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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. The protons and neutrons in the nucleus are attracted to each other by the nuclear force. This force is usually stronger ...
For example, a neutral chlorine atom has 17 protons and 17 electrons, whereas a Cl − anion has 17 protons and 18 electrons for a total charge of −1. All atoms of a given element are not necessarily identical, however. The number of neutrons may vary to form different isotopes, and energy levels may differ, resulting in different nuclear ...
Neutrons are made up of one up and two down quarks, while protons are made of two up and one down quark. Since the other common elementary particles (such as electrons, neutrinos, or weak bosons) are so light or so rare when compared to atomic nuclei, we can neglect their mass contribution to the observable universe's total mass.
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).
Protons and neutrons are best known in their role as nucleons, i.e., as the components of atomic nuclei, but they also exist as free particles. Free neutrons are unstable, with a half-life of around 13 minutes, but they have important applications (see neutron radiation and neutron scattering ).
An example is calcium-40, with 20 neutrons and 20 protons, which is the heaviest stable isotope made of the same number of protons and neutrons. Both calcium-48 and nickel-48 are doubly magic because calcium-48 has 20 protons and 28 neutrons while nickel-48 has 28 protons and 20 neutrons. Calcium-48 is very neutron-rich for such a relatively ...
The darker more stable isotope region departs from the line of protons (Z) = neutrons (N), as the element number Z becomes larger. This is a list of chemical elements by the stability of their isotopes. Of the first 82 elements in the periodic table, 80 have isotopes considered to be stable. [1] Overall, there are 251 known stable isotopes in ...
All commonly observable matter is composed of up quarks, down quarks and electrons. Owing to a phenomenon known as color confinement, quarks are never found in isolation; they can be found only within hadrons, which include baryons (such as protons and neutrons) and mesons, or in quark–gluon plasmas.