrounded by a relatively large, light cloud of electrons. An atomic nucleus consists of 1 or more protons and 0 or more neutrons. Protons and neutrons are, in turn, made of quarks.
The negatively charged electron has a mass of about 1 / 1836 of that of a hydrogen atom. The remainder of the hydrogen atom's mass comes from the positively charged proton. The atomic number of an element is the number of protons in its nucleus. Neutrons are neutral particles having a mass slightly greater than that of the proton.
Diagram of a helium atom, showing the electron probability density as shades of gray. The atomic radius of a chemical element is a measure of the size of its atom, usually the mean or typical distance from the center of the nucleus to the outermost isolated electron. Since the boundary is not a well-defined physical entity, there are various ...
25 pm – approximate radius of a helium atom, the smallest neutral atom [65] [66] 30.8568 pm – 1 rontoparsec; 50 pm – radius of a hydrogen atom; 50 pm – bohr radius: approximate radius of a hydrogen atom ~50 pm – best resolution of a high-resolution transmission electron microscope; 60 pm – radius of a carbon atom
Just as atomic units are given in terms of the atomic mass unit (approximately the proton mass), the physically appropriate unit of length here is the Bohr radius, which is the radius of a hydrogen atom. The Bohr radius is consequently known as the "atomic unit of length". It is often denoted by a 0 and is approximately 53 pm. Hence, the values ...
The word atom, after the Greek word atomos meaning "indivisible", has since then denoted the smallest particle of a chemical element, but physicists later discovered that atoms are not, in fact, the fundamental particles of nature, but are conglomerates of even smaller particles, such as the electron.
The atomic nucleus is composed of protons and neutrons (collectively called nucleons). In the Standard model of particle physics, nucleons are in the group called hadrons, the smallest known particles in the universe to have measurable size and shape. [1]