-
Asked by rhooper821 to Ben, Dave, Ed, Sam, Susana on 18 Jun 2013.
-
Benjamin Hall answered on 18 Jun 2013:
Great question!
Atoms are made up of three basic types of particle; protons (with a positive charge), electrons (with a negative charge) and neutrons (which are neutral).
An isotope is an atom that has exactly the same number of protons and electrons as another atom of the same element but has a different number of neutrons.
-
-
David Briggs answered on 18 Jun 2013:
Isotopes are variants of elements with different numbers of neutrons.
They can be radioactive, but dont have to be.
-
Susana Teixeira answered on 20 Jun 2013:
Isotopes are atoms that differ only by the number of neutrons in the nucleus, like hydrogen and deuterium for example. They both exist naturally, but deuterium is a lot less abundant.
I use deuterium daily for my work : it contains 1 more neutron than hydrogen and is able to replace it in many molecules because it has very similar properties.
-
Sam Horrell answered on 21 Jun 2013:
As everone above has said, atoms with an extra neutron or so.
If you think about the periodic table of elements adding another proton to hydrogen turns it into helium so the only thing we can add is a neutron.
A lot of these isotopes are radioactive and a lot of elelemts are so unstable they aren’t found in nature but can be made in a lab by some clever experiments I don’t understand.
Comments