• Question: What is a atom?

    Asked by Atom boy 10.0 to Claire, Liad, Ruth, Ryan, Mako on 21 Jun 2015. This question was also asked by Legendary Marcin.
    • Photo: Ryan Cheale

      Ryan Cheale answered on 21 Jun 2015:

      An atom is built of small particles – protons, neutrons and electrons

      The core is full of neutrons and protons then the electrons orbit in what are known as shells

    • Photo: Tat Ming Mako Ng

      Tat Ming Mako Ng answered on 24 Jun 2015:

      To expend Ryan’s answer a little bit:

      The number of protons in the atom decide what elements it is, for example:

      If something has 6 protons, it is carbon
      If something has 7 protons, it is nitrogen

      It is also the atomic number, and it is listed in the period table of elements.

      The number of neutrons depends on the atmoic weigh. Carbon can have between 2 and 16 neutrons. The most commonly seen carbon is carbon-12, which has 6 protons and 6 neutrons. A same element with different number of neutrons are called isotopes.

      The number of electron is the same as the number of protons in an element.

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