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The atomic number or nuclear charge number (symbol Z) of a chemical element is the charge number of its atomic nucleus. For ordinary nuclei composed of protons and neutrons , this is equal to the proton number ( n p ) or the number of protons found in the nucleus of every atom of that element.
The number of protons in the nucleus is the defining property of an element, and is referred to as the atomic number (represented by the symbol Z). Since each element is identified by the number of protons in its nucleus, each element has its own atomic number, which determines the number of atomic electrons and consequently the chemical ...
Each distinct atomic number therefore corresponds to a class of atom: these classes are called the chemical elements. [5] The chemical elements are what the periodic table classifies and organizes. Hydrogen is the element with atomic number 1; helium, atomic number 2; lithium, atomic number 3; and so on.
The mass number (symbol A, from the German word: Atomgewicht, "atomic weight"), [1] also called atomic mass number or nucleon number, is the total number of protons and neutrons (together known as nucleons) in an atomic nucleus. It is approximately equal to the atomic (also known as isotopic) mass of the atom expressed in atomic mass units.
A number of models for the nucleus have also been proposed in which nucleons occupy orbitals, much like the atomic orbitals in atomic physics theory. These wave models imagine nucleons to be either sizeless point particles in potential wells, or else probability waves as in the "optical model", frictionlessly orbiting at high speed in potential ...
A chemical element, often simply called an element, is a type of atom which has a specific number of protons in its atomic nucleus (i.e., a specific atomic number, or Z). [ 1 ] The definitive visualisation of all 118 elements is the periodic table of the elements , whose history along the principles of the periodic law was one of the founding ...
A chemical element is a chemical substance whose atoms all have the same number of protons.The number of protons is called the atomic number of that element. For example, oxygen has an atomic number of 8, meaning each oxygen atom has 8 protons in its nucleus.
An atomic nucleus is formed by a number of protons, Z (the atomic number), and a number of neutrons, N (the neutron number), bound together by the nuclear force. Protons and neutrons each have a mass of approximately one dalton. The atomic number determines the chemical properties of the atom, and the neutron number determines the isotope or ...